The employee benefits industry is slowly moving away from paper. Nefouse & Associates is an Indiana Health Insurance Agency that provides a full-service benefit admin platform that can be used for benefits and employee onboarding.
Not that long ago, only large employers had the resources for a benefit administration system. That has changed in the last few years. With technology evolving the benefit administration systems dropped significantly in cost. Here at Nefouse & Associates, we spent a great deal of time researching the best benefit admin system that we could offer our clients as a provided service. We focused on a platform that could be used for small & mid-sized Indiana businesses. A few key components of our platform are ease of use by both employer and employee. Easily customizable, a streamline builds out process that does not take weeks, or days but hours. A smartphone app for younger employees who like information on demand.
The goal of online benefit administration is to eliminate the need for paper forms, reduce errors, save time, and have one platform for benefits & HR.
A benefits administration system will help employees reduce errors, eliminate unreadable handwriting & prevent missing information. Employees can compare health plan options side by side and see payroll deductions prior to making plan elections. Digital signatures complete the benefit elections process.
Controller has access to real-time updates on the enrollment processes. Controller then can remind employees directly that they need to complete the enrollment process.
Employees only must enter their demographics one time in the benefits admin system. That information then can be transposed to multiple insurance policy applications or electronic digital feeds (EDI). With no more need for duplicate data entry, an employee can save time during the enrollment process. Employees can go home and have their spouse review insurance benefits offerings
Access to employee insurance enrollments, generate enrollment reports, eliminate incomplete employee applications & create a payroll deduction summary for all plan elections. Electronic Data (EDI) Information feed from the benefit administration platforms can send member enrollments directly to the insurance companies. All these benefit administration features save controllers and HR time. These admin systems can maximize HR productivity by shifting time from benefits administration to other higher-value activities.
Benefits administration systems have the capability to generate multiple types of reports. This reporting can save hours of manually calculating employee and employer benefit deductions. During open enrollment, an employer can quickly create a report on employee election changes.
Welcome new hires with personal communication giving them access to the benefit administration systems. There is value in starting the employee onboarding and benefits election process once that employee accepts the job offer.
Most benefit admin systems have advanced technology to offer additional services. One of those services is hiring new employees with simple onboarding. A new hire can have a positive second impression by logging in to a benefits admin system that has been customized to their new employer. On-boarding can consist of collecting W-4, I-9, emergency contact, bank account info for direct deposit, company handbook, and reviewing any custom document pertaining to their new employer. The feature of obtaining a digital signature for all onboarding documents simplifies the entire process.
Another feature that is gaining value is when a potential employee would like to review the insurance benefit prior to accepting the job offer. Our platform can give that potential hire access to the insurance benefits.
With companies that have reporting requirements under the ACA, the benefits admin platform can save hours of data collection. A good system should provide an applicable large employer calculator (ALE) which can determine if a group is required to report under the ACA. Then have the option of generating those reports from the benefit admin system.
Cobra administration integration is now an option for most benefit admin systems. Multiple third-party administrators (TPA) are contracting with the admin system to streamline offering Cobra to qualified beneficiaries. Within the benefit admin system, when an employee is terminated the communication goes directly to the TPA and they administer the Cobra offer. The goal is to where the employer only must touch the termination one time.
The benefit administration system also integrates additional HR services. Humana esource information system (HRIS) provides human resource management which can aid in a company’s growth and employee communication. HRIS tools can provide personal time off (PTO) tracking, company statistics, performance reviews, company directories, employee events, company calendars, and the ability to send employee surveys.
The benefits admin system incorporates payroll integration with the services they offer. Having one integrated system for benefits administration & payroll eliminates the need for duplicated data entry. When an employee has a payroll, deduction change from a benefit election, the systems automatically update. Most companies that offer payroll services are contracting with a benefit administration platform.
If your payroll company is not integrated with the benefits administration platform, most bene admin systems will allow a deduction report to be generated which then can be uploaded into the payroll vendor.
