Streamlining the Employee Benefits Enrollment and Evidence of Insurability Process - Part II

Benefits enrollment can be more closely integrated with retirement planning for a holistic approach

Broadcast Retirement Network's Jeffrey Snyder discusses streamlining the benefits enrollment process to improve the employee (and employer) experience with SS&C Technologies' Michael Volpe.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

This morning on BRN, streamlining the benefit enrollment and evidence of insurability process and what it means for retirement planning, part two of our conversation. And welcome back to the program, Michael Volpe of SS&C Technologies. Michael, so great to see you again this morning.

Thanks for joining us. Good to see you too, Jeffrey. Thank you very much.

And I'm so happy I didn't chase you off. Up to this point, I have not lost a guest. So I'm very happy that you came back for part two.

Michael, yesterday, just to kind of recap for the audience, we had a great conversation about how to really streamline the open enrollment process and more importantly, the evidence of insurability. And as I was thinking about it last night, I was thinking about, does this approach to group benefits, does it somehow link to what we do in the retirement world with retirement benefits?

Michael Volpe, SS&C Technologies

Well, I think there are some links, some direct links and some more holistic links. I think from a direct link perspective, the group insurance coverage that's offered through many employers has a feature that's called a convertible feature where when an employee separates from the company, each of the insurance carriers has a process called portability and conversion, where they will reach out to that now ex-employee and offer to convert that group policy into an individual policy. And as you know, individual life insurance is a very important part of the overall retirement perspective. From a more conceptual level, I think we have a ways to go to really solidify the employee engagement while they're still at their employer to bring educational content into the point of enrollment so that they understand what they're buying now and how it can help them later on as they look at and enter into retirement.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

I'm not discounting what has been done in the last 40 years. We've made some great strides. You talked yesterday about auto-enrollment, auto-increase.

But it seems like when you enroll in a retirement plan, it's like you're in and then you're kind of done. I think what we talked about yesterday and I think what we're talking about now is trying to make it a lot more holistic so that there's continuity, there's greater continuity. So as you have life events, you're able to adjust your enrollments, your asset allocation, how you kind of view your retirement plans for the future.

Yeah.

Michael Volpe, SS&C Technologies

At SSMC, we are huge believers in dashboards and single point of engagement. Unfortunately, for most record keepers today, that entire engagement, the transactional engagement in their retirement plan must be done on the retirement record keepers' systems. What we look to do is to externalize some of those features, the ones that are safe, secure, and that the record keeper is willing to expose through a third-party dashboard.

We'd like to bring those transactional features right to the point of the enrollment for the active employee benefits so that we can give that one-stop shop that the employees as consumers are looking for and as importantly, the employer plan sponsors want their employee users to have.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, they certainly want to get, you know, financial wellness is the big buzzword in the retirement industry. I think part of financial wellness is getting that dashboard view, if you will, as you describe it. Could you, Michael, with this technology, bring in external 401k accounts?

Because let's face it, most people are not going to work for the days of my years when one person worked for a company for 25 years. That's not really the typical plan for most employees. They're going to have six, seven, eight, nine, 10 jobs, maybe more in their lifetime.

So could you bring in outside other 401k plans? Could you bring in IRAs and other accounts to give, as you describe it, the holistic view to really help inform the best benefit decisions possible?

Michael Volpe, SS&C Technologies

We know from a technology perspective that this can be done, Jeffrey. For example, when I go to my record keeper site, I can link my accounts from external record keepers or financial institutions to get that holistic view. And I think it's fair to ask that record keeper to allow an active employee dashboard to do the same thing to retrieve their account balances.

And even more than just presenting the account balances and perhaps asset allocations, let me initiate certain activities that they're willing to allow, rollovers, change my asset allocations, change my contribution levels, change my beneficiary desertation. These are all fairly easy transactional functions that could and should be accessible through a unified portal that includes the medical coverage, the HSA balances, the retirement account balances, all in one big picture.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So, I can't imagine that what you all have built is a state secret. I mean, I know it's probably patented, but I'm sure there's lots of people, organizations that are aware. Are you getting a lot of interest from retirement providers, those in the ecosystem saying, hey, I can leverage that technology, I can bring it all in?

Because candidly, Michael, in the retirement income space, we've talked to your colleague, Ryan Gaudetier, in the retirement income space there, there's a middleware solution, I think, that SS&C offers that brings in a lot of the retirement income products. So, I would imagine that that would be this, what we're describing today, would be of interest to either some of your clients or future clients.

Michael Volpe, SS&C Technologies

We have had and continue to have very interesting conversations with record keepers, both current clients and prospective, about this. So, as Ryan described, our middleware capabilities, and as I talk about our consumer portal dashboard capabilities, the fact of the matter is that record keepers have invested very, very heavily in their consumer experience. And frankly, they're a little jealous of that, which I can understand.

So, they're a little leery about surrendering some of that engagement to a third party over which they have less control. So, that's certainly understandable, but we do continue to have the conversations. And when we talk about that global, holistic perspective for the participant, the employee, we are getting more and more traction every time we have the conversation.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

I mean, if you keep talking about it and show the benefits of it, I mean, you've got success stories. It seems to make a lot of sense. And I think you can partner in our ecosystem.

It's all about, in the retirement ecosystem, the benefits ecosystem, it's all about partnerships. How difficult is it to deploy what we're describing? I mean, is it something that, you mentioned that a lot of these organizations spend thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars to enhance their own digital platforms.

How much time, effort does it take to deploy what we have discussed this morning?

Michael Volpe, SS&C Technologies

It probably shouldn't be a significant lift, Jeffrey. The way they have built their own portals, their portals have to talk to their middleware through what are called APIs. And what we're suggesting is that perhaps they expose those same APIs for a select subset of the functions to our portal technology to bring those same features and functions to the participant through our portal rather than theirs.

From a technology perspective, it's just a different calling application and should not be a significant lift.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Well, Michael, it's 2025. I appreciate the conversation. I think there's a lot of really good technology being implemented in the benefit space to make it easier for consumers to connect with their benefits.

Really appreciate you joining us. And look, we wish you all the best for 2025. And we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.

Michael Volpe, SS&C Technologies

Thank you very much, Jeffrey. Happy New Year to you and everyone you love.

Jeffrey H. Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And don't forget to subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Morning Pulse, for all the news in one place. Details, of course, at our website. And we're back again tomorrow for another edition of BRN.

Until then, I'm Jeff Snyder. Stay safe, keep on saving. And don't forget, roll with the changes.