Five Effective Ways to Control Benefit Costs

Focusing on five cost-saving measures could significantly lower benefit costs while minimizing the affect on employees, according to a white paper by Colonial Life. Colonial used in-house and industry-wide research as well as case studies to show the effectiveness of strategies to contain employee health benefit costs. The white paper finds the following strategies to be effective in controlling costs:
• Offering Wellness initiatives — Wellness initiatives were among the top cost-control strategies implemented by employers in a recent survey of government financial officers. Nearly 80% added wellness initiatives to their benefit programs and 90% of those would recommend them to others, according to a survey by the Government Finance Officers Association. A Society for Human Resource Management report reveals that 75% of employers offer wellness resources and information.
• Pre-taxing benefits/Section 125 participation – Seventy-seven percent of employers in the government financial officers survey offer pre-tax benefit plans and 86% of them recommend this option. It was the most enthusiastically endorsed strategy of the survey options.
• Providing Benefit communications and education — In the government financial officers survey, only 31% of employers were using an external service provider for benefit enrollment and 52% shifted benefit education and communication expense to suppliers. However, 78% of those who outsourced enrollment would recommend it and 84% recommended using a benefit carrier to handle benefit education and communication.
• Voluntary benefits — Only about a third of employers in the government financial officers study have moved non-core benefits to employee-paid voluntary coverage. However, 87% of employers that did so recommended this strategy.
• Dependent verification — Health plan audits can reveal a significant number of ineligible participants, including dependents who are over age or who aren’t a blood relative or a spouse, or former employees who haven’t been removed from the plan. The potential cost savings offered by dependent verification can be considerable and the service is sometimes available at no cost to the employer. Government employers who implemented these kinds of strategies report significant savings in their employee healthcare benefits. Fifty-five percent of participants in the government financial officers study saved at least 6% while 40% of them saved more than 10%. Other studies show an employer return on investment for wellness initiatives ranging from $3 to $6 for every dollar spent. The complete white paper is available in Colonial Life’s online newsroom at ColonialLife.com.