So your market disrupted. Now what?

Since health care reform and the explosion of voluntary benefits, the group benefits market underwent dramatic disruption. That disruption hasn’t slowed since, and in many ways has only grown stronger. This has opened the door to a lot of opportunity that has yet to be taken advantage of.

Yet, eight years later, what has changed? Unfortunately, I estimate that 90 percent of companies are still trapped in working out the high-level details—the “What should we do about this?” phase of addressing change. Half of those companies plan to make a major investment in their systems in the next five years, while the other half aim to invest at least something during this time. Why the discrepancy? Many reports highlight that the uncertain future of the ACA, in particular, and the resulting changes in the regulatory environment is causing further delays in decision making here.

On the other hand, progressive carriers that have taken a more holistic overhaul approach, such as Liberty Mutual, Guardian, and others are now in a hugely favorable position to take advantage of a plethora of new business opportunities. How so? Firstly, a comprehensive approach digitizes not only the front-end sales and marketing but also the back-end policy, billing, and claims operations. Customer data and preferences and self-service options become instantly available at every touchpoint. This is a very different customer experience. Carriers can now embrace new opportunities as they move from solely B2B to a hybrid of B2B and B2C.

Read the full article on the EIS Group blog site to see our observations on how others are addressing their core problems.