In October 2026, Lincoln Financial and the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) highlighted research on how employees understand voluntary benefits. The surveys covered 408 employers, 170 brokers and 1,130 eligible workers. Eighty-six per cent of employees reported spending no more than four hours reviewing enrolment material. Brief explanations in everyday language increased expressed interest in several types of cover. These findings concern reported views and interest; they do not establish actual purchasing behaviour or improved retention.
Understanding before enrolment
For benefits managers, the useful question is whether an employee can explain a product well enough to make an informed choice. A communication programme can achieve impressive reach while leaving the central decision unclear. Opening an email, watching a video or visiting a portal does not demonstrate understanding of exclusions, benefit limits or the interaction with existing protection.
A practical review should therefore begin with the decision employees face. What expense would trigger a payment? How is the amount determined? Which circumstances fall outside the cover? Who pays the premium, and what happens when employment ends? Answers should be intelligible without requiring the reader to learn insurance terminology first. That does not justify removing qualifications that materially affect the decision.
Communication can also help employees recognise when a product is unsuitable for their circumstances. A useful explanation should make room for declining cover, as well as selecting it. Employers and advisers need to distinguish educational success from sales conversion, particularly where employees bear the premium themselves. Higher participation is not automatically evidence of a better match between protection and household needs.
A separate affordability test
An employee may understand a product and still be unable to afford it. Benefits teams should examine the combined payroll deduction for all selected options rather than presenting each premium in isolation. Illustrative household budgets can help employees see the recurring commitment, provided assumptions are explicit and examples do not become personalised financial advice.
Similarly, expressed interest after reading an explanation is an intermediate measure. Actual enrolment, subsequent cancellation and claims experience answer different questions. Comparing them can identify a product that attracts attention but creates disappointment later. The analysis should consider whether communication accurately conveyed eligibility, waiting periods and the documents needed to obtain a payment.
Measurement should not turn every individual benefits decision into an employer surveillance exercise. Aggregate indicators and voluntary feedback may be sufficient for many purposes. Where personal information is necessary, the collection should have a defined purpose, limited access and a retention period. Employees should understand whether a response affects their coverage or merely helps improve the material.
Evidence for the employer
A useful dashboard would keep comprehension, participation, affordability and service outcomes separate. Comprehension can be tested with a small number of practical scenarios. Participation can be tracked by product and eligible population. Affordability can be explored through voluntary feedback. Service outcomes can include the clarity of claims instructions and the time taken to resolve questions, with attention to the limitations of each measure.
Employers should also avoid attributing changes in retention to a communication campaign without considering other influences. Pay, management, working conditions and the labour market can all affect employee decisions. A comparison group or a staged introduction may improve the evaluation, but it will still require careful interpretation.
For multinational programmes, the same framework needs local adaptation. Product design, statutory protection, employee vocabulary and purchasing power vary across countries. A globally consistent message should support locally accurate explanations rather than flattening these differences. This editor recommends testing materials with employees before launch and recording what they actually understood. The objective is a defensible choice, supported by evidence that the communication made that choice easier.
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