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Welcome to This Week in Benefits, a new biweekly podcast from Mployer Advisor, the company that is changing the way employers search, evaluate, and select insurance advisors online.
In each episode, our team will bring you the latest news and industry updates in the world of employee benefits. We will break down top headlines, bring you interviews with industry insiders, and highlight market trends and stories we’re following.
In case you missed Episode 13, click here to listen and here for the show notes.
Date: October 19, 2022
Episode Season and Number: Season 1, Episode 14
Episode Title: A Peek Inside This Year's Open Enrollment Season With Derek Winn
In this week's episode, Abbey Dean (Mployer Advisor's Director of Content) interviews Derek Winn, a Benefits Advisor and Strategist at Business Benefits Group (BBG), about this year’s open enrollment season.
To listen to Episode 14 of This Week in Benefits, click here.
On-Demand Webinar: Economic Transition & Employee Impact with Derek Winn
Benefits Packages: How to Stand Out From the Crowd This Enrollment Season
Connect with Derek on LinkedIn
Abbey Dean: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of This Week in Benefits, a podcast from the team at Mployer Advisor where we explore and discuss all things employee benefits. I'm your host, Abby Dean, Mployer Advisor's, Director of Content, and thanks for being here today. In this week's episode, I am delighted to be joined by BBG's Derek Winn. Now, if you've been following along with Mployer Advisor's content for a while, you will know that he is no stranger to our channel. Although this is his first podcast episode. He's done a couple of webinars for us as well as contributed some content before on our blog, all of which I'll be linking in the show notes. But today we're talking to Derek because tis the season, tis the season for open enrollment, and I wanted to speak with Derek to have him describe the general mood going into the season compared to past years. If there's been any big shifts in what employers have been asking for or questioning or looking for advice surrounding. Obviously inflation is something we've mentioned in just about every episode and it's hard not to think about how that would weigh on employers during this time of year. So I got to pick his brain a little, and I'm excited to share my conversation with Derek with you.
Hi everyone, and welcome to today's episode. I am very, very excited because we have friend of Mployer Advisor and just general good person Derek Winn on today. How are you, Derek?
Derek Winn: I'm good, Abbey. Thanks so much for having me today.
Abbey Dean: Of course. Okay, so tell us who you are, what you do. Give us the elevator pitch for Derek Winn.
Derek Winn: Yeah, so Derek Winn is a really interesting guy let me tell you. I'm at BBG, Business Benefits Group. We're located outside D.C. we've been around for 27 years, so on and so forth. And I'm an employee benefits consultant. You can call me a broker, you can call me an advisor. At the end of the day, I help employers to pick the best insurance plans or design their own plans and really help to provide all of this sort support to be able to help the organization do what it needs to do to support its employees.
Abbey Dean: And you've been doing this for quite a while.
Derek Winn: Yeah, I've been doing this on this side of the desk for 11 years. Before this, I was actually a life and disability rep for a couple of years and decided to change one hat for another. So yeah, 12 years now.
Abbey Dean: Well, they're lucky to have you. I will link in our show notes a few different webinars. We've been lucky enough to do with Derek, but we actually did one last week that went incredibly well and was very well received. So I'll make sure to link that and where you guys can find Derek in the show notes.
Derek Winn: Yeah, you guys did a have me on and this on it.
Abbey Dean: Yeah, you did a good job. I didn't even talk. I didn't have to say anything. It was great.
Derek Winn: Thanks.
Abbey Dean: Okay, so we are talking to Derek today because it is his busy season. It is open enrollment season and there is a lot of challenges, maybe complexities is a better word coming into this season. And so I wanted to talk to Derek about how that's been going so far and if he's seeing any differences in how this season even compares to last year's. So Derek, first of all, how's it going so far?
Derek Winn: <laugh>, so far so good. I'm still here, so.
Abbey Dean: Has it been back to back packed meetings?
Derek Winn: Yeah, it's been pretty packed. I would say that it is an all seriousness a busier year than what we've seen in recent years, and I think there's a couple of different things we could attribute that to. I think the biggest driver for the busyness this year is that it's frankly not as easy as employers have seen in recent years. And there's a lot that boils into that. We've talked a lot about just the ricochet effects of Covid, right? And you go back to 2020, people weren't buying healthcare in 2020, so at least not in mass. So a lot of employers had some pretty decent renewals in the process.
And here we are today, utilization is up. We've got a lot of other nasty side effects to go along with it including mental health overall, a decline in health, I would say across the population. But also at the same time you've got earnings pressures from insurance companies, so they have to roll up good numbers to Wall Street and Wall Street isn't making it too easy for them this year with having good numbers to report. They're really looking for some standouts there. So I think all of these things combined with inflation and everything else, they're just making 2022 a bit of a headache for most employers right now.
Abbey Dean: Also, something we've been hearing a lot about, as I'm sure you have been too, are insurance rate filings and I think they're all released now, but even the 2023 preliminary rates were I think like 8% up year over year compared to this time last year or maybe a month ago. Is that something that has been a cause of concern or something you've been having to navigate with your employers?
Derek Winn: Yeah, I think all employers have reason to be concerned across the country. I'll put it that way when it comes down to everything from the filings that are being filed by insurers. But I'll tell you, they could even look at headlines in their hometown newspapers because for example, right now in DC we're seeing one of those stories start to unfold, which is between a very large health insurer Care First, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Johns Hopkins. And the current network dispute or contract dispute between the two of those where Johns Hopkins may no longer be a network. And I think it's really important for employers and employees to recognize when you have a dispute like that, it's not because someone wants to get paid less money. I'll say it's because they want to get paid more money. And at the end of the day, that trickles down to everything else.
So I think there's two things happening here. One are the actual filings. You've got insurance companies realizing that, hey, yeah, costs are going up. Let's not forget about the two years they went down. Where to be honest, even if employers didn't do as well, most insurance companies did. But now we have costs going up and it's in response to a bunch of these issues. It's in response to again, the decline in health, but it's also in response to the ask from hospitals and large medical groups that we expect to see more of. Right. We're going to continue to see more of that as we move forward into this year and next year to be honest. There's a lot of deeply rooted animosity between hospitals and insurers, but at the end of the day, they're frenemies, they can't live with each other, they can't live without each other either.
Abbey Dean: Are there shifts in what clients have been coming to you and asking for advice on, or have there been different types of maybe difficult conversations this year versus in past years?
Derek Winn: The conversations that have all been pretty difficult for the last couple of years? I'll say that much because I think, but I think when you back up, it's really interesting to see why. So if we go back to let's just say March, April, May of 2020, most employers just knew they wanted to do more. They wanted to do more to support their employees. They didn't want rock the boat with changing anything, but they wanted to add benefits, they wanted to increase workplace flexibility, they wanted to increase flexibility of when hours were worked. They wanted to provide added benefits in terms of disability pay, maybe parental leave, whatever it may have been. That was kind of 2020 in a nutshell. And don't forget, Covid is the headliner, but we also had a bunch of other issues going on, especially when it comes down to diversity, equity, inclusion, so on and so forth.
So I think that was a really unique year because everything kind of culminated there. And one of my big things to employers in that time was, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Let's have a balanced approach to this because this could all be very different a couple of years from now and fast forward to today. And I think there's a really interesting parody that's happening between employers and employees in the sense that employees had a couple of really good years too. If they previously commuted to and from work and now they're being asked to go back into the office ONPS, gas prices are at, I don't know, maybe an all time high or darn close to it, then there's going to be some added expenses there that they were not anticipating. And I think that story still also holds true for employers when it comes down to the added expenses for them to do business.
And I'm specifically talking about one labor cost going up that happens when you have extreme inflation in a very tight frothy labor market. I think you also have at the same time added cost of doing business. You've got vendors, you've got suppliers, you have raw materials, all of these things going up in cost. I think that all of those things have kind of culminated where employers and employees are again, living the same life of how do we deal with, how do we make the way through it, how long will it last? I think that's the big thing is who's going to cry uncle first? Where does this all end? I think we're all in the same boat when it came down to Covid. Now we just have one more thing that we're waiting for, which is when do things get back to normal?
Abbey Dean: Well, and I imagined if I was an employer coming into what I imagine would be a particularly difficult or complex renewal season, and I was worried about retaining talents that would also be at another level of tension or complexity to this. Is that fair?
Derek Winn: Oh, 100%. I think employers have been, they've been concerned about making that first move for a while now. Now they're in a position of, hey, something's going to have to break here. It's again, a very parallel life that everyone's living where they're going to have to come to the realization of, well, how do I recruit employees and retain the ones I have? And I think what's important for employers to start to think about in that is they have to take a look at, again, the total compensation.
Let me give you an example. Here's something to think about, right? We've been in conversations with clients in the past and they talk about how most candidates, most recruits that they're trying to hire are asking more than what they're starting most other employees at where they've started them at for a number of years. Now, well, at the end of the day, that employer is in the same situation as other employers.
So how are other employers able to get the job done? How are other employers able to gobble up those employees and gobble up that talent if at the end of the day everyone's dealing with the same costs? And I think what's important to keep in mind is that the paycheck itself that one employee receives is going to be different from both companies. And it gets to be really different when you start to break down the non-cash compensation. What are both companies doing for benefits? What are both companies doing for medical, dental, vision, life, disability, so on and so forth. And I think that's a plug Mployer Advisor, I think that's where you guys are doing a really great job, which is you're showing employers, here's where you stack up against your competitors in the fight for talent. You know, have to think about again, what's your total cost of benefit?
Are you contributing toward it? How much are you asking from your employees or your workforce? But also at the same time, how well-rounded is that benefits program? Again, I'm coming at this from a pretty unique perspective in the sense of being here in the nation's capital. We've got a ton of clients in the federal contracting space, and at the end of the day, they're all dealing with the same tools, which is, I've gotta pay a paycheck, I've gotta pay for benefits, I've got added costs that might be out there, but at the end of the day, I'm competing for the same contract against other businesses that have those same headaches too. So how are they getting it done? I think most businesses outside of DC find themselves in that same situation when they go for talent. But at the same time, we're also competing on a national footprint now for talent.
So I think it's getting to be really interesting. I think this is just maybe the second chapter of the story. It's going to continue to get really interesting too. Let me give just one example of what I mean by that. If we go back in time and we go back to 2020 when the world changed, let's say, and we saw a number of employers loosen up the reins over their workforce and say, okay, yeah, you can work from anywhere. Well that opened up new opportunities for employees, maybe some to go back home where they grew up, maybe some to go someplace where they want to live instead of looking at concrete all day. Now they're looking at a nice forest and lake somewhere. But that really started to change things. And what we also saw was we saw this huge exodus where a lot of individuals did and have been leaving public jobs, maybe at nonprofits, maybe at federal contractors, directly with the federal government for other fund jobs, for example, like Google, Amazon, so on and so forth.
Amazon is the big name here in town because of HQ Two. Well, what's interesting about that though is we don't typically see layoffs from the federal government. We might see pauses and things like that, but we're starting to see layoffs in the private sector. So how does that change things? Will things shift back into the favor of federal employers in those closely close proximity to the federal government? I don't know. But I do think it's an interesting place we find ourselves in. And again, like I said, it's only going to continue to get more interesting as we go from here.
Abbey Dean: No, I think those are great examples. Thank you for sharing. I think one thing I can't help but think of is, I hear you listen to that, is the sort of backlash that has come now from a lot of employees for employers asking them to come back to work. And you see those funny LinkedIn messages of people showing empty offices of, oh, hashtag work culture. So glad I had to come in two days a week. Yeah, that's what I think of too. And I don't even, is that something is navigating something like that or figuring out what to say, is that something brokers or employees should also be going and talking to their brokers about?
Derek Winn: Yeah, I do think so. And I'll say this because at the end of the day, your broker or Advisor has the rich experience of working with other companies, other businesses. In fact, they might even have been at your competitor's office that morning. So there's no harm in asking them like, hey, what are you seeing out there? What are you seeing other businesses do? And I think my takeaway on that should be anything you you're doing as a business should have a good business case and a story behind it. For example, don't just ask employees to come in two days a week, make it like, hey, we want you to have everybody here two days a week because we wanna make sure that we're having meetings in person. Because at the end of the day, we think it's important that we remember who we are, that we can have side talks, so on and so forth.
The thing about Zoom is we don't typically have water cooler talk on Zoom, right? Because there's 30 other people listening on a team meeting kind of thing. But I do think employers should be asking their broker advisor partners, what are you seeing others doing? What is in vogue and what's not? And I think they need to listen to that. I think they should also be asking employees along the way too. They should be asking employees for feedback on these. And I think you gotta be careful it doesn't turn into Lord and the Flies, but I do think there's still value in, hey, what would you like to have as an employee at our company? So on and so forth.
Abbey Dean: Well, and that's something you have advocated for consistently is the importance of doing surveys for instance. And I think you even talked about microsurveys doing one or two questions, but doing them every quarter or few months or something. Is that correct?
Derek Winn: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Surveys are boring, but you call it a mic <laugh> cool. But yeah, you're doing the same thing. It's just how can we make it bite sized to one, get more participation, but also at the same time, you don't really need to ask 20 questions on your benefits program. You probably only need to ask two or three, maybe have an open one, but you can do the same thing as far as the business, the workplace, the culture, so on and so forth. I think there's a great opportunity there.
Abbey Dean: So going along with the similar train of thought for employers tuning in today advice, general advice do you have for them about communicating with their broker? And I'm particularly conscious of the fact that I don't know how, if an employer is unsure, if their broker is advocating in their best interest, for instance, what, are the certain best practices you can recommend or anything that you think could help enhance that communication?
Derek Winn: Yeah, no, that's a really good question. I think that that topic gets a ton of attention especially when it comes around to this time of the year. What are some things I should be doing as the employer? And I think there's, one of the big things I would be thinking about is do you still have that same feeling when you get done with your renewal?
Do you still have that same feeling when you pick up the phone and call your broker with a service or support question or just a random off the wall question of, hey, what are you seeing our competitors doing? Or what should we be thinking about? And where I'm going with that is you should find yourself to be in a position where you can have that open dialogue. And if you're not finding that to be fruitful, you know, kind of think about it like a relationship.
If that's not working, there might be a reason why or maybe something else that might be better suited for the business out there. So I think what employers should be doing is asking themselves the same way we would ask ourselves after any kind of a service experience we have. Even if you go out to eat at a restaurant, how did you feel when it was all said and done? I think that's one of the biggest things that employers have to do because they have to know that there's a level of trust there if they don't feel like there's a level of trust there and that relationship may be broken. The second thing I think employers should do is they should approach everything with an open mind. And they should ask difficult questions of what if or what we don't do this. What if we do do this?
Or what if we don't do this? What does it look like? I think the benefits industry, and this is really exciting for me personally, I'm seeing more and more where employers have gotten away from the 120 question capability RFP to be able to choose their next broker. Do you provide, do provide X, Y, Z service? Which at the end of the day would cost the business 10 cents to do, or maybe it's free already, but it has to be a question on the RFP. I, I'm seeing more and more employers getting to the realm of saying, hey, I just want you to treat us like a client. I want to get some advice out of you, see if I can find some value and see if it's worth continuing conversation. I'm seeing more and more of that. We do still see RFPs but they've gotten a lot more strategic, I would say less of a checkbox type of an RFP and more of actual capabilities.
Abbey Dean: Interesting. Another question, do you think, and you alluded to this earlier, but do you think one of the reasons that this season is different or why it's different from the past two years is because so many more employers are dealing with remote employees or employees who could be working in a number of states?
Derek Winn: I think that is part of it. I think that's been a prevailing theme or trend is that employers wanna be cognizant that they might be an employer with two workforces, one local, one remote for example. That's a continuing conversation, but I think the bigger part of it is the shift away from the good times, I would say. Right. So let's back up for a second. When I first entered the industry, I entered in 2008. I was was just out of college, taught three years of high school and said, you know what? I'm done teaching high school. I want to go into this wonderful world of insurance. And my parents thought I was crazy cause I didn't understand what was going on with the economy at the time. I just knew that this could be a good career path for me. And I think what's interesting about that and where I'm going on that is I saw what recession era benefit programs looked like for employers and I saw how brokers were helping their clients make decisions.
And I think what's really interesting about that is 2008, gosh, what is that like 15 years ago now? Almost right now we're in a world where you might have people in the workforce today. In fact, you've got 15 years of people in the workforce today, never really lived through a recession. You've got businesses that are going to be in a position of having to make really, really difficult choices over the next few years as long as interest rates remain high, as long as talent remains short, as long as healthcare inflation and general inflation continues on the path that's on, employers are going to have to make really difficult decisions. And I think that's starting to manifest itself. And the employer is saying, Hey, let's pause on this a little bit longer than we normally let us actually take a look. Let's take a look at what a long-term strategic plan looks like. Let's take a look at where the biggest threats and also opportunities are for our benefits program today. I think that's actually driving a ton of it.
Abbey Dean: Is there anything else I haven't asked you yet or we haven't discussed that you think is really important to mention about this open enrollment season or anything at all?
Derek Winn: Yeah, I think the last thing I would say about this open enrollment decision is for employers not to get too far ahead of themselves. What's always the question of is how do employees feel going into open enrollment and what is that employer doing to put them at ease. I think employers have to understand there's a very particular mode and methodology, a method to the madness I guess you could say. When it comes down to how do you present benefits, how do you present changes, how do you help to make sure it's a good thing for all parties involved? I do think that employers are going to have to find themselves in a position of starting to sow the seeds of, hey, not just with benefits but just with everything. Hey, we need to think, be thinking about changes and we're asking everybody to partake in this.
When you are seeing, no one's going to be surprised, right? Because when you're seeing companies like Amazon tell all of their management staff, hey, we need to be cognizant of how to cut costs that came out last week. We need to be as particularly frugal as a business. I think they need to have an open dialogue with their employees and how to do that. And I think there's ways they can do it through the benefits program. Just being one example and we've been doing that for years now, right? Trying to teach employees how to be better consumers when it comes down to buying healthcare. I think if you can encourage employees to start to buy healthcare the way they buy everything else, whether it's gas, groceries, etcetera, I think they're going to be paying more attention this year because everybody's trying to make a paycheck stretch a little bit further these days. So I think this is really a great opportunity for employers to actually give employees the tools to do it.
Abbey Dean: That was a lot of great insight, Derek Winn, thank you very much for taking some time to talk with us today. If people want to find you or learn more about you should I direct them to your LinkedIn or what would you prefer?
Derek Winn: Yeah, LinkedIn is great. I'm pretty active there. You can find me just by Googling my name. I don't think there's too many people out there like me with the same name.
Abbey Dean: <laugh>, you say that and then we're suddenly going to find 10 more Derek Winns who also happen to work in employee benefits.
Derek Winn: But I spell mine with five letters, so that's how you know <laugh>. Okay. Five letters.
Abbey Dean: Indeed. Thank you so much. We'll have to have you back on again sometime soon to maybe a post-enrollment season.
Derek Winn: Yeah, absolutely. Happy to do that.
Abbey Dean: Okay, thank you so much, Derek.
Derek Winn: Thanks Abbey, really appreciate it.
Abbey Dean: And that wraps up another episode. Thanks to all of you for tuning in and of course a big round of applause. And thank you to Derek Winn. Now, if you have not yet, please subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. As always, you can even leave us a voicemail message if you would like to suggest ideas for future episodes or just generally have any follow up questions. Also, be sure to check out this episode's show notes. I will be linking some of the content Derek and I discussed in the episode, as well as some other pieces that Derek has contributed to in the past. And that wraps it up, so I will see you guys next time.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of This Week in Benefits, brought to you by Mployer Advisor. Mployer Advisor is changing the way employers search, evaluate, and select insurance brokers. Our intuitive platform connects employers and employees to get great benefits and insurance plans by providing employers with actionable data to easily evaluate and select the best advisor for your company's specific needs. To learn more about Mployer Advisor and our suite of products, please visit our website at mployeradvisor.com and tune in next time. Thanks.
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