Highlights
- Benefits enrollment involves employees selecting coverage like health and retirement plans during specific periods.
- Leveraging technology, such as online platforms, and clear communication strategies simplifies benefits enrollment and improves accuracy for both HR and employees.
- At CertiPay, we offer benefits administration services with our i-Enroller platform to streamline enrollment, manage compliance, and reduce paperwork. Contact us to learn more!
HR tasks can take up a lot of your organization’s time and energy. One of the benefits administration tasks that can be most time-consuming and confusing is benefits enrollment. Too often, there’s a mound of information and paperwork to complete during benefits enrollment. This, combined with different and conflicting systems, can make enrollment a headache.
Let’s explore the basics of benefits enrollment and how you can simplify it for both your employees and your HR team.
Let’s get started!
What Is Benefits Enrollment?
Benefits enrollment is when employees select and enroll in various benefits offered by their employer, such as health insurance, dental coverage, vision plans, life insurance, and retirement plans.
Whether it’s making sure you’ve got good healthcare coverage or planning for retirement down the road, benefits enrollment is all about carefully analyzing the options available and making informed choices about what matters most.
Key Enrollment Periods
When discussing benefits enrollment, it’s helpful to understand the different circumstances under which employees can enroll or make changes to their benefits.
Here are the main types:
New Hire Enrollment
Also known as “initial enrollment”, this takes place when an employee first joins a company. As part of their onboarding process, employees are required to select and enroll in the benefits of their choice.
How long do new hires have to enroll in benefits? Most times, employees will have a 30-day timeframe from their date of hire to complete their benefits enrollment. However, some companies might offer a slightly longer enrollment window, such as 60 days from the date of hire.
Annual Enrollment
Often referred to as “open enrollment”, this is a designated period that occurs annually, typically towards the end of the calendar year.
During open enrollment, all eligible employees can:
- Review their current benefit elections
- Make changes to their existing coverage
- Enroll in new benefits for the upcoming plan year
- Opt out of coverage if desired.
Personal needs and circumstances might change over a year, and annual enrollment gives employees the chance to adjust benefits.
Special Enrollment
This occurs outside of the annual enrollment window, when an employee experiences a qualifying life event, such as:
- Marriage or divorce
- Birth or adoption of a child
- Loss of other coverage
- Change in employment status (impacting eligibility)
- Change in residence (affecting plan availability)
Going through any of these events allows employees to make changes to their benefits within a limited timeframe (for example, 30 days from the event).
What Are the Challenges in Benefits Enrollment?
Managing vast amounts of paperwork — From distributing and collecting enrollment forms to tracking and verifying employee information, the administrative burden can quickly become overwhelming, particularly for small businesses. With an overloaded team, the risks of errors and inefficiencies increase, and can have a negative impact on the enrollment experience.
Ensuring compliance with ever-changing regulations — You must stay informed about changes to laws such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as well as any industry-specific regulations. Failure to comply can result in costly penalties and legal consequences, adding unnecessary stress and financial burdens to your business.
Effectively communicating the details of your benefit plans to employees — Let’s face it: employee benefit plans are not always easy to understand. They often involve various coverage levels and associated costs that can be challenging to grasp. When this information isn’t conveyed well, it can generate confusion, frustration, and employees making choices that don’t truly meet their needs.
How to Make Benefits Enrollment Easier
Leverage Technology to Save Time and Boost Accuracy
If you haven’t moved your enrollment process online, now is the time.
Nobody likes paperwork. It is confusing, it takes up too much space and it can be overwhelming for both employees and the employer. By taking your benefits enrollment process online, you can make life easier for everyone involved.
Moving your forms from paper to electronic helps your HR team manage new hires and update existing employees’ information quickly. It helps you save valuable time and resources otherwise wasted with paper forms, and it gives your team the ability to view and update records in one location to streamline the entire process.
Using an online benefits enrollment platform, you can:
- Improve form accuracy. Self-service portals give employees time to review forms and respond at their convenience — employees no longer feel rushed and can review options thoroughly and discuss options with other family members. A user-friendly platform keeps everything centralized, minimizing the workload on HR teams.
- Automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks. From data entry to document management, benefits enrollment software can reduce the risk of errors and keep you on top of important deadlines and compliance requirements with automated workflows and notifications.
- Save on cost and employees’ time. Overbilling by insurance companies isn’t just common, it is an unfortunate reality. Technology is your best weapon to combat the costs associated with this issue.
At Certipay, we use the i-Enroller program for benefits enrollment, management, and communication for mid-sized to large employers and brokers. Learn more about i-Enroller and reach out to us if you have more questions!
Develop Effective Communication Strategies
A well-structured benefits communication strategy reduces confusion and helps employees make smart decisions.
Develop clear and concise materials explaining each of your benefit plans, including coverage details, costs, and eligibility criteria. Then, outline the timeline, key messages, and channels for disseminating information.
Combine multiple communication channels, from email campaigns and in-person meetings to webinars and FAQ sections on your company’s intranet. That way, you can be sure that no employee is left behind.
Streamline Your Benefits Enrollment Process with CertiPay
Managing benefits enrollment might seem a complex process, but with the right strategies and solutions, it doesn’t have to be.
At CertiPay, we provide benefits administration services that simplify the enrollment process, mitigate risks, and ensure compliance with relevant regulations. Our easy-to-use online enrollment platform allows you to manage new hires, qualifying events, or open enrollment, saving tons of time and eliminating paperwork.
By partnering with us, you can benefit from cutting-edge technology, expert guidance, and personalized support throughout the enrollment journey. Contact us today to get started!
