Employers may be more eager now to hear just about everything their benefits brokers have to say.
Analysts at MetLife Inc. have posted the numbers in a summary of results from a survey of about 2,504 benefits buyers at U.S. firms with at least two employees.
The survey team conducted the polls from October through November, as election fervor was peaking.
The MetLife survey team asked the benefits buyers about their level of interest in hearing from brokers about 16 topics. For each of those topics, the buyers' level of interest increased by 7 to 11 percentage points between 2015 and 2016.
The Affordable Care Act has imposed complicated benefits richness, employee counting, benefits reporting and penalty rules on employers. The percentage of employers who said they want to hear about that increased 7 percentage points between 2015 and 2016, to 64% in 2016.