Services

Comprehensive Enrollment Services 

Core & Voluntary Benefits Enrollment

Benefit enrollments challenge employers of any size. Scheduling enrollment meetings, processing paperwork, and calculating deductions are just a few of the extra administrative duties facing you and your staff during that Annual Benefit Enrollment. By outsourcing the enrollment function, you can eliminate costly paper intensive processes, reduce the number of redundant questions, and provide your employees with a 'same message' consistently delivered corporate wide.

Automating the Annual Enrollment can save a company as much as $3.61 per employee per month – see chart below.

Automation Efficiency

Outsourcing the Annual Enrollment allows a company to partner with a team of professionals trained on implementing employees into their Insurance Benefits. Our team includes the following key team members:

Implementation Manager
An Implementation Manager oversees the installation and preparation of your entire benefits package. The Implementation Manager creates the overall schedule of events related to the communication and enrollment of your voluntary benefits. The Implementation Manager consults with you and your supervisors to schedule the most convenient times and locations to meet with your employees to help ensure daily workflow is not disrupted.

Field Enrollment Manager
Your daily contact for any questions you have during the enrollment process. Because your Account Manager oversees your team of Benefits Counselors, they help ensure your needs, as well as those of your employees, are being met.

Benefit Counselors
Our Benefits Counselors will conduct one-on-one counseling sessions with your employees at those locations determined by you and the Implementation Manager. During these meetings, the Benefits Counselors will carefully explain each benefit - including your core benefits - and electronically enroll them into their selections.

Service Representative
Our commitment to serving you and your employees does not end after the initial enrollment. A full-time service representative will be assigned to periodically visit your location and enroll newly eligible employees.

Call Center
Our call center serves as a Client Service Center for existing participants and Enrollment Center for new enrollees. All calls are tracked and are stamped with date and time of call, call number and employee name.

Benefits Communications 

Why Benefits Communications Matters

Studies have consistently found that only a small fraction of workers report being fully engaged in making decisions about their benefits. The same research found that many workers say they would be less likely to leave their jobs if they were better informed about their benefits. They would also be less likely to make serious mistakes in their employee benefits choices, such as not properly funding their flexible spending accounts (FSA) or failing to elect needed dental or vision coverage.

The solution for closing that gap: an integrated communications strategy that delivers accurate, timely information to your employees during both the annual Open Enrollment Period and for Qualified Life Events throughout the year.

Effective benefits communications are critical to educating your employees about their benefits. Our goal is to provide your team with an integrated communications strategy to help ensure that your employees understand the total value of their benefits package. Effective benefit communications ultimately reduce benefits costs by reducing administrative involvement with redundant questions and repetitive tasks.

One-on-One Core/Voluntary Benefits Education and Electronic Enrollment
Benefit elections during open enrollment are collected using an on-line Enrollment System employees can use to self enroll or via a Laptop Enrollment System one of our Benefits Counselors will have for employee on-site locations. Collecting Benefit Elections using technology allows the data to be moved electronically and efficiently across Employer, payroll companies, insurance carriers, and enrollment channels. Data collection is orchestrated according to the Employer's specifications.

Benefits Booklets
Employee Benefits Booklets perfectly illustrates each insurance benefit being offered to employees along with any other messages the employer would like to deliver, like information on vendors complete with vendor contact information. Booklets are customized for each Employer group.

Dependent Eligibility Audits/Data Cleansing/Beneficiary Capture
All employee demographic data is collected, including dependents, addresses, and beneficiaries. Accurate employee data can help eliminate 10% of medical costs just by removing ineligible dependents from your core benefits, thereby saving premium dollars.

Benefits Statements – Total Compensation Statements
Each employee receives a personalized Benefits Statement tailored specifically to your employees' demographic and payroll information. This piece details each employee's entire compensation package – including benefits and salary – to illustrate the complete investment you make in your employees and their families.

Flexible Spending Account (FSA) Education and Enrollment
Many employers offer FSAs for the tax advantages for both their organization and their employees. But many employees find FSA's confusing. Tax exemption is simple when our Benefits Counselors explain how the FSA's can personally help your employees. WES often increases participation in FSA programs by educating your employees about their options, illustrating their potential tax savings, and enrolling them into their plans.

High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP's) Education and Enrollment
High Deductible Health Plans (HDHP's) – HSA's and HRA's – are steadily increasing in popularity, replacing much of the traditional co-pay medical products. For many employees, these HDHP plans are difficult to understand and can be intimidating. WES can help the employee better understand the advantages of an HDHP plan, especially when voluntary benefits are available to offset the risk associated with the higher deductibles. WES can help make the difference in how these plans are received by your employees.

Enrollment Services 

Our enrollment services are designed to make core and voluntary benefits enrollment easier on you and your staff during open enrollment and throughout the entire benefit year. WES will enroll all employees in Employer paid Core benefits, educate employees on how flexible spending accounts work, assist employees with worksheets & Election Forms, and enroll employees in voluntary products, all of this at minimal or no cost to the Employer.

Enrollments are available in the following four venues:

  1. Conduct Live One-On-One Laptop Enrollments Using An On-Line Database System
  2. Provide Co-Browsing Environment Where Employee And Benefits Counselors Can View The Same Screens While Benefits Counselors Assists Employees In Benefits Decisions
  3. Provide Telephonic Enrollment For Those Employees Not Seen On-Site Or Not Able To Self-Enroll
  4. Provide Employee Self-Enroll System

Enrollment Services include any combination of the following:

Electronic Benefits Enrollment
Technology is critical to the success of our enrolments. Our enrollment team is responsible for providing a database that accurately captures employee demographic information, calculates insurance premiums based on employee elections, and records the employees' choices in insurance plans. Accurate records are then forwarded to the account for approval. Data and critical documentation is forwarded to all insurance carriers and payroll providers in the format required by each vendor. Electronic files are then available for HR staff to use as needed for forecasting, trouble shooting, and duplicating. Our systems, including File Transfers, meet the highest standards for encryption, and are secured through multiple physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your employees' personal data.

Customized Employee Enrollment Communications
Benefit Enrollments are better received when employees are better informed of the processes and the timeline for enrollment and responses. WES will help you develop communications specifically targeted for your employees. Communication pieces include emails, announcement posters, newsletter announcements, and personalized correspondence. Employer cooperation by involving management and department heads is an integral part of a successful enrollment roll-out.

PowerPoint Group Presentations
Communicate entire benefits package using customized PowerPoint Group Presentation followed by structured enrollment deployment. The Group Presentation can be made available in a live setting, i.e. board room or training room setting, or can be conducted as a Webinar, or both venues can be used to accommodate employee schedules.

Beneficiary Capture
Using the enrollment database technology, we will update your beneficiary information; we can do it for all product lines, and provide an electronic download for you, for payroll, and for the insurance carriers. Employers especially appreciate being able to update beneficiary files for group life insurance and for health reform mandates.

Dependent Audits
Performing an effective dependent eligibility audit will require your employees to submit documentation that they may consider sensitive: birth certificates, tax forms, qualified support orders, and the like. Using an independent, third party will help maintain an arm's length relationship between the employer and employee during the documentation process. Industry research suggests that 5-12% of the dependents on any given employee benefits plan may not actually be eligible for the benefit program. Removing those ineligible dependents can help you:

Dependent verification services conducted during Annual Open Enrollment can help verify who is actually eligible for medical coverage under the company's health plan. The one-to-one benefits counseling makes eligibility verification an efficient and thorough process. Employees are notified ahead of time when they will be meeting with a benefits counselor and are asked to bring documentation for any new or existing dependents they plan to enroll. Benefits counselors then personally review the benefits plan, discuss eligibility criteria, and answer any questions employees have, and add or remove dependents from the plan as needed. Employees are given a deadline to submit to HR any missing information that's required, and they sign an affidavit to verify the accuracy of their records.

National Call Center
Our call center serves as a 24/7 Answering Service and a Client Service and Enrollment Center for both existing and new enrollees. All calls are tracked and stamped with date and time of call, call number, and employee name. Call report is available weekly detailing the number & nature of each call during Open Enrollment.

New Hire Benefit Enrollments
Our call center serves as a Client Service Center for existing participants and Enrollment Center for new enrollees. All calls are tracked and are stamped with date and time of call, call number and employee name.

Voluntary Benefits Administration 

Human Resources Departments often do not have extra resources to manage voluntary benefits programs. We can assist with the administration of a voluntary benefits offering saving you and your staff time and money. Our administrative services include the following:

Deduction and Billing Reconciliation
We can help reconcile your voluntary carrier bills against your payroll deductions, help resolve discrepancies, and advise on payment information for the individual carriers.

Policy and Deduction Changes
All employee policy and deduction changes are facilitated through our Client Services team. We communicate these changes to the individual voluntary benefits' carriers to help ensure your employees' data is accurate and reduce the potential for errors.

Assumption of Existing Voluntary Benefits Program
We can assume the billing and customer service functions for standard list billed voluntary benefit programs that you may already offer to your employees.

Electronic Deduction Data Transfer
We have the ability to electronically receive voluntary benefits deductions for reconciliation with carrier bills, saving you additional time and expense. Conversely, we will update your payroll system as elections change.

Client Services Call Center
Your employees can call our Client Services team for all of their policy-related questions and updates.