Leveraging Claims to Avoid Hardship with Voya's Mona Zielke

Today’s episode features host Nate Black, vice president, Health Solutions Product Development. With benefits elections coming up, we know that a big part of helping the workforce engage and take the time to enroll in their benefits is to provide the right education. With that as a backdrop, Nate is joined by Mona Zielke, SVP of Workplace Solutions Employee Operations and Claims at Voya, to talk more about how voluntary benefits, including supplemental health insurance, can be used. When a covered event occurs, these benefits are paid directly to the insured and they can be used as they choose including on out-of-pocket medical expenses. In some cases, they may offer the potential to help prevent or minimize hardship withdrawals in one’s retirement account. 

Mona Zielke is a Registered Representative of Voya Financial Partners, LLC (member SIPC).  

Insurance is issued by ReliaStar Life Insurance Company (Minneapolis, MN) and ReliaStar Life Insurance Company of New York (Woodbury, NY). Within the State of New York, only ReliaStar Life Insurance Company of New York is admitted, and its products issued. Both are members of the Voya® family of companies. Voya Employee Benefits is a division of both companies. Product availability and specific provisions may vary by state. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You are listening to The Hire Through Retire podcast, brought to you by Voya Financial. We are talking to the best and brightest in the industry to bring you the latest in benefits, savings, and investment trends in the workplace, tackling all things from 4 0 1 Ks to HSAs and everything in between. Come along with us on our journey to help all individuals become well-planned, well invested, and well protected.

Speaker 2: 0:26

Welcome back to the Hire Through Retire podcast. I'm Nate Black and I lead our health product development team here at Voya, and I'm very excited to be back again today as your host for our episode. For those of you who have been tuning in to some of our recent episodes, you know that we've been talking a lot about open enrollment and the exciting news, at least if you're a benefits nerd like me, is that we're now officially in the open enrollment season . So with benefits elections in full swing, we know that a big part of helping the workforce engage and take the time to enroll in their benefits is to provide the right education. With that as a backdrop, we thought we'd dive deeper today on some of those voluntary benefits, including supplemental health insurance to understand a little bit more about these benefits. Joining me to help kick off this conversation is our very own Mona Zuke , senior Vice President of Workplace Solutions Employee Operations and Claims at Voya. Mona, welcome to the podcast and thanks so much for joining today.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Thanks, Nate . Happy to be here today.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Mona, before we start our conversation, I wanted to set the stage a little bit. We know from industry research that about two thirds of bankruptcies are actually caused by medical expenses, and we also know that during our working years, healthcare costs directly impact our retirement savings as some of our own customer data Here at Voya shows that unexpected medical expenses are the number one reason for hardship withdrawals from a retirement plan. The challenge here is that in addition to the tax penalty and dipping into the retirement savings, which means retirement may be postponed because of the lost savings. One solution that we know can help employees manage these financial shocks from healthcare expenses is to consider supplemental health products . These products are sometimes called voluntary, but uh, these days we say they shouldn't really be voluntary based on the consumer need. Can you talk a little bit more about these solutions and what might be helpful for employers to be sharing with their workforce when it comes to really understanding these offerings?

Speaker 3: 2:29

Yes, thanks, Nate. Employees typically spend most of their time focused on core workplace benefits like medical, dental, and vision. But when hit with a medical emergency, this sole focus could put an employee in their family in a challenging financial situation if they get hit with unexpected medical expense. When employers are offering supplemental benefits like accident, hospital indemnity and critical illness insurance, we know that employees feel that these supplemental health insurance benefits are very much valued and part of their overall health insurance and retirement benefits. Employers not only need to understand their value, but they need to educate their workforce on understanding how these solutions can really be a benefit.

Speaker 2: 3:16

Yeah, that that's great context, Mona. And one of the stats that we've seen from our own research that highlights the value I think that employers should be thinking about is that 56% of employed Americans are actually more likely to stay with their employer if they're offered access to supplemental health products like critical illness hospital indemnity and accident insurance. So point being, we know the need is there for products like hospital indemnity and critical illness, but how can employers actually go about getting their workforce to not just review and receive information, but actually take action and enroll in these products?

Speaker 3: 3:53

Best practices surrounding engagement and ultimately that transferring to enrollment are meeting your employees where they're at , um, with engagement tools, providing real life examples, short videos, overviews with details of the plans and the cost . It's important to sequence the education and enrollment, capturing that right after the medical to tie the story together. It's not always feasible for every employer, but an active enrollment for the new voluntary benefits the first year you offer them is also really important and encouraged to help people select those benefits because humans tend to go the path of no action if given the option. Understanding helps them with the overall employer satisfaction and benefits programs that you're offering them.

Speaker 2: 4:42

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for those tips, Mona. And I'm certainly one of those people guilty, even though I work in the benefits world of if I'm given the option of no action, I tend to say the force inertia has a big impact on certainly the, the decisions I make. So great tips for employers to consider there. But now once we've got people enrolled in these products and they, they've taken one of our, our supplemental health products, we know there's also a need to make it really easy to actually engage with the , so understand how to use them to file a claim. And sometimes there's a perception that insurers are these evil entities that one will avoid paying claims, but that couldn't be further from the truth here at Voya and across the industry. As we think about these products, could you share a little bit more about the need and the opportunity that we actually see around the claims process with our supplemental health products?

Speaker 3: 5:31

Yes, Nate, that is a true misconception. Supplemental health insurance carriers really do want their insureds to use their policies that they pay for with their hard-earned dollars. Ways to create that inertia is basic engagement and education for employees throughout the benefit plan year to remind them of these valuable benefits and remind them of how they work. It can't be just a one and done . It's a constant reminder that employees have these benefits. Insurance carriers are looking for ways to proactively engage insureds so they can get the most out of the benefits, making it easy to file a claim once they have one.

Speaker 2: 6:12

So once , uh, once somebody actually has a need to file a claim, can you walk us through what that might look like for an insured and , and what steps they go through?

Speaker 3: 6:22

Yes. Based on our experience, the majority of insureds prefer to use a digital method to file their claims. Most supplemental insurance carriers offer an online website to submit their claims. Today, an accident claim will typically in com include completing information about who was injured , um, the type of injury or accident that it was, and then submitting the documentation, usually including , um, an after visit , um, doctor summary, basically anything outlining what the accident was and the injuries that were sustained. That way the insurance company can review that documentation and pay the claim if they don't have all of the documentation right up front . A lot of times the claims examiner will reach out directly to the insured and request that additional information, trying to make it as EAs as easy as they can on the insured so that the claim can be paid timely.

Speaker 2: 7:21

Yeah. I know you and your team have invested a tremendous amount in making that process easy and in the industry as a whole as well as certainly focused on that on One of the things that we've talked about as a business quite a bit is something we call claims integration as a way to make it easy for that insured . Can you talk a little bit more about what we mean by claims integration and the opportunity there?

Speaker 3: 7:44

Many insurance carriers are developing ways to integrate all of the products and insured has when they file a claim, making it easier for the employee. Even further innovation exists where several supplemental insurance carriers are able to integrate with an employer-sponsored medical insurance. If an employee is enrolled in both their medical and their supplemental health plans, usually the claimant is coming to the carrier to file a claim during a challenging time. So the integrations are important to make it easy and help them with the financial shock associated with the event. The other way that carriers are making it easier besides medical claim integration is integrating short-term disability to supplemental health. We have an example where we had an employee who suffered a serious motorcycle accident that prevented them from working for several months. The employee filed a short-term disability insurance claim, which was approved. However, thanks to the autopay integration, Voya determined that this individual was also eligible for both accident and hospital indemnity benefits. As a result, the employer received an additional $13,000 in benefit payments for the covered event he experienced. I think carriers are, are continuing to find ways to get benefits in insured's hands today.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Wow , that thanks for sharing all of that. Mona and I, I know that you and the team and others across the industry as well are spending a lot of time thinking about how do we make this as easy as possible for our employees. Hopefully this is something that employers will find valuable as they , as they're thinking about messaging and sharing information with their employees and planning for this upcoming open enrollment.

Speaker 3: 9:26

Thanks, Nate, for the opportunity today to talk about claims as we go through this open enrollment period . Enroll .

Speaker 2: 9:32

Yeah, and thank you Mona, and thank you to our listeners. Hopefully you learned a little bit more about supplemental health products and how they can help address what is a key need for many of our employees today around managing medical expenses . As we're in open enrollment season. Hope these insights are valuable for you and your workforce, and remember, when it comes to utilization of your benefit offerings, education is key. Thanks for joining us today and hope you stay well.

Speaker 1: 9:57

This information is provided by Voya for your education only. Neither Voya nor representatives offer tax or legal advice any opinions expressed within, do not necessarily reflect those of the Voya family of companies or its representatives and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Please consult your tax or legal advisor before making a tax related investment or insurance decision.