Term life insurance, open enrollment, and the scams that target families when they are most vulnerable, this episode breaks down how to make sure your coverage actually protects the people you love. Guest Phillip Snyder, CLU of The Warner Companies joins us to explain how to review your full benefits menu, calculate the right amount of life insurance for your family, spot open enrollment scams before they cost you, and take advantage of the help built into good benefits plans.
Transcript:
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, joining me now is Philip Snyder. He’s the Senior Vice President with the Warner Companies.
And for full disclosure, if you haven’t figured it out, he’s also my dad. Dad, it’s great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Hi, Jeff. You know, it’s always a pleasure. You’re doing well.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, thank you. Good to see you. And I should point out that this tie is something you gave to me as a gift.
So I wore it especially for you. You know, Dad, it’s open enrollment period for many businesses, not-for-profits, anybody who offers employee benefits. And I thought what I would do is, I know that you focus mostly on life insurance and executive benefits, but your practice in your firm does have health enrollment and things like that.
So what I thought I would do is just ask you, may we go over some best practices for this open enrollment period? So let me start with a basic question here. In your mind, how does open enrollment work?
Is it through mail? Is it through paper? Is it through digital?
Let’s start there.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Probably all of the above.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Okay.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
So, you know, everybody has their challenges. So some people are proficient in one and not the other two or vice versa. So I think most open enrollments today are all three alternatives.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Okay. So that’s a good start. And, you know, you try to appeal to as many constituencies as you can, because there’s, I think this is the first time in American history that we have all these generations, your generation, my generation, younger generations all working, and they all have different ways of consuming information.
So that’s really important. In terms of the types of benefits, let’s talk about that. I mentioned healthcare, but there’s other things that are embedded in these employee benefits programs.
So what should people be thinking about when they get that packet?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Well, of course, healthcare is probably the number one and the most expensive, but they should also be thinking about enrollment and their contributions to retirement plans.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Okay.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
You should be looking at life insurance, how much life insurance does my employer provide? Are there options to buy more for me, for my family members? They should be looking at disability benefits.
They should be looking at probably vision and dental benefits. All those things are typically incorporated in a benefits package. And others, there’s all type of wellness benefits and things of that nature.
So all those have to be considered. Generally, it’s not that complicated, unless you totally are inexperienced at doing it, in which case you can always get help from your employer’s HR department or benefits people. But nevertheless, you have a full range of things to pick from.
And there could be, in addition to that, voluntary benefits. Anything from pet insurance to long-term care insurance to, oh, a whole host, probably eight or 10 different things that could be on the menu.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Let me follow up on that. One thing I wanted to ask you about is caregiving. A lot of people working now are caregivers.
They may have a loved one. They may have children. Are you seeing more in terms of those voluntary type benefits?
Are you seeing more employers consider these types of benefits? I know it’s not part of your direct practice, but the firm that you’re a partner in offers benefits.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
I think most employers are looking at what value am I delivering in these benefits to my employees? And of course, the flip side of that is, what benefit do I get as an employer from offering all these benefits? What value is in it for me?
And so I think you’re seeing more and more recognition of the day-to-day needs of people. We’re just not necessarily shoehorning people into a menu of benefits and limiting their options. I think the options are broader, and maybe they can be more targeted to the individual.
In fact, there are plans now, for example, health insurance plans that you can buy that are no longer the traditional types of plans. Through your employer, you can buy a plan that’s best suited for you in your local area. So you may not buy the plans that are national in that sense, but the more regional or local level plans that are best suited to you from local providers.
So there’s all kinds of moves afoot to help employees gain better value and teach them how to better use their plans.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So to that point, isn’t it in the best interest of the employer, whether it’s a not-for-profit, a union, a government, a for-profit, I want to make sure I cover my bases, to offer a robust set of benefits because it makes them competitive and it makes them able to attract employees because employees are not just looking at the retirement or the health and retirement benefit today.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Yeah, no question about it. Retention is a big thing. You want to keep your good people because the cost of replacing your good people can be extremely high.
And you want people to feel a sense of, I’m going to say, loyalty. Maybe that’s a strong word in this case.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, it’s pretty strong today.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
But a sense of appreciation that my employer is really doing the best it can to help me not only through the array of what’s offered to me as an employee, an array of benefits, but helping me to figure out what from that menu would best serve my family.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So I think there’s a big move afoot in that area. I think you got to be able to, as I said before, there are so many generations that are not working. People, older people, mature people are still working longer.
They want to work. They want to contribute. So you kind of have to find that sweet spot.
Let me ask you about life insurance because that’s a benefit. First of all, this is right in your wheelhouse and we’ve talked to you about it before. Right.
Life insurance gets offered by the employer. How do you figure out if it’s enough for you and your family? And also, what are my options to go outside of the employer if I need to fill some of those gaps?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Well, in its simplest terms, I guess you’re figuring out what if I’m not here any longer and my family’s dependent on my income, what money are they going to need to pay off my home, to educate the children, daily expenses of living, and things of that nature. And just quantify that to the best of your ability. It’s a little bit of a crapshoot in the sense that you really don’t know what the future is going to bring.
But at the same time, if you’re going to use term insurance, it’s so inexpensive today, whether it’s through your employer or you go out and buy it on your own. It’s so inexpensive that you can buy so much life insurance for very little money. For people who typically are young families, raising kids, going to send them to college, hopefully, and so forth.
It’s relatively inexpensive to do that.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
How do you… So you mentioned going to HR. I mean, HR has a limited set of pool of resources.
Then there are benefit firms like yours. But how do you get sort through all this? Because if you’re new to…
Say you’re fresh out of college, or you haven’t worked in many years. You’re probably new to the benefits process. And by the way, it changes year to year.
So how do you get those answers? And my second part of that question, I want you to contemplate this, is the use of artificial intelligence. Are people using firm made chatbots and things to get the answers they need?
Is that a good thing or a bad thing, or the jury’s out?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Well, I think what’s happening today is that employers are looking for vendors who are not just going to offer product, but they’re going to help their employees, educate them, teach them, whether it’s webinars, whether it’s one-on-one conversations, chatbots, whatever the case may be. The idea is to help employees make good decisions. And so sometimes they’re one-on-ones, maybe they’re brief chats on the phone.
There’s call centers, you can call in to get help. There’s those kinds of things because to be a successful plan, it has to work effectively for the employees. Otherwise, and that creates a bond.
If employees choose the right benefits and value those benefits and appreciate those benefits, then that creates a bond of a sort between the employee and that creates some level of loyalty and maybe a stronger work ethic. So I think that’s the focus.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Let me ask you about privacy, not in the generic sense, but obviously there’s a lot of talk on Capitol Hill, state governments, local governments about privacy. I would imagine that, I grew up in the retirement industry as you of course know, and the audience knows. Back then we actually put, when I started in record keeping, we actually took social security numbers off the confirmations and also the statements.
That is really, privacy is really sacrosanct. I mean, my data is my data, what the employer has in there. How does that kind of factor in?
Does that come up in conversations when you’re talking to your prospects or your clients?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Yeah, of course, absolutely. I mean, everybody’s worried about security. Security of their information.
I mean, the proliferation of information in the hands of bad actors is a major issue today and probably going to be a major issue long into the future. It might even get worse than it is now. So protecting information is very, very important.
So if we’re communicating, we’re using secure websites and things of that nature. So we’re managing the confidentiality of the information and the decision-making as well as we can under the circumstances.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And no one, and I want to get your sense for this when it comes to the digital, because you mentioned like text and things like that. No one is going to solicit you for your social security number, your credit card information, your address. None of that stuff will be done just randomly.
You would say, hey, this is Jane Doe from XYZ company. That is, that does not happen.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
No, it doesn’t. That doesn’t happen. It happens in the real world because people get scammed all the time.
I have to go through monthly educational programs every month and occasionally I fall for one too. You try and be vigilant. You try and be smart.
You try not to open things and access things that you don’t know about. The problem is much of what’s being sent to people today looks really valid. And so you’ve got to learn not to open, really you shouldn’t open anything that you haven’t solicited.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Right, and people are not, sorry to interrupt, but I mean, if you’re during open enrollment, people are not, they will have your social security and employee ID number. They do not need to ask for that information. Nobody needs that.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Yeah, anybody who you should be talking to who’s talking to you about benefits, employer sponsored, doesn’t, they already have that information.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, and the secured websites you were talking about, they usually use like two factor authentication, meaning authentication, meaning you have to get a code on your phone. So you shouldn’t be giving out your passwords, any of that stuff.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Everybody, every bank uses that, every financial institution, you know, investment firms, insurance companies, even today, everything has a dual means of verification. It’s really, sometimes it’s annoying to go through that, but that’s the world we live in. So you’ve got to protect yourself.
Don’t respond to anything you haven’t solicited.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, we know what’s really annoying is when you have to do a credit freeze or contact your bank because someone pilfered you. And this goes on. They prey on older, more mature people.
And people who are really sophisticated, smart people can be fooled. So this is not a dumb, this is not a not smart, smart issue.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
No, I was listening on the radio yesterday and they had a segment on about these companies that are out there that can furnish you with any kind of information you want on the population. And they gave us specific examples. Recent widows with family assets in excess of X.
The only purpose of that information is to target that group.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
That’s right.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Most of those people doing the targeting are probably not honorable people, you know?
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, really good point.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
It’s the world we live in.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
It’s the world we live in. It’s where we’re going to continue to live in, but we can have some level of control. Open enrollment’s here, Dad.
So really appreciate you sharing some insight. And look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
My only closing thought would be is be careful what you do and seek help. Most employers and brokers who are managing these plans are very interested in communicating directly with people to help them. So take advantage of that.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, you know, it’s really good recommendation. Dad, I gotta leave it. I gotta run.
I gotta go enroll. We’ll talk to you soon. Thanks for joining.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companes
Thanks. Thank you.
