Five Tips for a Great Open Enrollment

When the calendar turns to November, thoughts often turn to turkey, pumpkin spice lattés... and if you’re in the benefits business, open enrollment. As more and more plan sponsors have moved their plan anniversaries to January 1, October, November and December have gotten really busy for human resources professionals (and brokers). As we start to transition in our office from designing and quoting to enrolling, I thought it would be a good time to write about some best practices.

Tip 1: Actually, Umm, Do It

I still occasionally run across plan sponsors (usually small companies) that don’t realize that administering an open enrollment period is required by law. Because you limit employees’ options for making changes throughout the year, it’s critical that you notify them when it’s time to make decisions for the upcoming year. Don’t assume that just because you got a good renewal… or aren’t changing payroll deductions… that you can just roll everything forward.

Tip 2: Get it Done Early

Because of the crush of administrative work leading up to January 1, most of the insurance carriers here in Louisiana set artificially early deadlines for submitting new business – often the first few days of December. The reason they do this is to ensure they meet their end of the bargain – they want to ensure that if one of your employees needs care on January 2, your policy is in-force and the employee has an ID card. You want this, too! So collecting enrollments and changes, and getting them over to the carrier(s) as early as possible, is critical.

Tip 3: Leverage your Broker

Your broker is probably really busy at this time of year, too. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t expect support. As a baseline, most brokers are willing to come out and do presentations to your employees about changes to their benefits, answer questions, and advise on the process for enrolling or making changes. Some brokers will create and print open enrollment communications for your group. Good brokers work with you to understand the most effective way to communicate to and enroll your employees, and customize a plan just for your company. Which leads us to…

Tip 4: Tailor Communications to your Population

We’ve been asked to create communications in a variety of ways, and deliver open enrollment presentations in a variety of settings. We have some clients that want all of their materials printed and distributed by hand. Some ask for electronic copies of everything to distribute via email or company intranet. Other clients with tech-savvy employees ask us to build an app with benefits information. In terms of presentations, we’ve done meetings in warehouses, factory lunchrooms, board rooms, and even in movie theaters. How you communicate depends on the profile of your employees, how you typically communicate/train, and the employees’ geographic locations. Again, look for your broker to help you create this plan.

Tip 5: Take Advantage of Technology

As referenced in a prior post, we’re finally seeing a surge of technology in employee benefits. Take advantage of it! As mentioned above, some brokers can build an app to communicate benefits to your employees. More and more carriers are accepting electronic enrollments (as opposed to paper). And benefits administration systems and private exchange technology is making it easier than ever to do this entire process paper-free.

Want to chat about how to streamline your open enrollment? Give us a shout at bayoubenefits@gmail.com