Simplifying the Employee Benefits Experience: A Guide to Better Understanding

Driving employee satisfaction through better benefits communications

Employee benefits can be mind-numbingly complicated—even for insurance professionals. Employees should be able to focus on their own jobs instead of spending their time combing through policy documents trying to understand the many details about the benefits available to them.

Unfortunately, 86% of employees are confused about their benefits. This lack of understanding is often attributed to lackluster or infrequent benefits communication from employers, which lowers employee satisfaction with those benefits.

Conversely, employees are more satisfied with their benefits when information about those benefits is readily available to them. When those communications are easy to follow and easy to find, you have found the secret to helping employees better understand group insurance benefits: convenience.

How to make benefits communications easy to digest

1. Start with a Year-Round Communication Strategy. Regular communication keeps employees informed and engaged. A year-round “drip” approach, featuring brief and consistent updates such as reminder emails, is particularly effective. For more on this approach, check out our blog post, 3 Ways to Improve Enrollment with a Year-Round Approach.

2. Speak at the Employee’s Level. Communicate as though your audience has no prior knowledge of group insurance benefits. Simplicity ensures that even entry-level employees can grasp the information. 

3. Utilize a variety of communication formats. Cover all your bases by:

• Creating a digestible benefits guide that breaks down coverages, billing, and claims.
• Providing a glossary to explain insurance terms and acronyms.
• Using visuals like graphs, infographics, videos, and claim examples to simplify complex topics.
• Sending monthly benefits reminders to keep employees informed.
• Offering resources for employees to learn more, internally or through the carrier.

4. Leverage diverse communication channels. Reach employees through:

• Flyers, posters, and brochures.
• Videos and lunch ‘n’ learn presentations.
• Emails and internal webpages.
• Benefits fairs and team huddles.

Meet your employees where they are

Convenience extends to your efforts to reach employees wherever they are. At the end of the day, digital benefits communications tend to be the easiest way to reach employees. A benefits hub or an intranet site can allow employers to keep employees abreast of updates and changes while providing helpful resources to employees no matter where they are located.

These digital hubs also allow employees to easily access their plan features, find important forms, and utilize tools to calculate flexible spending options, retirement savings, and more.

Meeting employees where they are may look different based on your workforce. Regular emails may not be as useful to employees who spend their time in a production facility, warehouse, outdoor worksite, or driver’s seat. Meeting the needs of these employees may look more like a monthly 10-minute huddle at the beginning of each shift or an automated voicemail message each quarter from your company’s benefits administrator or HR manager.

Allstate Benefits can help

Allstate Benefits offers a variety of resources to drive convenience and help educate employees about voluntary products. Here are just some of the perks offered to Allstate customers:

• A full suite of digital and print marketing collateral created for employees, not for insurance actuaries.
• A mobile app and web portal allow customers to see coverage explanations, submit claims on the go, and view policies and claim histories.
• A dedicated team of benefits experts in the Allstate Benefits Customer Care Center who are here to help employees better understand their coverage.

Learn more about Allstate Benefits.