New Study Reveals How Employees Really Feel About Their Health Care Benefits and the Annual Enrollment Process

Atlanta, GA, March 25, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Bug Insights, a marketing and human capital analytics company, is pleased to announce their findings of a recent study conducted to understand employees’ unmet needs with regards to their health care coverage and annual enrollment. 

The study includes responses from 663 participants, all over the age of 18, employed, and living in the U.S. The main objectives of the study were to understand the participants’ opinions and preferences as they relate to the degree of frustration regarding the annual enrollment process, insights into the effectiveness of communications, the need for dependent coverage, potential alternatives for offering health care coverage, challenges with bill clarity, and opinions regarding the Affordable Care Act.

Annual enrollment is a critical period of time for employees, yet many organizations overlook the many unique needs of each individual employee. Often organizations will use a one-size-fits-all communications strategy despite the vast differences in needs from the employee perspective. The study results underscore the importance of this - especially when you look at generational differences.

Allyson Kuper, Consultant, Bug Insights

A large percentage of employees are painfully frustrated by the annual enrollment process.  In fact, of the 663 particpants surveyed, one-fourth said that would rather go to the dentist than spend just two hours on annual enrollment.

In the area of employee rewards, which are critical to attracting, engaging, and retaining employees, the study revealed that 50% of respondents believe that they could get better rewards if they go to work somewhere else.  Additionally, employees put significant value in the benefits and coverage provided to their dependents.  One-third of respondents said they would leave their current job if their employer were to cut such benefits and coverage.

The study also discovered that employees in the older age categories need more help.  Results showed that employees 55 years and older are more than two times as likely to need additional assistance in trying to determine which plan to choose when compared with the overall population.  To compound that, this is the demographic that is least likely to know where to turn for help.

"Annual enrollment is a critical period of time for employees, yet many organizations overlook the many unique needs of each individual employee.  Often organizations will use a one-size-fits-all communications strategy despite the vast differences in needs from the employee perspective. The study results underscore the importance of this - especially when you look at generational differences,” said Bug Insights consultant Allyson Kuper.  “Understanding these needs and targeting annual enrollment communications to cater to different segments of the population will help to successfully address the unique and different needs of different demographic segments.”   

About Bug Insights

Bug Insights is a human capital and marketing analytics company that provides prescriptive analytics to help organizations make better business decisions.  Using fact-driven data, Bug Insights consults clients how to best optimize the return on their investments.  The company assists organizations with a range of actionable research methodologies including focus groups, conjoint, A/B testing, data mining, and trade-off analysis.  Bug Insights advises organizations of all sizes across a range of industry verticals.  For more information, please contact [email protected] or visit www.buginsights.com.

Media contact: Kristin Curcio- [email protected]- 415.503.8059