Rethinking employee benefits: Fostering value and simplicity

详细摘要

‘The spirit of the policy is as important or more important than the letter of the policy’ – Michael Field, managing director of Group Solutions at Fedgroup.

HILTON TARRANT: The entire point of employee benefits is to help protect people and their families throughout their working life, as well as in the case of any illness, retirement and even death. But the industry too often tends to compete on premiums and products, rather than the tangible outcomes that benefits actually deliver.

It’s almost as if the proverbial cart is being put in front of the horse. The industry shouldn’t mistake a competitive quote – along with a seemingly impressive list of product features or a completed disclosure – for a positive outcome.

What would change if we measured the success of employees’ benefits by the people relying on them?

Michael Field is managing director of Group Solutions at Fedgroup and joins us now. Michael, thank you so much for your time.

Have employee benefits followed the rather unwanted trend in much of the broader financial services sector – where these are made to work for the industry rather than for the people actually using them?

MICHAEL FIELD: Yes, thanks Hilton. It’s a long and complex journey that these offerings have taken over time.

I would say where we’ve ended up – the state of offerings today – I think is quite sad.

This was something really exciting, this was something with which an employer could show off what they were offering.

I think, to be fair, a lot of it has happened through the accumulation of well-meaning things. So, if we just look at a something as simple as the language that gets used – people have tried to be more precise, add the disclosures, make sure it’s more complete, align it to the legislation, to what the ombudsman is saying; all of these things.

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