This open enrollment season, employees are looking at benefits differently

An employee facing a serious diagnosis. A parent suddenly unable to work. A family navigating the loss of someone they love. In these moments, benefits are no longer an election on a form or a deduction from a paycheck. They become a source of financial stability and reassurance when life takes an unexpected turn.

We also see what happens when employees don’t fully understand their coverage, overlook benefits that could help them, or discover too late that they declined protection they now wish they had.

That perspective feels especially relevant this open enrollment season. Employees are entering the enrollment period with recent affordability trends top of mind and are scrutinizing the cost of their benefits accordingly. New research from New York Life Group Benefit Solutions found that 71% of employees closely evaluate whether voluntary benefits provide good value for their money, rising to 83% among Gen Z workers. At the same time, 54% cite inflation and the cost of living as a leading concern, and only 49% say they feel financially secure.

What’s different isn’t that employees care more about cost. It’s that benefits are increasingly being evaluated as part of a larger financial picture.

From what we see in claims, that’s an important shift. Benefits elections are deeply personal financial decisions, and their true impact is often felt long after enrollment ends.

Our research reinforces this reality. Seventy-one percent of employees closely evaluate whether voluntary benefits provide good value for their money, rising to 83% among Gen Z workers. Yet 65% haven’t used or explored voluntary benefits outside open enrollment.

Employees are increasingly evaluating benefits as financial investments, but many disengage once enrollment ends. That disconnect deserves our attention.

The Financial Impact Is Personal

In claims, we see how quickly financial security can change. An unexpected illness can interrupt income. An accident can create unanticipated expenses. A prolonged recovery can place emotional and financial pressure on an entire family.

During these moments, employees aren’t thinking about insurance features. They’re thinking about paying their mortgage, caring for their children, and protecting their future.

With 54% of employees citing inflation and the cost of living as a leading concern, and only 49% feeling financially secure, it’s understandable that workers are scrutinizing the value of their benefits.

But the most important question isn’t always, “Is this benefit worth the cost?”

It’s “What would this protection mean for me and my family if life doesn’t go as planned?”

Helping employees answer that question before a crisis is where employers can make a lasting difference.

Closing the Benefits Activation Gap

In an earlier article, I introduced the Benefits Activation Gap: the disconnect between enrolling in benefits and confidently accessing and using them when they’re needed.

The latest research helps explain why that gap persists. Employees are putting significant thought into their benefits decisions, increasingly evaluating coverage through the lens of financial security and value. Yet many disengage after enrollment, leaving them less prepared to navigate benefits when a health event, disability, or other life change occurs.

That makes this open enrollment season an opportunity to do more than help employees make elections. It’s a chance to help them understand the financial protection behind those elections and how that protection can support them throughout the year.

In other words, the challenge isn’t getting employees to enroll. It’s helping them understand, activate, and use the protection they’ve elected.

Nearly 90% of employees know how to enroll and where to find benefits information, yet only 36% fully understand their potential out-of-pocket medical costs. And while 49% identify supplemental health insurance among the benefits they’d most like to receive, only 15% say they’re aware their employer offers supplemental voluntary benefits.

Access to information isn’t the same as understanding, and understanding doesn’t always translate into action.

From a claims perspective, that distinction matters. We encounter employees surprised by what their coverage includes, uncertain about how to file a claim, or unaware of benefits that may be available. Others discover coverage gaps when it’s too late to make a different election.

These aren’t minor administrative misunderstandings. They can create real stress during already difficult moments.

The question for employers is whether benefits success should be measured only by enrollment—or also by how effectively coverage supports employees when life happens.

Life Doesn’t Follow the Benefits Calendar

Open enrollment may be when employees make many benefits decisions, but it isn’t when most employees experience the outcomes of those decisions.

Employees experience benefits through life’s milestones and challenges, not enrollment cycles.

A new child. A serious diagnosis. An unexpected disability. Caring for an aging parent.

Yet half of employees think primarily about benefits during open enrollment, and only 15% think about them throughout the year.

Benefits education needs to follow the employee’s life, not just the employer’s calendar.

That means connecting coverage to real situations: how disability benefits may protect income, how supplemental health insurance can help with eligible expenses, and how life insurance supports loved ones through loss.

Employees are asking for that guidance. Fifty-nine percent want more benefits education, and 62% want greater flexibility in how and where they receive it.

The opportunity isn’t more communication for its own sake. It’s relevant, accessible education that helps employees make confident decisions before they need to rely on their coverage.

What Claims Can Teach Us

One reason I believe the Benefits Activation Gap deserves more attention is that claims provide a unique view into the employee experience.

In enrollment data, we see the choices employees make. In claims, we see what happens when those choices are put to the test.

We see employees who understood exactly how their coverage could help them. We also see employees who are surprised by what a benefit covers, unsure how to access support, or unaware of protections available to them.

Those moments reveal an important truth: enrollment is not the finish line.

The true value of a benefit is realized when employees can confidently access it during some of the most challenging moments in their lives.

From a clinical and claims perspective, that means benefits education isn’t about helping employees make elections. It’s about helping them understand how those elections connect to real-life situations long before they need to file a claim.

When employers can close that gap, benefits become more than a line item on a paycheck. They become what employees need them to be: a source of financial protection, stability, and support when life doesn’t go according to plan.

The True Measure of Value

The business case is compelling. Half of employees surveyed say stronger benefits options would make them more likely to stay with their employer, while one-third would be more likely to recommend their employer to others.

But beyond retention and engagement, I believe this is fundamentally about trust.

Trust begins when employees understand their choices. It grows when they know where to turn. And it’s reinforced when benefits deliver meaningful support during life’s most vulnerable moments.

As employees become more intentional about the financial value of their benefits, employers must be equally intentional about helping them understand and access that value.

That’s the opportunity this open enrollment season brings. Not to get employees through another enrollment period, but to help them make decisions they understand, connect those decisions to the financial realities of their lives, and know how to put their coverage to work when they need it.

Open enrollment will always be an important moment. But it should be the beginning of an ongoing conversation about financial protection, wellbeing, and the people who depend on us.

Because the true value of a benefit isn’t measured by the decision to purchase it. It’s measured by the difference it makes in someone’s life when they need it most.

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