3 new ways to drive employee benefits innovation

As the employee benefits landscape continuously evolves, employers are seeking new ways to optimize their employee benefits menu to attract and retain top talent and meet the unique needs of their organization and employee population.

At Voya, our goal is to help make it simpler for employers to offer and administer benefits — and for their employees and families to choose and use all of their benefits. That’s why we’re securely enhancing and connecting our employee benefits solutions and tools to help improve the financial well-being of all employees, plus save time and reduce the administrative burden of employee benefits administration.

We are purposeful in how and where we invest — keeping our customers at the center of everything we do. Here’s a peek into “Voya Connects,” which offers a window into our latest human-centered employee benefits solutions focused within these three areas:

• Employee well-being
• Simplified experiences
• Product innovations

1. Employee well-being

Better mental health coverage and supportive, empathetic experiences

More than 50 million adults are experiencing mental illness,¹ which can have lasting impacts on many areas of employees’ lives — including at work. We recognize that supporting employee mental health is a business imperative and we’re laser-focused on ways to help organizations do that — through our people-first approach to claims, underwriting, products and service.

• 85% of working Americans feel it's important to have employer-offered benefits to improve mental health and well-being (e.g., mindfulness, meditation, mental health coaches/therapists, etc.)²
• 65% of working American are more likely to stay with their current employer if offered "employee benefits that cover mental health services/support"²

Supplemental Health Insurance with mental health options

When it comes to rolling out new features and benefits to address mental health, care and compassion is top of mind — including the well-being of the whole person.

Our latest mental health-focused benefit enhancements include:

• Accident Insurance: Provides a mental health therapy benefit following a covered accident, as well as a benefit for Family Care, which is intended to help alleviate the compound stress when an accident happens and there is a need for care for children, elders, even pets
• Critical Illness Insurance: Offers a Specified Conditions rider with benefit options for a variety of covered conditions including anxiety and depressive disorders
• Hospital Indemnity Insurance: Upcoming changes include options for inpatient confinement benefits and outpatient rehabilitation facility benefits for mental health and substance use care

We continue to push innovative ways to address mental health in 2024:

• Research, focus groups and work with mental health professionals to shape our focus and approach to rolling out mental health solutions that best align with customer needs and experiences
• We’re exploring the addition of caregiver services to address lifetime care needs, aligned with our Voya Cares program (Note: Voya Cares is not insurance; it is a service offered through the Voya® family of companies)
• Proprietary research focused on mental health

On-demand Bereavement Support, including Funeral Planning & Will Preparation with Empathy

To further support employee well-being, we’ve rolled out a new collaboration with Empathy — a comprehensive, on-demand concierge support system that offers bereaved families helpful guidance and support for the administrative, emotional, legal and financial challenges faced after the loss of a loved one.

Empathy’s services are now available to employees enrolled in group term life insurance offered by Voya through their employer. Availability and provisions may vary by state. In New York, only Funeral Planning services are available.

Intuitive claims reduce mental load during stressful moments

When life takes an unexpected detour, it can be a time of high stress. Voya Claims 360 is an integrated and intuitive model designed to simplify the claims process for Supplemental Health Insurance products. While delivering on our commitment to pay eligible claims, we also strive to help make the lives of our customers easier.

I was utterly shocked once we received our claim. My son spent 3 weeks in an ICU and this was the first time I have ever filed a claim. It was easy, fast and it truly took care of our needs. This made the terrible experience we were going through a little less stressful. Thank you.

Voya Claims 360 helps employees get the most from their supplemental insurance — with proactive notifications and claims processes that help to support insureds when they experience a covered event. Using an integrated model, Voya Claims 360 includes product-to-product claims integration, intuitive claims payment, medical claims integration and an auto-pay claims process — where we may even pay a benefit automatically.

• 3.7 days average claim turnaround for complete short-term disability claims³
• 98% Claims Center satisfaction⁴
• 96% of employees say “Voya made it easy to file my claim”⁵

2. Simplified experiences

APIs — Saving time and improving accuracy, productivity

Application Programming Interfaces, better known as APIs, make it possible for different technology platforms to communicate, which streamlines workflows and can automate data entry.

Voya uses an “open architecture” and highly consultative approach to establish secure connections between administrators’ software systems. This helps simplify plan administration for employers and EOI digital options and other features can help improve the overall benefits and enrollment experiences for employees.

Voya continues to create new API connections to simplify and optimize our clients’ benefits plan administration. Presently, we have APIs for Evidence of Insurability decisions, Leave of Absence decisions and Stop Loss Insurance. We can integrate with multiple technology platforms and are continuously adding new platforms.

Engaging experiences for better insurance literacy

Knowing how to navigate this complex industry can often feel overwhelming for employees – 79% of employees want help maximizing workplace benefit dollars across retirement savings, health savings accounts, health insurance and voluntary benefits.⁶

Voya emphasizes the employee in “employee experience” — aligned to our vision: To clear the path to financial confidence and more fulfilling lives. Designed in a way to engage, educate and drive benefits utilization, we give employees intuitive ways to choose and use their benefits, which may help them feel more prepared and supported in times of health-related stress. Specifically, they have options such as:

• myVoyage personalized enrollment guidance to help them choose benefits
• 24/7 digital access to the Employee Benefits Resource Center
• 1:1 live guidance and support through the Health Customer Service & Claims Center
• Easy-to-file claims through Voya Claims 360
• Health Savings Account (HSA) digital hub and enrollment experience

3. Product innovation

Meeting evolving customer experiences, insurance needs

We continuously listen to customer feedback, translate trends and data into customer needs and forecast market trends to determine how we can make constant, impactful improvements to our products and services.

New, intuitive insurance options

Voya Protect is our Group Limited Benefits Insurance, designed to complement traditional medical plans. The plan covers 13,000+ medical conditions under a single product, from fractures to complex medical issues.

For Life and Disability and Absence Management customers, we have rolled out expanded API capabilities and a new bereavement support solution through Empathy and invested in our Leave Administration offering. This year, we’ll expand API connections with more platforms, streamline data transfers, simplify the claims experience through formless life claims submissions and expand coverage availability.

Staying on trend with Stop Loss

We’ve added flexibility to our Stop Loss Insurance to help limit the impact of catastrophic medical claims for more mid-market self-funded employers — with groups down to 100 lives (150 in some states) and individual deductibles down to $25,000. Our Stop Loss Edge program also offers an innovative way to take advantage of self-funded health plan coverage by providing a pooled approach to renewals and rewards for employers with 100 to 500 employees.

Innovating for a better future

From more robust mental health coverage, supportive experiences and API technology that saves time and effort — to new and flexible products like Voya Protect and Lifetime Life Insurance — we are committed to innovating for a better future. Through our evolving solutions, we address employee well-being, simplify experiences and advance product design to meet customers where they are.

Interested in learning more — and how we can help make doing business easier? Contact your Voya representative today.