How supplemental health, leave, and disability work together to protect income and savings Artwork

Lincoln Absence Advisor

Welcome to the Lincoln Absence Advisor podcast! As the disability and leave landscape continues to expand and evolve, we’ll help you keep up and keep informed. Our podcasts take a deep dive into important topics such as the evolution of the FMLA and ADA, state regulations, the compliance challenge, and the complexities of day-to-day administration. In this podcast, our Lincoln benefit professionals provide thoughtful and vigorous conversations that tackle the important leave topics employers need to understand.

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Lincoln Absence Advisor

How supplemental health, leave, and disability work together to protect income and savings

September 15, 2022 • Lincoln Financial Group • Season 3 • Episode 57

Over half of current bankruptcies are due to medical bills. It takes a combination of benefits — health insurance, along with disability, leave, and supplemental health including accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity — to be prepared for and prevent devasting financial impacts. During this episode of Lincoln Absence Advisor, our benefits professionals discuss how supplemental health coverage can combine with disability and leave coverage to support on family needs, protect savings and income, and decrease financial stress that may interfere with a timely recovery and return to work.

Resources:

Additional sources:

Rose Conlon, "Nearly Half of Americans Would Have Trouble Paying an Unexpected $250 expense," Marketplace, October 15, 2002
“The Faces and Facts of Disability,” Social Security Administration, 2019
Glenn Pranky, MD et al, “Voluntary Not Voluntary,” Lincoln Financial Group, 2020
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2000-2021
LIMRA 2021

Karen Batson: 0:00

Hi everyone. This is Karen Batson Marketing Manager at Lincoln Financial Group. In today's episode of Lincoln Absence Advisor, we discuss a slightly different topic than we usually do. We're going to talk about supplemental health. In particular, we're going to talk about how it works with leave and disability. I'm joined today by Ryan Goethals vice president of intermediary sales, and Jeremy Parr, senior account director for voluntary business development. They go into commonalities between these programs, how they work together, and ultimately the wellness benefits that you're able to provide your employees. I hope you enjoy today's episode. Hi, Gentlemen, thanks for joining the podcast today.

Jeremy Parr: 0:43

Thank you.

Ryan Goethals: 0:43

Yeah, thank you for having us.

Karen Batson: 0:45

So to get us started, do you mind each introducing yourselves what you do here at Lincoln and kind of how you're connected to the subject we're talking about today?

Jeremy Parr: 0:53

Sure thing Karen. My name is Jeremy Parr, and I am the national voluntary practice leader. Here at Lincoln Financial. Basically, my function is as a subject matter expert and a consultant for our customer base. I've been in the industry for over 16 years, half of that time was spent in our disability and absence claims operations. So in terms of connection to the topic that we're going to discuss today, I saw firsthand on the claims that I managed in the people's families, what the financial impact is, when somebody's out of out of work on an absence for a couple of months on a reduced income, I saw not only the economic impact, but also the psychological impact. That often is such a focus when we're managing disability services. So I'm excited to talk to you the listeners about our products and our services and, and how our supplemental health offering helps fill that gap.

Ryan Goethals: 1:46

Yeah, thanks for having us. been a longtime listener to the podcast. So fun to be first time participant here. But it was Ryan Goethals, also I run our West region from a sales standpoint as well as had responsibility for supplemental health strategy for Lincoln. So very excited to join. I think Jeremy mentioned it as well. I think the exciting thing is, is folks are starting to recognize that these product portfolios and product lines actually are much more intertwined than they are separate. And they play a very big picture of the holistic leave and wellness and overall financial well being for our claimants. And so I'm excited to get a little bit of time to chat on our portfolio.

Karen Batson: 2:25

Well, let's jump in, if you've listened to the podcast, and so thank you for listening, Ryan, we talk a lot about leave and disability generally, or accommodations and that sort of subjects we haven't actually touched upon supplemental health before, do you mind just giving us a high level overview of what supplemental health means what kind of product it is?

Ryan Goethals: 2:45

Yeah, of course. So supplemental health is actually a product just like it says that it is intended to truly work in conjunction with the medical plan that an employee might have. And so these benefits are what we call indemnity benefits. So if a certain condition or a wellness check or something else is, is done by the employee, they are eligible for a benefit that's defined in the schedule of benefits. And so it's meant to protect employees really in what I would say in three ways. The first is for the routine day in day out potential injuries, accidents, etc. That might happen, where there might be medical coverage, that might be disability coverage, there might be leave. But this is irregardless of that it's a set benefit that goes into the employee's pocket to help them with any costs that they might have. The second is it does fit into a wellness initiative. And so there are features for all three sup health products that we offer to incentivize wellness, whether they're biometric screenings, physical exams, etc, you name it, these benefits are meant to be utilized by the employees they protect. And I think the third piece is, there is a strategy to use these products to help to protect and to fund the overall lifecycle for an employee. And so we have certain provision with a sub health line that might make sense, if you're family planning, we have certain benefits that may make sense if you know you already have a family, maybe your kids are active in sports or on the weekends, etc. And then there's benefits as well that as we go on in life, whether although we don't like to think about it, the reality is some of these critical illnesses do become much more prevalent with older age. And so they are meant to protect you there. So I would say that's kind of the three ways that supplemental health benefits really what it is and how they complement an employer's benefit offering.

Karen Batson: 4:25

So first question kind of a level set or conversation with leaving disability, how does supplemental health leave and disability really benefit each other as a whole program? Intersecting?

Jeremy Parr: 4:37

Sure, Karen, a couple of things. So really, it's three reasons people are living longer with more medical issues. That's number one, right? One in four of us. It will experience up to three months of an absence from work due to a disability over the course of our careers, right and during that period of time, we're often going to be on a reduced income covered under a disability plan that we may be supplementing with our pay time off or other programs that the employer has to offer, but what it doesn't protect is the unexpected expense that might be there. When a medical event does occur either that's a diagnosis of cancer or a motor vehicle accident where there's multiple injuries, sustained ambulance trips, hospital stays, etc. So overall, people are living longer, and this is going to happen to more of your workers. So employers have to pay attention to that. The second reason is people aren't saving enough, right? 60% plus of the population doesn't have a savings account. Many people can't manage more than a $250 medical expense or unexpected medical expense. And 57% of bankruptcies in America are due to medical reasons rather for the employee themselves, or their own family, something that's going on in their family. So you know, we know that there is a financial gap that's not being filled or protected naturally by the employees, savings behaviors. And then even more staggering hospital services. Medical services are the top three inflationary services that we're seeing in the labor economy today, where hospital stays are increasing over 200%, CPI over the past six years. So when you look at that, those statistics and those three factors, offering a supplemental health program is a way to help fill that gap that you know, that's going to naturally happen during an absence or disability even more so when someone's on a reduced income. Those are really the three key reasons where I see a place in addition to the integratable experience that we're able to create by managing these benefits alongside the disability, although medical benefits may be a true, you know, things that are covered on your major medical plan are a trigger for some of these benefits to occur. They also contain a lot of lifestyle benefits that you know, are really something that we focus in on on a disability process, understanding the dynamics of the family understanding, what's the total financial situation, how much benefits are they receiving while they're out on this disability. So, you know, really along, you know, the, the triggers are there on the medical side, but the disability claim is one where we can integrate that experience, because we have a much total picture that maybe the medical carrier or the medical claims processes and picking up

Karen Batson: 7:24

Curious, Jeremy back in your claims experience with supplemental health as common as it is today. And your view on the benefits that it provides leave and disability landscape. Can you connect that back to the experience you had in your claims experience?

Jeremy Parr: 7:39

Sure, yeah. When I was in claims over, you know, eight years ago, starting in claims, supplemental health benefits, were not all that common amongst our employer groups. With the passing of the Affordable Care Act, the recognition that medical expenses are increasing in prices every single year, even to the point where employers can no longer pay all that that is needed to help protect those employees from a medical spend perspective, because it's gotten too expensive, they have to transfer some of that cost over to their employees, all those things have accelerated the need for additional protections in the medical perspective, because everything is shifted now at 35. Over 35% of medical plans today, participants have moved into a consumer directed health plan. And so when you start moving it over to the consumer, or the employee as in our customer base, to make these decisions for themselves, and to pay more out of pocket, that's when the gap is created. And that's not something I saw when I was necessarily managing claims. I certainly saw hardship from a financial perspective. But even more so in the more recent history because of the increase of medical spend and the driving force of consumer directed health care.

Karen Batson: 8:52

Now, in comparison to leave and disability, this is kind of a newer benefit suite. What kind of questions do you get when employers are trying to decide their entire benefit strategy and how things work together? Do any questions come up about the combination of leave and disability and supplemental health? And what are those questions?

Ryan Goethals: 9:10

Karen, good question. I think the exciting part is with supplemental health, we're actually closer to the overall benefits, question and philosophy to the employer than we ever have been. And the the biggest reason why that we talked about earlier, these products are so closely intertwined with the medical plan, which is where the bulk of the decisions from both a financial and a philosophy are taking place. So there absolutely are questions they want to make sure and see, okay, if with employees enrolling in a Consumer Driven Health Plan, how will these benefits build some of the gaps that we are creating right there's additional out of pocket exposure, how can this help complement and protect employees should to something happens? So those are those are some of the questions I think, other things that employers and brokers really want to know when they're considering these benefits are two things. One is what does this feel like for the employee from from a claimant experience? And I think what we were excited about is one of the advantages for having something to help with Lincoln is that we can hopefully take a lot of the burden off the employer and employees played because if it's a leave disability to supplement health, you name it, we want to be that one stop shop that can that can provide protection for that employee. The second piece is that and a lot of folks would like to know, I love Jeremy's thoughts on this as well. But what should happen for employees, if they were if they were to leave or, you know, think people are turning into how do these benefits apply? And I think the exciting thing with most of these products is they are what we call portable so employees can take them with and if they so choose to. And that's something that especially in this day and age, we're seeing much more of a transient workforce, right. And there's, there's benefits that are super important for employees. But there's also there's trouble filling some of the positions is that this cannot protect you here. But also it's a benefit that should you leave, you can take it with you. And I think that continues to become more and more prevalent, the conversations we're having,

Karen Batson: 10:59

I had no idea about that. I got critical illness last year, and I had no idea that it was portable

Ryan Goethals: 11:05

Well, Karen don't leave Lincoln.

Karen Batson: 11:08

That's not what I'm saying.

Ryan Goethals: 11:10

But no, it actually it is portable. And I think, you know, I think as you look into the future, down the road, there's going to be an opportunity. And I don't think it's defined itself yet. But whether it's the gig economy, or whether it's through different different places that are coming through, I think a mobile benefits package is going to be something that employers are looking for.

Karen Batson: 11:30

Interesting. Jeremy, you have anything to add on that?

Jeremy Parr: 11:33

Well, I think Ryan said at best it and that employers need to understand the dynamic between where that that their dollar cannot go as far as it used to, when it comes to medical coverage. There, you know, cost sharing with the employees are required. And you know, the idea here is in terms of a benefit strategy, you want to be thoughtful of what benefits you decide to cover with your dollar as an employee or customer or as the the HR benefits team versus, you know, what the employees dollar goes towards, in the effort of more consumer directed health care and getting more participation in those High Deductible Health Plans. Supplemental health has shown the ability to to help influence participation and other voluntary lines, including voluntary disability for that. So, you know, one of our most recent benefits studies that really stood out to me is, you know, paid leave is a very popular topic amongst our employers and amongst employees, and when they're looking for positions and jobs. And, you know, employers are competing for talent, you know, just the evolution that we've seen in the paid leave process has shown that this, these things move very, very quickly. And supplemental health is very similar to that evolution. You know, something were 10 years ago, on under our customer base, we had maybe a handful of clients that had a paid family leave New York passes paid family leave a year later, then over 85% of our customers have a paid family leave program. Right. So, you know, when it comes to supplemental health strategy of voluntary benefits strategy, you know, the understanding of how much the employer can pay for what additional options do we need to offer on a voluntary basis? What is your demographics in terms of, you know, how much expected maternities Are we going to get to see and you know, that couples really nicely with hospital indemnity offerings, if you've got an aging populations increased risk for heart disease or cancers, that's really, really key and critical illness program, or you've got those those young active families, right, that that are more prone to accidents than maybe they even think they are terms of the average family visiting the emergency room so many times a year. So anyway, the idea is is, you know, understanding what's your what's your people are going to gravitate towards? And more likely, if you educate them on and what are they going to put their dollar behind?

Karen Batson: 13:57

I am curious, because obviously, conversations around what an employer's benefit strategy is, is very extensive multiple days, multiple subjects even beyond these, is the supplemental health conversation separate than leave disability absence conversation, and should it be separate? If it is?

Ryan Goethals: 14:17

Yeah, I think I'll take it. I'll take a shot at this and Jeremy add in. I think every day it gets more intertwined. And what I would say and I think was as folks are starting to think through leave and what's driven this a lot of is around maternity and paternity leave. And so within that, if you think about that being the number one leave focus, that's also the number one short term disability claim. That's all the number one hospital indemnity claim. And so those are all intertwined in different ways. And I think folks are starting to recognize and to talk through that there's a very holistic approach to leave and that some of them are extremely positive. Like a maternity or paternity, right? That's, that's some of them are very challenging. And I think the important part that employers and their broker partners are starting to, to direct them towards is really the buzzword that we've heard in many different ways for a couple of years, but it's around wellness. And, and there's a mental health aspect to that there's a financial aspect to that there's a true health wellness aspect to that. And so as we think about leave and what it is, and as it grows to the types of leaves and the different state type of leaves and corporate and federal leaves that come about the key thing that's going to need to continue to be front of mind, because it's at the essence of what the lead conversation is, is the employee wellness, and our products. If we're purely talking supplemental health, and we could talk to the disability, our leave portfolio, they have a very strong wellness based, family based conceptual foundation that they're built upon. And I think those conversations, it's not they're not always linear, right. There could be completely there's different strategies there. But I think the exciting part is that as folks are making these decisions, yes, there's things that are important to the employer, but they're focusing on what's really important to my employee, and how do I ensure that regardless of what that leave scenario is, they have protection. And that's, that's an exciting part for us in this industry.

Karen Batson: 16:22

I wanted to get your reaction on something the study that you referenced earlier, Jeremy, there kind of two standout points, from my point of view, one, paid leave was ranked very high for, you know, employee loyalty at customer higher than health care, actually, by 1%. Additionally, we see a growing interest in supplemental health products, that was also a common theme coming out of that was curious seeing those two together in the same study what comes to your mind?

Jeremy Parr: 16:53

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is the era that we're in with the pandemic COVID-19, right, just just in reflection of that 31% of Americans said COVID-19, has made them more likely to buy certain lines of insurance in the next 12 months, right. Many of us saw family members, close friends, young, old, healthy people going into the hospitals during the course of this pandemic, which basically says, if somebody in my family or I get sick, how am I going to cover my my leave, when I'm out of work, either caring for a family member, caring for myself or recovering from that. So maybe we all have gotten a little bit of a reality check to our own mortality over the course of this pandemic, having so many people close to us go through this unexpected scenario, that, you know, our insurance programs are set out to protect right disability in terms of replacing your long lost income, supplemental health to help cover unexpected hospital expenses that could be you know, associated with COVID-19, or other viral pandemics or any sickness or illness for that matter. So that really, I think, is put leave from work? And do I have enough in my bank account to cover unexpected medical perspectives? I mean, that's, that's where I feel that that survey probably got a lot of a lot of its motivation from is how do I stay out of work on a reduced income taking care of people? How do I cover the costs of whatever medical scenario may be going through?

Karen Batson: 18:31

I mean, I definitely saw a change in mindset, having conversations with friends and family. I know there was an increased in enrollment in things like critical illness and just mentioned I went into it and when I enrolled when the pandemic happened, because you're just thinking about things differently. So I totally agree. Ryan, do you have any thoughts on on the two stats provided?

Ryan Goethals: 18:51

Yeah, I just think there were fortunate circumstances, I think, what what's what it has created? Is the need to just understand right and what's what's out? What am I eligible for what is out there? And how do these products protect each other? And I think, you know, I'll use myself as an example, when I got into the industry 17 years ago, I thought medical insurance covered everything like, okay, no matter why of medical retirement, right, there's really nothing else there. As you as you get older, and you know, we have four children, and you get to live through everything, you get very educated, benefits cover and what they don't. And so I think, you know, those are two powerful stats, the statistic that's always out there as well, and it's a couple years old, but it still holds true is most employees spend more time deciding what smartphone to purchase than they do for what employee benefits to enroll in. And sometimes through, as Jeremy mentioned, going through things that are very, very personal to us. It does create a change in consumer behavior where you say, You know what, I do need to take a second and understand what I have, understand what I don't have, and then I can make a decision. Is this worth the financial risk to see if I can go this year without these plans. Does it make sense to enroll in this coverage so that if something were to happen to me or my loved ones were protected? Those are all personal conversations to make. But I think sometimes and I'm guilty of this as as the next you almost need to learn through experiences. Yeah. And the past two years of the pandemic have taught us that, or showed us a lot of experience a lot of things that we never had to before. So...

Karen Batson: 20:24

Good point. Well, let's jump into a couple of examples and how supplemental health might come into play. So I picked three that we talk about all the time on the podcast when it comes to leave and disability. We've touched on the first one a little bit. So I'm wondering if we can dive a little bit deeper. Let's take a maternity leave example what supplemental health products would come into play in this scenario?

Jeremy Parr: 20:45

Sure, Karen. So the maternity is the number one disability claim that we see. And it's the number one disability claim, you know, reason that people go out of work every year. And maternity is the number one hospitalization in America. So hospital indemnity of the supplemental health lineup lines up really nicely when you have that area of the population that is growing their families planning to grow their families, because hospital indemnity covers both accidents and illnesses equally, and pregnancies equally, that is really the coverage that you're looking for there. And when we designed our hospital indemnity product, we really leaned into maternity being a component that we knew was going to be a big driver, because we see it so much on the disability side. We included NICU benefits for babies that are born with complications and have to spend time in the NICU where it can get upwards of, you know, 25% more benefits. So you take the ICU benefit amount that's payable for that baby, the admission and daily confinement benefit, and increase those benefits by 25% for that baby. And also, you know, just in the overall design, understanding that we can quote these products with and without pre existing conditions or specific waiting periods for certain conditions, which albeit helps with cost and with selection and risk and, and such, we're just seeing a lot more, you know, kind of wide open hospital indemnity plans to make sure that we're auditing that maternity scenario. And that's something that Lincoln that we we try to do quite a bit knowing that that's such a integratable thing across our disability block.

Karen Batson: 22:24

Next example is caregiving caring for family member has been a huge topic and many areas from child care to elder care. How does this intersect with supplemental health?

Jeremy Parr: 22:35

Sure, so we have a value-add that comes along with our critical illness that can actually help in this camp. So for anybody who in their entire family who enrolls in a critical illness program has the benefit of health advocate, which is a third party service that helps the entire family unit navigate a complicated medical scenario. Rather, it's the employee themselves, their immediate family or even their extended family. A lot of us with aging parents are now in a you know, adult care type of scenarios. And the things I've helped advocate can do in addition to help you navigate navigate Medicare, Medicaid and government programs like that, is that anytime that you receive a medical bill or anybody in your family receives a medical bill, they can help negotiate down the out of pocket costs associated with that treatment, on average health advocates able to reduce out of pocket cost$400. And so when you look at the statistic that we shared earlier, about, you know, 40% of the population not being able to cover over a $250 unexpected expense. Foreigner dollars, really goes a long way. But the idea of of having that service, that kind of concierge medical concierge service for you and your entire family understand the charges to help negotiate them down to help you navigate medical plans. Rather it's the employer's own medical plan, or an out of network or a government medical plan. That service is there to help you. They also can can arrange childcare and adult dependent care and other EAP like services like counseling, both from a psychological and financial perspective to help people navigate the medical scenario.

Karen Batson: 24:18

OK, last leave reason your own serious health condition.

Jeremy Parr: 24:23

Yeah, so there's really two well all three products have some place for your own serious health condition. Accident obviously if you're in a a accident that causes injury, takes you to the hospital whether you have tests surgery, even an outpatient procedure. You know, there's there's over 25 different benefit triggers that are commonly being placed in an accident program coverage for your own unexpected scenario there comes and I'd say that active families where you have children on the sports field, you know, we have additional benefits for that. But you know, when you look at your own serious health issue Critical Illness and hospital I think in tandem both offer very good benefits. So critical illness is going to focus really in on diagnoses like cancer, or to your vascular disease, heart attacks, strokes, even the lesser common scenarios in during your work in your working years, like an early onset of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. Those are things that are typically covered under a critical illness program. And they pay out a flat some amount, just simply based off of the diagnosis of that of that that particular illness or that critical illness. For anything that's not covered under the core benefits or under a critical illness program. hospital indemnity is the best all around coverage, I think that you can buy, mainly because the hospital expense, you know, continues to go up so so much so dramatically each year, but it covers accidents and illnesses, right? It covers the young population and the aging population. That's increased risk of heart disease, but also have the planned surgeries like hip replacements, knee replacements, where you might need to be in the hospital, or even a subsequent rehab facility under that. So you know, when you're thinking of your own serious medical condition, I think hospital indemnity is one of the most impactful ones, because it covers both accidents and illnesses, you know, regardless, but as far as as far as honing in on critical illnesses, you know, really the most severe terminal kind of chronic illnesses that you're seeing are often covered. So hopefully that helps provide some clarity there.

Karen Batson: 26:33

No, I appreciate that. And tying it to things that we often talk about from the link disability side helps bring the picture together. One of my last questions for you. And I asked almost every guest this because I feel like our conversation always leads here, regardless of what product we're talking about. And that's employee education. So I just wanted to get your perspective with supplemental health, where employee education comes into play and what maybe you've heard best practices challenges around that topic.

Ryan Goethals: 27:03

Yeah, that's a great question. Something that Jeremy and I are both passionate about in our teams are as well is that these are wonderful benefits. But they're only wonderful if you understand what they provide, how they protect you how they can, how they can help you or your family in a time of crisis. And so education is crucial. I think there's a multitude of ways that you can provide education. But what studies have shown whether it's from the carrier side, whether it's through consultants of the industry as well, is that you really need a couple of different forms of education to be most effective. And I think there's things like intranet sites and microsites that people can click on and learn more about their benefits. And some people are truly self students. Others like to hear it themselves, whether that be at a group meeting, or an individual conversation, whether it be in person or over the phone, where they have someone walking them through what their benefit options are, how they can make choices, etc. And then I think the third part to that is through just through just regular HR communications and how they're positioning the upcoming enrollment and what benefit choices they have and what type of enrollment it really is. Because I think what we're starting to see is that even in cases where benefits aren't changing, employers want their employees to have an active components that enrollment where they're making active medical choices, they are updating beneficiary and for information, they're updating some key components that are going to hopefully create the opportunity to educate an employee on what these benefits are. And there's a saying I heard a long time ago that benefits are only beneficial if they're understood. Otherwise, there's really not much of a benefit to them. And I think that's the crucial part of education is really raising the awareness to what is available, what is provided, what isn't, and how do you protect yourself for what's out there. And that's a, that's an ongoing challenge that we have. And I would say that all cases are unique. But one of the biggest challenges that we have the most exciting is different levels of very of generations in the workforce, all fit into different parts, right. So I'm like to have conversations on like the learner itself, some like want to hear from their employer. And so we can provide creative solutions. We have several partners that can as well to really focus on this key initiative to educate the employees.

Jeremy Parr: 29:19

Yeah, I like to use the simple acronym, make enrollment and education plans that pop. And that's a combination of people online and print resources. Because you know, in the workforce today, you've got a lot of varying ways that people like to learn, like to access information. Some people like adjusting time some people like to self service, some people like to talk to somebody, right. And the idea is if you're going to communicate a benefits program, as long as you've got people to help you do that you have online resources that people can have access to if they want to self service, and even in a lot of scenarios, the tried and true print resources that can be provided at the worksite depending on the particular industry in the call chair of that, that customer, there's another best practice that I think a lot of employers tend to overlook is while we spend more time I we spend less time and Annual Enrollment than other things like buying refrigerators, purchasing cars, and then researching our cell phone. It's really important that to understand that during a new hire phase, somebody will spend the extra amount of time really to understand their compensation and their total benefits package, maybe more so at that time. So, you know, I always encourage employers to make sure that you're looking at that new hire orientation process is a really a key time to set the expectations of what your benefit packages means to that employee. What does it cover? What options do they have available, the bandwidth is a little bit stronger during that time than just in a subsequent Annual Enrollment period, or during a family status change. And whatever strategy you put into place, you have to be consistent, right? Don't just do it once and then say, well, we did that we don't need to touch it again for three years, right? You want it to be consistent. You want to keep it fresh, people will will gravitate towards, you know, communication around things that are newer, but yeah, at the end of the day, there's you know, enrollment happens at other very important times where people are expanding their families when they're new to the job. And it's not just during the annual enrollment series.

Karen Batson: 31:23

Well, last question for you guys. Is there anything you'd like to leave our listeners with on this subject?

Jeremy Parr: 31:29

Yeah, I mean, my biggest recommendation, and this is something that I learned early on in my career, is when you're planning for benefits is to think about those scenarios, right to understand, like, what would happen if I was out out of work for six weeks, unexpectedly? What expenses? Could I see? Right? You know, how would I make ends meet? How would that impact my family. And if you do the extra step of planning for those unexpected scenarios, you'll naturally be more prepared when they do do come up. A lot of times we tell ourselves, this will never happen to me. I happen to my neighbor, it happened to my friend, right? It'll never happen to me. But if if you do just a little bit of extra planning around these as how do I prepare for an unexpected scenario, you'll naturally seek out to understand what protections can I put into place in addition to just my emergency savings account to help protect me and my family?

Ryan Goethals: 32:27

Yeah, that's well said, Jeremy. And I wouldn't. I don't think you need to add too much. It's, you know, to Jeremy's point, it's put yourself in a bit of a vulnerable position. And we're going to do something that's not natural or probably comfortable. And we just have to have an honest conversation with ourselves with our significant other family and just say, like, Jeremy mentioned, what if, and the good, the good, good part would be if we never had to worry about that. But I would also tell you that if we do have to go through one of those scenarios, typically, we're a lot more well prepared, if we want to have that conversation before. And I think the good news, if you're specifically speaking about the supplemental health benefits is, even if nothing happens, that you need to use from a benefit standpoint. Throughout the year, there are wellness benefits. And so just the typical procedures and doctor's visits and appointments that you're having throughout the year, most of us do qualify for a Wellness Benefit. And so let's hope there's never anything significant you need to use the benefits for but the good news is, but just by taking care of yourself and following through with many of the wellness initiatives that we all go through annually, you actually will receive a benefit and that money that may make it worthwhile. So really well said just take a minute just to think understand that understand your exposure, understand what you have and what you would do if you were unable to work. And then I think we can all make it assume that's right for us.

Karen Batson: 33:48

Well thank you both. I appreciate your time and joining this conversation.

Jeremy Parr: 33:53

Thank you, Karen.

Ryan Goethals: 33:53

Thank you, Karen.

Karen Batson: 33:54

Thank you all for listening today. And of course a huge thank you to our guests for spending some time with us on this topic. I am going to actually add to our show notes a link to our supplemental health microsite, this site provides some various research and information around supplemental health and what Lincoln has to offer. So check that out if you're interested in learning more. Of course, as always, we'd love to hear from you all what you think of the podcast, whether it's a show or the entire series. So you can do that by letting your Lincoln professional know sharing an episode or following us on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disclosures: 34:34

The information contained in this podcast is for general use and is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney or your human resource professional. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation and its affiliates. Affiliates are separately responsible for their own financial and contractual obligations.