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Benefits Products & Services

Worksite products wrapped in wellness

Washington National promotes healthful living to complement its products

By Thomas A. McCoy, CLU

"We'll work with partner firms that have 100 or more agents, and we'll work with those that have two or three agents. We want every independent agent who works with us to be successful." —Barbara Stewart President Washington National Insurance Company

Washington National Insurance Company, which provides voluntary life- and health-related products through approximately 25,000 employers, devotes significant resources to helping policyholders stay healthy. Healthier lifestyles ultimately can limit the need for filing claims under those products.

"Promoting wellness might sound like you're trying to drive yourself out of business," says Barbara Stewart, president of Washington National, "but it's the right thing to do."

Washington National's voluntary worksite products are critical illness, accident, disability, hospitalization, term and universal life insurance. The company's distribution force includes approximately 4,500 independent agents. It has been providing life and health products since 1911 and is a member of CNO Financial Group, which also includes Bankers Life and Casualty, Colonial Penn Life and Conseco Insurance Companies.

At its Web site and in enrollment materials, Washington National embeds the message that individual health management and financial management of health risks go hand in hand. "There are plenty of opportunities to share the message of wellness with middle income Americans," says Stewart.

For example, go to the Washington National Web site, and the first thing you see is a video in which Stewart and Shannon Miller, two-time Olympic gold medalist, discuss the importance of healthful living. Miller, who is a spokesperson for Washington National, became a cancer survivor at the age of 36.

Washington National's Web site and enrollment materials deliver education that pertains to prevention as well as treatment options. "We integrate wellness features into our products, including coverage for preventive care such as mammograms," notes Stewart.

With some of its products the company also makes available as part of the policy access to Health Advocate, a national company that provides personal care navigator services. Health Advocate has nurses on staff whose job is to communicate by phone with policyholders about a wide range of concerns they might have about their prescribed treatment or billing matters.

"For example," Stewart explains, "under our Solutions cancer policy—a cancer indemnity policy—a policyholder or family member of the policyholder can talk with the Health Advocate nurses. It might be anything from 'I don't understand what the doctor is asking me for' to 'I don't feel the treatment is appropriate,' 'I can't get the right billing from the hospital,' or 'I don't think the insurance company paid me fairly.' (It doesn't have to be our policy they're calling about.)"

Washington National's Institute for Wellness Solutions, the company's consumer research and education arm, commissioned an independent study in early 2013 designed to probe issues surrounding health and preparedness for critical illness. Among the middle income Americans surveyed (household income between $35,000 and $100,000) between the ages of 30 and 66, three-quarters have less than $20,000 in savings, half have less than $2,000, and 25% have none.

The survey respondents seemed to understand that they face a significant financial risk from a critical illness—only 11% were "strongly confident" that they have enough savings to cover family emergencies and handle the financial consequences of a critical illness. (Even this level of preparedness may be overly optimistic, the survey summary notes, because middle income Americans frequently omit associated costs of a critical illness such as professional care giving and lost income.)

Cancer is the illness feared the most by participants—and the study notes that, according to the American Cancer Society, one in two men and one in three women will develop cancer sometime during their life.

So if middle income Americans are unprepared to deal with the financial implications of a critical illness, a logical course of action would seem to involve critical illness insurance, taking advantage of preventive medical care, and engaging in wellness activities such as good eating habits and exercise. On all three counts, the study results indicate, middle income Americans are falling short.

"Seventy-two percent said they had not heard of critical illness insurance," notes Stewart. "Less than two-thirds of women over age 40 had had a mammogram in the last two years; less than half of all participants over 50 had had a colonoscopy. More than half of the total participants indicated they were not engaged in any health-promoting activity, including physical exercise, eating healthy foods, getting eight hours of sleep and seeing a dentist.

"I was not as surprised by the lack of personal savings," says Stewart, "given what we've seen from other sources about Americans' low rate of savings. What did surprise me was the low rate of participation in preventive care.

"Another interesting finding," Stewart says, "is that 49% of the participants in the Millennial age group (age 30 to 35 for this study) described themselves as having a Body Mass Index which would indicate that they were overweight. Theoretically at that age you have the capacity to be your most active. Yet half of them are battling obesity, which studies show is linked to diabetes and other diseases."

Critical illness sales rising

Five percent of the participants in the study owned critical illness insurance. Of the 72% who were unaware of the product, approximately one-quarter of them are very interested in learning more about it.

"Our critical illness product sales are increasing," says Stewart. In general it's a strong market, she points out. "All the major participants in the voluntary market, and now companies that traditionally wrote employer-paid business, have been introducing critical illness policies. More agents are talking about it and sales of the product are definitely rising.

"Typically, what happens at enrollment, though, is that you have a combination of voluntary benefits that are introduced to fill in the gaps in major medical choices. As employers move away from the employer-paid life, disability, dental and vision, there's an increase in the voluntary versions of those policies. So you might have, for example, an accident policy, some disability and critical illness all offered at the same time as part of a voluntary offering. Dental and vision are likely to be part of the mix as well."

The voluntary market has been a rising tide raising all boats. Eastbridge Consulting reported in its mid-year study of the voluntary market that almost 42% of the voluntary market respondents are exceeding their voluntary sales expectations, with another 37% meeting their expectations.

Stewart says articles in the media about the financial consequences of cancer, critical illness or major accidents have helped raise awareness of the need to address these risks. "Then, the movement toward high deductible health plans has helped provide additional impetus to voluntary product growth."

Washington National's study, Middle Income America's Perspectives on Critical Illness and Financial Security, is proving helpful in measuring attitudes of individual segments within the population, such as Millennials, so that the company can target its marketing to them.

"With Millennials," says Stewart, "because they are heavy users of social media, we also use our YouTube channel and Facebook page to try to communicate with them, and make sure they understand that they might be young, but they're not bullet-proof."

Stewart says Washington National brings to its independent agents and brokers the benefits of a mid-sized company that tailors its support to their needs. "We'll work with partner firms that have 100 or more agents, and we'll work with those that have two or three agents. We want every independent agent who works with us to be successful.

"In addition to the money brokers can earn in the voluntary benefits market, they have the opportunity to have a positive impact on people's lives," Stewart emphasizes. "Most of the time discussions about financial security are about retirement products. We need to also focus on the health care costs associated with protecting that retirement nest egg."

Washington National, by focusing attention on healthful living—the part of our health risks that we can control—provides a logical way to start talking about how to protect against those health risks we can't control.

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