Yogi Berra Knew a Thing or Two About Benefits Management
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
That’s actually one of the many comments attributed to Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees catcher who became as famous for his weirdly insightful quotes as he did for his legendary baseball career. It’s funny how well they fit so many situations in life.
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Yogi again. But I can’t think of a better way to sum up our current dilemma. The way we have always known where we were going in terms of future costs and obligations was by analysing past performance – we knew what something was going to cost next year by looking at what it cost over the last few years and making adjustments based on the trends we follow very closely. But what do you do when many of the nice, neat trend lines on the graph suddenly look like a seismometer during an earthquake?
“No matter where you go, there you are.” Right, Yogi. Here we are. We know that for the last few months, costs for in-person care, such as dentists, physio, massage and chiropractors have, at least temporarily, fallen off a cliff. We know that travel insurance is currently off the table. Gym memberships have been irrelevant, with gyms mostly closed. We also know that telehealth and online medical consultations are steeply rising trends, and that mental health issues have taken on a new urgency. And most of the people I talk to – by phone and teleconference, of course – believe that the profile of benefits that employees will want in the future is going to be quite different when all this finally shakes out and settles down.
“You can observe a lot just by watching.” And that’s exactly what all of us are doing. We’re trying to make sense of where we stand right now, let alone where we’re going.
– We’re watching those claims for in-person health care. At first, the carriers were giving premium credits due to the drop in claims, but those have all run out now. We’re watching to see if there is a backlog of claims waiting for us when things get back to “normal.”
– We’re watching the cost of the average claim – with in-person providers restricted in the number of clients they can see in a day, and with surcharges for cleaning and protective equipment, and perhaps people putting off things like routine checkups, the cost-per-claim may well rise significantly.
– We’re watching the online consultations and mental health numbers to see if there is going to be a long-term shift in claims profile: Will those costs just rise, or will some or all of the cost shift from previous in-person care claims?
– We’re watching to see when things like gym memberships and travel insurance come back.
– We’re watching to see how short- and long-term disability claims will be adjudicated and managed when so many of our clients are working from home (or even on lay-off). Right now, things like doctors’ notes and second opinions are basically pie in the sky, but that won’t last forever.
– And the big thing: We’re watching to try to observe, as Yogi put it, what benefits our clients will want, what benefits will decline in popularity and what benefits will grow in demand. In short, what will a comprehensive benefits package look like a year or two from now? One thing I’m pretty sure of is that vastly more people will be working from home in the future. It was five or six percent before coronavirus, and it’s around 40 percent now (according to Statistics Canada). A great many of the people in that 40 percent will never go back to full-time in the office. Their benefits needs, and how we manage them, will absolutely change.
“If you ask me anything I don’t know, I’m not going to answer.” Good plan. Sometimes, if you’re not sure where you’re going or what’s going to happen, it’s best to play safe and go slow; but we don’t know what “safe” is, and going slow is not an option when our obligations are ongoing and the speed of unfolding events is entirely out of our control. Right now, everyone – clients, plan sponsors and underwriters – have pretty much all been on-side with the “we’re all in this together” approach that Canadians have adopted. But that won’t last forever, especially if any person or group has reason to start feeling left out or taken advantage of.
“The future ain’t what it used to be.” Six months ago – just six months! – we would all have said that the future was a fairly predictable extension of the trends we have been tracking (and that I’ve often written about in this blog). Right now, none of us can be certain. But I think we won’t go far wrong if we keep the fundamentals firmly in focus: use our knowledge and our experience and our resources to look after our clients one day at a time.
And then there’s Yogi’s most famous line: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Well, yes, it will be over at some point. Until then… keep safe, stay healthy and carry on.
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If there is a topic that you would like me to write about, please email me bill@penmore.com.
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