Sales of Voluntary Insurance Offerings to Rise, but Barriers Persist, per Brokers

Insurance brokers predict the sales of voluntary products will rise over the next year, but they also expect some challenges to adoption, according to “Expanding the Benefits Horizon: How Brokers View Voluntary Offerings,” a new research report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The report, based on an EBRI survey of benefits’ brokers conducted in partnership with Lincoln Financial Group, found that 77% of respondents expected health insurance sales to increase in the next year, 64% anticipated growth in group life insurance sales, and 62% forecasted more sales of supplemental health insurance products, such as hospital indemnity and critical-illness coverage. Yet nearly half of brokers cited administrative complexity as a core challenge to employers integrating supplemental health offerings into employee benefits packages.

“Brokers are on the front lines of helping employers shape benefits strategies, and this research shows where the system is working—and where it needs to work better,” said Sharon Scanlon, senior vice president of group protection product, workplace solutions marketing and customer experience at Lincoln Financial, in a statement.

The survey revealed potential opportunities for service providers to help employers smooth over their barriers to adoption. Only 33% of brokers said employers understand supplemental offerings “very well,” compared with higher perceived understandings of core benefits such as health insurance (55%) and retirement accounts (51%). The brokers surveyed said the best ways service providers could support employers were enhancing enrollment tools and communication materials (63%); communicating the value proposition for voluntary benefits (53%); and offering more customizable product options (53%), according to the research.

But brokers offered several suggestions for employers to help boost employee awareness and understanding of, as well as engagement with, benefits. Brokers’ recommendations of technology and communication enhancements included “communication resources that pertain to real-life situations on how this benefit could be beneficial for the employee,” as well as “employee communications that are easy to understand,” among several others.

Brokers reported that the chief reasons employers offered voluntary benefits were to satisfy employees’ demands for them (60%) and to improve talent recruitment and retention (53%)—perhaps understandably so. According to EBRI’s 2025 Benefits in Focus Employer Survey, 85% of employers reported that their decision to offer voluntary benefits improved employee satisfaction, and 74% agreed that their benefits improved employee recruitment, retention and performance.

“Expanding the Benefits Horizon: How Brokers View Voluntary Offerings” was based on survey data collected from 170 benefits brokers in August and September 2025.

EBRI’s 2025 Benefits in Focus Employer Survey was conducted in March and April 2025 among 408 individuals in the private sector who held roles as human resource officers, compensation and benefits managers, senior executives or similar.