Benefits offerings:
What you need to
get done and when
Small-business owners and managers oversee a countless
number of tasks, plans and programs – meaning important
dates and deadlines can sneak up all too soon. Here, we’ve put
together a timeline to help you in planning benefits offerings for
your employees, as health care reform has marked key deadlines
for businesses to keep in mind when planning and executing
benefits offerings.
Aligning your benefits offerings with open enrollment deadlines
Smaller businesses with less than 50 FTEs are not required to adhere to strict open
enrollment deadlines for major medical and health insurance, but are instead able to
customize the timing of benefits offerings to best meet the needs of their business and
employees. Aligning the timing of a number of benefits offerings, such as dental, life,
disability insurance, etc., on a similar timeline makes sense for several reasons:
• It helps the business have all benefits done at the same time to minimize
disruption in the workplace and limit the potential time that is taken away from
other business priorities.
• It helps businesses synchronize billing and plan start dates, keeping everything
on the same timeline.
• It helps employees have a more comprehensive view of all their health benefits.
• It helps employees make supplemental benefit decisions that complement their
health plan choice.
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Timing your benefits planning
While open enrollment can be any time, some small employers choose to start with the
calendar year for effective coverage each year to begin January 1. Open enrollment
in these cases would happen during the fourth quarter of the previous year. Other
businesses choose to have effective dates of July 1, for example, to avoid having
insurance activity during the busy holiday season. In these cases, open enrollment would
occur during the second quarter.
IF CHOOSING TO ALIGN WITH
OPEN ENROLLMENT DATES
FOR HEALTH PLANS
THE MOST IMPORTANT
DATES FOR BENEFITS
DECISIONS ARE AT
THE BEGINNING OF
OPEN ENROLLMENT
AND THE LAST DAY OF OPEN
ENROLLMENT.
The duration of open enrollment depends heavily on the number of employees that
will be seen and a combination of the reasonable time necessary to make budget
considerations and family decisions. Open enrollment usually lasts anywhere from a
week to a month for small businesses. A representative or agent can help you figure out
what’s best for your business and employees.
If choosing to align with open enrollment dates for health plans, the most important dates
for benefits decisions are at the beginning of open enrollment and the last day of open
enrollment. Additional timing you should be aware of is noted below.
3 months prior to open enrollment:
• Decide what benefits you will offer. Look into potential carriers, evaluate the
value of available plans and fill out any necessary account setup forms required
by the carriers chosen.
• Once you have decided on a carrier and the plans that will be offered, meet with
your agent or consultant to begin enrollment planning. Discuss your individual
business’ and employees’ pain points to ensure your selections are a good fit.
• Review the educational materials that are available for your employees to review
prior to enrollment, such as fliers, posters, videos or newsletters. These can all be
customized to your business based on what is best for your employees.
6-8 weeks prior to open enrollment:
• Share informational and educational materials with employees. Instead of sharing
these materials all at once, space them out on a cadence throughout the six- to
eight-week period. In an era of short attention spans and continuous distractions,
communicating benefits offerings to employees multiple times can be most effective.
Benefits offerings: What you need to get done and when
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Guidelines for open enrollment
During open enrollment:
• Use your agent to keep you on track throughout the enrollment process. Agree
together on goals and dates by when all sign-ups should be completed and discuss
potential flexibility in the plan.
• Involve a key employee to help assist you during open enrollment. Having
a designated employee on hand can be a great asset to implementing
benefits offerings.
• Remind employees of upcoming deadlines. This is something your agent can help
with by providing you with prepackaged emails or fliers that can be distributed
directly to your employees. If an employee does not sign up for health plans before
the open enrollment deadline, they may face a fine during the next year’s tax season.
For other benefits, there is more flexibility in signing up past open enrollment, though
this depends on how much leeway you are willing to give your employees. Discuss
specific details regarding deadlines with your agent or consultant to make sure your
employees and their families are able to receive coverage.
After open enrollment:
• As soon as possible after the close of open enrollment, establish a follow-up meeting
with your agent or consultant to discuss results. Use this time to make sure all
employees had an opportunity to accept or decline coverage, and make your agent
aware of any issues that may have come up throughout the enrollment process.
• Set up quarterly and annual service visits with your agent or consultant. Meeting
regularly with your agent or consultant helps to ensure you and your employees
receive the best service possible.
• Discuss your company’s benefits offerings and the enrollment process with your
IT IS IMPORTANT TO
ORGANIZE THIS PROCESS
TO LIMIT ADMINISTRATIVE
employees to gather feedback that should be used in planning benefits for the
next year.
EMPLOYEES ARE
While small businesses have more flexibility in benefits enrollment deadlines than larger
organizations, it is important to organize this process to limit administrative hassle and to
make sure your employees are able to take full advantage of benefits offerings. Everwell, the
newest online benefits resource from Aflac, enables employers to streamline offerings all in
one place – allowing direct, online access to everything from major medical, dental and
vision to voluntary and supplemental benefits.
FULL ADVANTAGE OF
BENEFITS OFFERINGS.
DISCLAIMER
HASSLE AND TO
MAKE SURE YOUR
ABLE TO TAKE
This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a solicitation.
For additional details on communicating offerings with your
employees, visit Explaining Benefits Offerings to Your Employees.
Benefits offerings: What you need to get done and when
Page 3