Brokers have a great opportunity to help HR managers cuts costs by adopting new technologies for electronic enrollment and employee benefit administration. Technology will become even more necessary to manage the complexities of the increasingly popular health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans. Technology is also becoming a must for self-funded groups where employers and employees manage and pay for benefits. Companies with administrative services only health can use technology to handle all of the details of multiple transactions.
H.R. departments will need new technology to do the following:

• Import data from multiple sources (spreadsheets, databases, paper documents, etc.).
• Interface with other systems and data.
• Accommodate company-specific eligibility rules.
• Enable employees to enroll and make changes.

Technology must also give brokers a window into clients’ needs so they can provide the right support. New technology must also offer readily available technical support and hands-free maintenance. Technology providers must be committed to helping the broker meet the client’s needs. The technology provider should offer the broker training, marketing materials, branding, pricing based on the relationship, sales, and support for client services.

Efficiency in a Down Economy

The technologies that give brokers an edge are the ones that can transform their clients’ arguments from, “How can I afford to pay for this new technology?” to “How can I afford not to?” Even though the right technology can save time and money, it’s not always easy to convince a client to spend more in order to save more. A broker has to justify that expense and determine how clients can use technology to their advantage.
Organizations often don’t realize that they are stuck in processes that more expensive to maintain than what it costs to make a change. These inefficient processes may be taking time away from recruiting, retaining, and training employees.
Improperly approved transactions or those that are never kept in check can result in huge costs. The costs can be monetary when the employer has to pay premiums on terminated employees because they missed the deadline to get information to a carrier. The costs can be in morale when an employee find outs, during a doctor visit, that they have not been not added to a plan even through they were enrolled properly and premiums were paid on time.
Technology can also be used to quickly resolve billing and eligibility issues, manage notifications and billing for COBRA policies, and automate the processing of information in batches. Technology can also do the following:

• Greatly reduce the expense of printing and mailing material to carriers and employees.
• Give employers more ways to communicate about their benefits, such as e-mail and electronic bulletin boards -- avenues that today’s younger generations demand.
• Target communication by location, department, insurance plan, enrollment status, retirement status, and others.
• Allow employees to access their personal information and make changes in their own time.
• Add efficient to payroll through reduced data entry, timely updates, and cross-function reporting.

Conveying the True Value of Compensation to Employees

Brokers can also use technology to inform employees about what the employer pays for their total compensation, which can be an eye-opening figure. Labor costs, including salary and benefits, are among the largest categories of operating costs. They account for 36% of total operating costs and 30% of total revenues for U.S. companies, according to a report by the Saratoga Institute.

In 2008, employer health insurance premiums increased by 5%, which is double the rate of inflation. The annual premium for an employer-sponsored health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $12,700. The annual premium for single coverage averaged over $4,700, according to a report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Even if the employer is well aware of the rising costs of healthcare, their employees may not be aware, especially those who contribute only a fraction or nothing at all to premium payments.

Online management systems can easily summarize this information to employees when they enroll in benefit plans and as they continue to log in and make updates. Promoting greater knowledge about company contributions and costs can help increase employee satisfaction and retention.

A Window into the Soul

Perhaps the biggest benefit for brokers and HR managers is that technology can lead to a more informed analysis of benefit information and options. Robust HR tools can provide access to reports on census information, employee preferences, usage, and enrollment details.  This information can give the broker a window into the best plan options for the company now and in the future. Brokers can make better recommendations when they have a history of the company’s benefit information and workforce.

Technology that supports multiple carriers can offer clients a competitive environment for pricing. Independent systems allow HR professionals and brokers to maintain and transfer company-specific information even if they switch providers.

Tougher economic times call for the most intelligent solutions. With the right tools to make access easy, automate procedures, and inform organizations of efficiencies, brokers can expand their role as trusted and valued providers in the marketplace.

Art Brooks is vice president of BeneTrac, a Paychex company and provider of web-based electronic enrollment and employee benefit
administration software online at www.BeneTrac.com

What Dr. Laura Can Teach You about Improving Your Insurance Business

by Kevin Baker

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking a long drive for a business function. I turned on the radio to fight the boredom and used the “seek” function to help me find a station.
There wasn’t much around that particular part of the country so I wound up listening to one of those advice to the lovelorn programs. It’s not the sort of show I would choose, but as it went on, I became more and more fascinated by the callers, their litany of problems, and especially what seemed to be the underlying cause of all of it all -- a complete lack of communication or the wrong type of communication.
That got me thinking; it’s not much different in the professional insurance agency world. A lot of the problems insurance businesses have, especially with clients, stem from communication issues. Whether it’s too much communication, not enough, the wrong type, or just a misinterpretation between what is said and what is meant, at some point, clients will simply leave and businesses while businesses are left without knowing why.
Since there aren’t any radio talk shows for insurance businesses trying to patch up troubled clients relationships, here are a few tips to help improve communications and build a long-lasting relationship.

Always be Available

The lovelorn often complain that their significant other is cold and distant. Clients can feel the same way about you if it takes days or even hours for you to respond to calls or e-mails. Small insurance businesses especially need to make sure they’re available to clients since one of the main reasons customers choose a small insurance agency or independent agent is to get better service.
For e-mail, consider investing in a mobile phone with data service that allows you to get your e-mails wherever you are. Yes, it costs a little more, but it will be well worth the expense when your clients react to your higher level of responsiveness. For voice calls, consider signing on to a virtual phone service for business calls. These services allow you to forward your office phone to your mobile device so you can take calls anywhere. It should also e-mail your voice-mail messages to you just in case you simply can’t take the call live. With that capability, you don’t have to guess if someone called and wants an answer. The message comes right to you. Wouldn’t that be handy in your personal relationships too?

Think before you speak

How many love relationships are damaged every day because one person makes a statement, the other responds, things escalate, and pretty soon the original issue is well overshadowed by what came after? The same thing can happen in business. It’s easy to let emotion overtake reason, especially under pressure. But you have to remember the cardinal rule of business: the client is always right even when he’s wrong. Take a moment to calm down and think before you respond. If you can’t do it now, say you’ll look into the issue further and get back to the customer. Then sleep on it if you have to. What seems to be a major, muddy issue one day often becomes much clearer after you’ve had a chance to sleep on it. The subconscious is a wonderful thing.

Don’t allow things to fester

This is the other side of the coin. Often in a relationship what starts out as a small issue can quickly grow if left unattended. The more time that passes, the more likely the other person will fill in your side of the conversation with what they think you’ll say. Do your best to answer small issues and complaints in a measured but timely manner so you can keep them small. And make sure your client knows that you’re looking into the bigger ones.

Tread carefully with e-mail

Few things have done more to put our love lives on edge than e-mail. In addition to the fact that good writing seems to be a lost art, an e-mail can’t convey the writer’s tone and intention. As a result, the interpretation is left up to the reader; many a fight has resulted from what the writer thought was an innocent statement. If you find yourself in a situation like that with a client, resist the temptation to respond with your own e-mail. Instead, pick up the phone and talk to the client. You’ll likely achieve three benefits. One, you’ll get a better idea of whether what you’re reading as a snippy comment was just a poor choice of words. Two, you’ll let the client know you take the issue seriously. Responding to an e-mail with a phone call is much more impressive than simply returning the e-mail. And three, it’s a lot easier for people to be angry when hiding behind e-mail than in a face-to-face or voice-to-voice situation. Making the call can help you take the teeth out of paper tigers.

Know where the line is between friendly and too familiar

Nothing kills a dating relationship faster than one person getting too familiar too soon. The same is true in a business relationship. While you may have some great and fun conversations as you build the client relationship, it’s still important to maintain the line between your professional life and your personal life. You want them to feel good about you, but they’re still your clients, not your friends. Answer the phone in an appropriate manner. If you’re using the same mobile phone for your business and personal calls, here is where a virtual phone service can help, because it can tag calls to show whether they’re being forwarded from your office phone or coming directly to your mobile. If you only give your mobile number to your friends, the tag will tell you whether you should answer the call with a businesslike “ABC Company” or it’s ok to use a friendly “Wasssuuuuup?”
Whether you’re talking love or business, it’s been proven time and again that great communication is the cornerstone of a great relationship. And when things break down, as they inevitably will, having those lines of communication is what will see you through the rough spots.
Follow the guidelines here and you’ll have an excellent start toward building a deeper bond with your clients – one that will last years. After all, if it works for radio therapists, it’ll work for you.
Kevin Baker is my1voice Product Marketing Manager for Protus (www.protus.com), provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) communication tools for small-to-medium businesses (SMB) and enterprise organizations. Kevin can be reached at kbaker@protus.com