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Group Benefits

What does WELLNESS really mean?
By Blair Farwell, CDHC Vice President of Health

In this section I use this opportunity to tell you what I am seeing in the marketplace as someone who literally interfaces with hundreds of agents continually. I would like to give you sales ideas, or give you a heads up as to what I am seeing in the marketplace.

You would have to live in a cave without access to the internet, television, or print media in order to not know our country is aging. Additionally, although not as prevalent, the health of our under 65 population is also rapidly declining. Our population nationally is more overweight than we have ever been, and more concerning is it is starting to be an epidemic among our youth. In the broker competitive landscape the new “buzz word” we are hearing are “Wellness Programs”. What is ironic about this is that in the under 50 group sized market vendors that service this market are few and far between. That does NOT stop agencies from stressing this offering or talking about it. What we find more often or not it raises eyebrows, and differentiates the agencies, but very few groups follow through to implementation. None-the-less, we are seeing a marked increase in activity as this is one of the reasons why brokers are replaced (when they call to find out after they are notified by the carrier that a Broker of Record Letter has been submitted).

I would strongly suggest you think about YOUR OWN “wellness program”. What will your wellness program look like? What does it entail? What services can YOU provide (or facilitate)? Do you have an answer? Some people have secured speakers from the American Heart Association, others have contracted with local hospitals (which by the way we are seeing a great deal of universal interest of hospitals into this service, even for small groups) to come out and do blood draws. Some other examples are that people have contracted independently with dieticians, and “health coaches” to come out and talk about nutrition and stress management. Some agencies have come out with innovative health club membership funding options (we have created a program here at Resource Brokerage ourselves). Some other agencies have come out with endorsed weight loss program facilitation as well (we have also done this at Resource Brokerage). Sometimes just bringing innovative ideas to the table is enough to prove that you are “with the times” and aware of what is going on, and able to add value to the equation in non traditional ways.

The most important thing is to not be caught on your heels and lose a big group because you act REACTIVELY to the wellness question. I would highly suggest you spend a day or two making calls and thinking about YOUR OWN wellness program and get some pricing together as to what you offer. That way you can talk intelligently about it from the outset rather than defensively trying to gather things together to save a client. If you spent the time to do this you could even use it to differentiate yourself and attain NEW CLIENTS. Pay particular attention to Mary Dyne’s article as even with their 2-50 market segment BCBS has ready made PR campaigns that employers can use and you the broker can introduce to the HR staff (or owners themselves on the very small groups—as we all know they do not have HR personnel).

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