Making It Easy… Even Fun… For Employees to Buy Insurance
A New and Animated Approach to
Voluntary Enrollment
By John Burke
Whatever the Supreme Court
decides about the Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act, the world
of employee benefits is changing.
A 2011 LIMRA study showed that
30% of employers are considering
adding a voluntary benefit to replace
employer-paid and contributory benefits within the next two years. Those
changes would affect between 19
million and 45 million employees.
If voluntary benefits are on the
rise, the companies that will succeed in the marketplace are the
ones that make it easy for employees to understand their benefit
options and how to enroll. My company believes we can make
benefits enrollment, including gathering evidence of insurability,
easy to understand and easy to do. Maybe even – and here’s a
word you don’t see too often in a journal devoted to insurance
– fun.
For a benefits enrollment to proceed smoothly, employees
should have a way to understand the nature and the value of
the benefits being offered. Additionally, they should be able to
do this in a relaxed atmosphere, at their own pace, ideally while
being able to consult their spouses. These parameters are easily
achieved with an online enrollment.
We’re all familiar with online enrollment systems. They’ve
been around for years, and many groups have used them. We
believe, however, that the technology we’ve engaged for our new
enrollment system is something new. It explains benefits by the
use of animated, interactive characters. If your kids – or you –
play any online game, it’s as if your character had a mission to
gather information about insurance benefits and sign up, instead
of gathering gold and slaying monsters.
Are you somewhat taken aback? Are you wondering if the
method we’ve chosen to deliver our message is somehow not
dignified enough? Allow us to assure you that we didn’t jump
into this solution without doing our research and watching this
system in action.
Let’s back up just a little. We started with the premise that we
needed a sales mechanism that could work with employees and
answer their questions 24/7, and we needed to achieve this goal
without incurring additional call center expenses. We also had
certain criteria that would have to be satisfied. The system we
used had to be uncluttered and user friendly. The person using
the system had to know immediately how much would be coming
out of his or her paycheck for each benefit selected. We wanted
a seamless integration with our requests, where applicable, for
evidence of insurability. The option to buy had to be present at
every step along the way, without the necessity for navigating
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up and down menus or going to
another screen. Then we added
another important criterion: the
system had to be non-intimidating
and visually pleasing, with the
ability to allow the user to interact,
not just read words and click menu
options.
To be sure, online systems
with representations of humans
are common. But most of them
seemed to use stock photos of
unnaturally cheerful models and/
or to use the kind of monotone
voices that are far too reminiscent of computer voices from movies in the 60s and 70s. And most of us would rather not buy our
employee benefits from that kind of character.
In these days of computer graphics, it’s possible to construct
animated characters that look more and more like human beings.
But we were able to benefit from research done in the field of
robotics and from the experience of Hollywood to learn that
“looking more and more like human beings” is not necessarily a
good thing. Work done in Japan by robotics scientist Masahiro
Mori disclosed that humans react more positively to robots as
those robots look increasingly human … up to a certain point.
Then, for reasons still not clear, the reaction turns from strongly
favorable to strongly unfavorable. The adjective used by test
subjects to describe these almost-human figures tended to be
“creepy.” A robot that looks sort of human is okay. A robot
that looks completely human would be okay. A robot that looks
almost human is just plain off-putting. Hollywood found out the
same thing. Pixar has had a lot of success with animated films
featuring toys and fish, but when Warner Brothers released The
Polar Express, with a cast of animated humans, The New York
Times reaction was typical, when it spoke of “the eerie listlessness of the characters’ faces.”
So, it was settled; the enrollment system would use animated
characters, but not highly realistic ones. And to deliver this experience, we strategically partnered with Trustnode, a cutting edge
technology organization.
On the face of it – the face that is seen by the potential
enrollee – an animated insurance character describes each
kind of insurance available, offers to explain it thoroughly and
answer questions about it, and, as necessary, explains evidence
of insurability. It’s all very easy to use and very non-threatening.
The animated character also spells out the risks that each type
of insurance addresses, but he doesn’t hesitate to use blackedout teeth when talking about dental insurance, or to sell life
insurance by picturing a hapless person sitting by a quiet pond
continued on page 21
Animating the benefits enrollment process
continued from page 6
suddenly coming face-to-face with a ravening shark.
Perhaps most important, a big Enroll button is visible at all
times. When the employee has enough information to support
the “buy” decision, the animated character makes it easy to act
on that decision.
That’s the simple face of the enrollment system. But underneath the hood, it’s very sophisticated. The animated insurance
character knows the age, gender and marital status of each
employee, and he tailors his sales pitch accordingly. A younger
woman will hear about pregnancy benefits; a young unmarried
man will not. He also does more than offer products based on
age and gender and marital status. He can tailor the pitch for
these products accordingly. Everyone in a company that offers
life benefits will be given a chance to enroll. But while a 35-yearold married man will be told about protecting his mortgage and
family, a 22-year-old single man might be told about the possibility of making his life benefit payable to a favorite charity.
There are four parties to a sale of voluntary employee benefits:
the employer, the employee, the carrier and the broker. We
are convinced that all four of these are winners with our online
enrollment system.
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The employer will have a happier HR department, since the
process is automated and chances are that they will receive
fewer calls asking for clarification on benefits features.
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The employee will have an easier, more informative, more
entertaining enrollment experience.
The carrier will have stronger results during the enrollment
period.
The broker will have the compensation benefit which
accompanies a successful enrollment with increased participation, as well as the great service we proudly provide as a
matter of course.
The group insurance industry is changing, and companies today
have to communicate and market on an entirely different level to
remain successful. As a strong and experienced carrier, Dearborn
National is forging ahead with out of the box solutions to meet
the evolving needs of the workplace. v
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This piece is for illustrative purposes only and is not a contract.
The products referenced may not be available in all states. The
features described are intended to provide only a brief summary of
the products and policies advertised and may not be available in
all products. Only the policies themselves provide
the actual terms of coverage, including any exclusions, conditions and limitations to coverage.
John Burke is Director of Group Product Management at Dearborn
National
6/10/10 9:29:47 AM
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