3 Ways Voluntary Benefits Can Help Millennial Parents

2. Critical illness: Help relieve financial burden

Colds, cuts and scrapes are common for children, but, unfortunately, some will face more serious illnesses or conditions before they make it to adulthood. Those illnesses or conditions can catch families off guard — both emotionally and financially.

As you discuss critical illness coverage with your clients' millennial employees, it can be useful to offer a detailed list of critical illnesses that are covered to help provide tangible examples. It also can be important to note the critical illness coverage can help cover medical-related expenses, such as experimental treatment or medical deductibles, that may otherwise be covered out of pocket with a high-deductible health plan.

Millennials who are considering starting a family may be interested to know that some plans automatically cover children at birth if they are born with certain conditions, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida or cystic fibrosis. This coverage can often be included at no additional cost to the employee.

3. Connect the dots: Coverage can help protect the family

Additional financial protection in the case of an unexpected or catastrophic event is more than just about the money. It means that even with lost income, children can stay in daycare or continue their extracurricular activities. To help make the need for voluntary insurance realistic for millennial parents, it can be helpful to use decision support tools combined with real-life scenarios of how benefits are paid.

Interactive decision support tools help employees understand the need for certain coverages by providing employees with a personalized experience or recommendation. These decision support tools communicate the need for these products in short videos or claims examples.

For instance, a claims example about an accident insurance product could use a child's sports injury to highlight what benefits an employee would receive. The example would provide information on the type of expenses incurred — deductibles, coinsurance, travel expenses — and then provide the actual dollar amount paid under the accident plan. Decision support tools often have a variety of scenarios for employees to select from based upon their own personal concerns or situation. This type of education can help highlight the importance of accident and critical illness coverage for millennials who may have previously devalued voluntary benefits.

By using this information to communicate to clients about voluntary insurance, you can help them protect their employees and their families. Overall, it's important to highlight how voluntary insurance can help prevent unexpected life events from turning into a financial crisis. And, as an added benefit, most voluntary insurance benefits are portable, so no matter where life takes millennials next, their coverage will remain in effect for the employee, their spouse and dependent children.

— Read Millennial Homeownership on the Rise on ThinkAdvisor.

Danielle Lehman

Danielle Lehman is senior voluntary product manager at The Standard. She has developed products for the life, disability, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity voluntary benefits markets.