INSIGHTS Taking the pain away from administering employee benefits.
BACKGROUND With so many employee benefits available and benefit providers in the market it can be difficult for employers to easily administer schemes and rely on providers to not make any errors.
MORE INFO ON The Problem
Many providers offer online administrative functions where changes can be made to the membership but these rely on the employer completing online forms to make changes, or the uploading of Excel spreadsheets to websites. If the provider does not offer an online administrative solution this can often mean creating a spreadsheet of changes (based on the provider specific template) and emailing it to them. When you offer several benefits, the monthly administration can be a headache. Not surprisingly, we have clients who have spent significant time on the phone to provider helplines to sort out upload issues and then when finally, they are able to make changes, these have not been actioned correctly. When changes are made every invoice needs to be checked to ensure it correctly reflects the membership and cost.
This can not only have an impact of the cost of a benefit to an employer but also affect the employee.
If, for example, an employee is incorrectly removed from a private medical insurance scheme or not added at the right time by the provider, a claim could be declined resulting in stress on the employee and an issue for the employer.
As a benefits adviser, we work hard to recommend providers who we know can provide efficient and effective administration services and good value for the employer and employee. For those employers who do not want to take on the administration burden, we can take over this role acting as an outsourced part of the HR/Finance team. We also have long standing, close relationships with most providers and they value our business.
Conclusion
Should an issue arise we can usually resolve this quickly and with minimum impact on the employer/employee.
Tim Gillingham Founder & CEO
Tim spends his time either advising on employers' benefit schemes or working with trustees of occupational pension schemes helping them comply with increasing regulation and deficits. He also helps providers develop their propositions for the new workplace market and distributors take advantage of the opportunities.