Help Your Employees With Their New Year's Resolution

2012. Another new year arrives full of hope and great expectations -- as well as new resolve

While we clear the clutter and our heads from another busy holiday season, a common new year's resolution is to get the family's financial affairs in order. As we transition toward income tax season, it's a common time of the year where individuals and their families take inventory of their financial situation. These assessments should include a review of insurance programs that protect individual and family assets.

For many Americans, this year's review might bring to light some alarming gaps in their personal financial protection. Several years of a struggling economy coupled with continued escalation in the cost of obtaining health insurance have resulted in a substantial reduction or elimination of many critical insurance programs. Consider the following facts:

• The percentage of U.S. households that have any kind of individual life insurance is at a 50-year low. One in four households rely only on the coverage provided to them at work.

• Most people are better prepared financially in case of death than if they get disabled, even though the chances are at least three to five times greater that a disability will occur. Seventy percent of the private sector workforce has no long-term disability insurance.

• The number one cause of personal bankruptcy is medical bills, even though 78 percent of those filing had health insurance.

As you consider these facts, also consider how these realities affect your employees. In your effort to offer an affordable employee benefits program have you reduced, eliminated or ignored critical elements of a benefits program such as life and disability insurance coverage?

It may be easy to assume that your employees are seeking and obtaining these coverages outside of their place of employment, but the reality is eight in 10 households do not have a personal insurance agent or broker and most say they never did. Ask yourself, when was the last time someone contacted you directly to review your personal life insurance and disability coverage? Research shows that most insurance programs are purchased at work and that doing so is the preference of employees.

There's been an unspoken promise that employers provide financial security to their employees. Most of our parents worked in an environment where employers not only provided health, life and disability insurance but also pension plans that provided security beyond employment. Economic realities today no longer allow employers to provide what our parents perhaps had, but there are ways that we can provide resources and products that allow employees to secure needed coverage -- and, potentially, at no additional cost to you as their employer.

Your Digital benefits consultant can help you understand ways to provide your employees with the tools they need to provide additional financial protection. We offer a comprehensive suite of life, disability and supplemental health products that can enhance your current employee benefits plan, which can be funded entirely or partially by the employee. Additionally, using Digital's nationwide strength as leverage, there are many advantages that your employees will gain -- advantages that wouldn't be available to them individually. Most of the coverage can be secured on a guaranteed issue basis. So, if employees wish to obtain coverage, they will get it regardless of personal and family health history. You may integrate these benefits into your employee benefits plan at any time of the year, not just during your annual health plan renewal.

Ask your Digital benefits consultant for more information today.