Employees in large businesses own more voluntary products than employees in smaller firms but are interested in purchasing more, according to Eastbridge Consulting Group

AVON, CONNECTICUT, USA (March 9, 2021)

Large employers (defined as those with 1,000+ employees) represent just over half of employees in the United States, or 61 million workers. Most of these employers (85%) offer voluntary products to their employees, and the percentage that are planning to add a new voluntary benefit as a result of COVID-19 ranged from 25% for those with 1,000-2,499 employees to 34% for those with 10,000+ employees. And while there is opportunity for more employees to purchase voluntary (42% of those employed by a large business own a voluntary product), more than half of employees working for large businesses that own at least one voluntary product own multiple products. What’s more, around a third express interest in purchasing a variety of products like critical illness and identity theft.    

Eastbridge’s Voluntary Benefits and the Large Case Market Spotlight™ Report analyzes the opportunities and current results for selling voluntary benefits in the large case market and updates Eastbridge’s previous report published in 2017. Specifically, the report looks at the size of the market; products offered; employer perspective on products and carriers; employee attitudes and products owned; key players in the market; carrier practices and trends like bundling and discounting, as well as carrier challenges.

Following are a few key findings from the report:

• Larger employers are more likely to use multiple carriers for their voluntary benefits compared to employers overall.
• Close to 80% of large employers prefer all benefits to be enrolled on a single platform or as a part of their benefits administration platform, regardless of the number of carriers used.

Eastbridge Consulting Group, Inc. is a marketing advisory firm serving insurance and financial services organizations in the United States and Canada.