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An Enwisen Customer Success Story |
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American Modern Insurance Group, a self-insured vendor, wanted to help their associates become more informed benefits consumers. Analysis had shown that that 50-60% of their workforce were over-insured and American Modern wanted to help them better understand choices that could contain health care costs for the workforce and the company. Research showed that because employees didn’t fully understand their health plan options, they were defaulting to their previous year’s elections. American Modern turned to Enwisen’s AnswerSource Knowledge Center, a suite of hire-to-retire on-demand workforce communications applications – including comprehensive benefits communications and decision support tools – deployed as the foundation of its HR&L (Human Resources & Learning) portal. This case study looks at American Modern’s success and results. |
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The Customer: American Modern
Insurance Group |
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 American Modern Insurance Group (American Modern) is the specialty insurance subsidiary of The Midland Company (NSD: MLAN). American Modern’s excellent reputation is reflected in an A+ rating by the A.M. Best Company and their selection for eight consecutive years as a member of the Ward Group’s Top 50 property and casualty companies in America. American Modern has a strong partnership model and seeks to be an indispensable partner to their customers. The company follows this model in their relationship with associates by providing them with the tools to leverage technology to save time, increase efficiency and work smarter. |
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The Business Need |
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When American Modern decided to create an HR/benefits portal, their existing intranet was outdated and underused. Additionally, aggregate claims data showed that 50-60% of associates were over-insured – spending more on premiums than on healthcare itself. As healthcare costs continued to rise, associates were choosing the coverage they had the year before without evaluating new plans that offered potential cost savings. American Modern needed a software solution that: |
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Helped associates make informed decisions about healthcare/other benefits |
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Was accessible from work/home via the internet
– allowing associates to evaluate plan options
with a spouse or partner, and providing access
to associates without daily internet access at
work. |
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Was offered as a Software-as-a-Service – a hosted solution with updates to plan and HR data performed by the vendor |
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The Solution? Enwisen’s AnswerSource Decision Support |
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American Modern deployed the AnswerSource Knowledge Center as the foundation of its entire HR&L portal – providing associates with personalized, searchable and up-to-date information about work/life events, HR policies and more. Of course a key component was AnswerSource’s benefits communications and decision support.
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“Our goal was to better educate associates so they could become informed health care consumers – allowing them to evaluate plans, in-depth, without having to make multiple calls and visits to HR. We also wanted to promote company-sponsored wellness programs,” explained Alisa Poe, Vice President, Corporate Administration.
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| American Modern made the entire suite of AnswerSource Decision Support tools available during its most recent |
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AnswerSource Decision Support gave our associates the powerful tools they needed to select the right plans for their families. Before AnswerSource 50-60% of our associates were over-insured. During our first open enrollment, we saw participation in our high deductable plans almost double – helping to contain health care costs for our associates and our organization. |
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Elisabeth Baldock |
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Senior Vice President, |
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Human Resources and Learning |
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open enrollment in Fall 2006, including: |
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Dynamic plan comparison |
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Retirement and life insurance calculators |
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Medical cost estimator |
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Needs analysis |
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Flexible spending account modeling tools |
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Medical plan selection tours |
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| The AnswerSource Cost Calculator Tool |
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| “Our associates found these tools valuable and easy to use – with usage increasing as associates ‘created a buzz’ that encouraged even more associates to leverage the portal” said Elisabeth Baldock, Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Learning. |
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| “We had more than 5,000 hits on the tools during our recent open enrollment – with more than 500 hits on the medical cost estimator alone. This effective tool helped associates estimate their potential medical costs – and find the plan that will cover those in the most cost-effective way. This was important for our goal of helping over-insured employees find more cost-effective plans to meet their families’ needs” Baldock continued. |
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Success – A Shift in Elections |
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And the tools were effective. According to Baldock, enrollment in the High Deductible Health Plan – which had remained steady in the two years prior to deploying AnswerSource – almost doubled. The number of associates who moved from the highest premium/lowest deductible to the mid-range plan also significantly increased.
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“Overall, fully one-third of our associates made changes to their benefit plan elections for 2007, which the company believes is directly linked to the tools and information provided through the HR&L portal,” Baldock said.
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“One of our goals was to encourage an enrollment shift from our highest premium/lowest deductible health plan to our
mid-range and highest deductible/lowest premium plans,” Baldock explained. “Using the calculators in the HR&L
portal, associates were able to see that what they saved on premiums by selecting a high-deductible plan would usually cover the cost of the deductible.” |
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Fewer Calls to HR |
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Both Poe and Baldock have noticed that because information is available online 24/7 from work or home, associates asked HR fewer routine questions during open enrollment, such as, “What does this plan cover?” This trend has continued beyond open enrollment. |
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A Resource for Wellness Initiatives |
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American Modern has been very aggressive in providing wellness programs to their associates. “Wellness is an important part of our associate offerings and we have been very aggressive in providing programs. We believe these are particularly important when offering High Deductible Health Plans. Enwisen’s AnswerSource Knowledge Center has very rich wellness content – such as health risk appraisals and useful information on topics such as weight loss, smoking cessation and diabetes – that supplements our other programs and provides an additional resource to promote a healthier workforce,” said Baldock. |
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A Successful Partnership |
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“We believe a big part of our success is our partnership with Enwisen. Our Enwisen project team was knowledgeable and very responsive to our needs, helping us deploy the solution rapidly and efficiently. And because of their Software-as-a-Service model – in which our Enwisen team makes all updates to plans, policies and more, we’ve been able to meet our goal of providing an accessible, effective portal with the useful, up-to-date information our associates need when they need it,” concluded Baldock.
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American Modern uses PeopleSoft as the transaction component of their portal, including PeopleSoft eBenefits. Enwisen is a certified PeopleSoft partner. |
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For More Information |
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www.enwisen.com
(800) 685-5578x240 |
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