What do employers want most from their employee benefit brokers?

Getting better price transparency from their health care plan providers, as well as helping workers not only pick the right plan, but also help curb their health care spending habits, according to DirectPath's latest annual broker survey, "The 2020 Broker: Drive Savings Through Better Employee Benefits Understanding."

DirectPath surveyed more than 140 health insurance brokers and found that 83 percent say clients rely heavily on them to help contain health care costs, compared to 66 percent who said that in last year's survey. As part of this, 84 percent of brokers are seeing moderate to high demand for transparency services, up from 74 percent last year.

Brokers agree: 83 percent saying they see business value in offering transparency services, and 62 percent are now adding product and service offerings to meet that increased demand.

"However, offering transparency services alone isn't enough," the authors write. "Employers are looking to install good health care spending habits in employees, as well as help them in choosing the right benefits, without using complicated language that will make the average employee's head spin in confusion."

Virtually all brokers are seeing an increased demand for personalized benefits education, as well as personalized enrollment and benefits communications services, more so than last year. Moreover, 45 percent say their clients rely heavily on their brokers to engage employees on benefit choices, 59 percent say employers highly rely on them for help with developing communications materials and 74 percent say employers rely heavily on them for compliance and reporting guidance.

"With benefits literacy at a low, it's not surprising that benefits communications are a significant concern to employers," the authors write. "Benefits information needs to be conveyed using as much plain, easy to understand—which can be difficult when you consider all the technical jargon surrounding health insurance and other employee benefits language. And if benefits communications are confusing, it's going to make it harder to engage employees on their benefits choices, since they won't fully understand their coverage."

The survey also found that brokers are increasing value to stay competitive through superior customer service and relationships (74 percent), recruiting and retaining the best employees (63 percent) and adding new, innovative services to meet market demand (58 percent).

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Employers want brokers to provide more transparency services

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