Lacey Parda: Hey, good afternoon. I'm Lacey Parda. I'm the technology consulting director at Unum. And today I'm joined by Jennifer Crow, our pre-sale solutions director. Jennifer, how are you doing today? for how you did today. Great. Well, thank you for joining our solution session. We'll go ahead and get started. Today's agenda is really around about Unum, employee benefits, and how we deliver those differently, about Broker Connect for Employee Navigator, and then Jennifer's going to give us a live demonstration of Employee Navigator and our capabilities. We also will have a Q&A session, so if you notice over to the right, there is a box for you to type in your Q&A questions, and we'll be happy to answer those throughout the demonstration. So first, a brief background on Unum as a company. So first, a brief background on Unum as a company. We've been the leading carrier in employee benefits industry for a very long time, over 175 years. I personally have been here over 20 years, and in that time, I've seen an incredible push to really save administration pain points, which is why we decided to partner with Employee Navigator and create a broker connect with Employee Navigator. and create a broker connect. So just a little background. We first partnered with Employee Navigator in 2016 when we joined the data exchange. Over the next five years, we would help thousands of broker partners and customers get on the data exchange to streamline enrollment and billing. In 2023, we started to notice we needed to do a deeper dive with our integrations. At that time, we quickly established a dedicated onboarding team. We created a dedicated onboarding team. We created an integrated EOI solution. We also created an integrated EOI solution. and also the partner error tools. Now, as a broker or an employee navigator case builder, I'm sure you're all wondering, how does this impact my day-to-day business? Well, if you use the plan build guide, there's a 30-minute savings time to it. So Jennifer's going to demo that here in just a little bit. So Jennifer's going to demo that here in just a little bit. The savings time tied there is 90 minutes. So pretty significant time savings. For your streamlined implementation process, you're going to get a dedicated onboarding team that will help expedite that implementation process. They're also going to perform quality audit checks, and then they'll provide consultation as needed. And finally, for boost your firm's revenue, we're seeing lines of coverage and annual premiums are 50% higher with brokers using Employee Navigator compared to Unum's non-tech partner clients, which is a great day for everyone. And last, just a couple key takeaways that I hope you get from this demo. Integrated technology, benefit experts, and increased ROI for brokers. So I hope that you'll walk away today feeling good about the session that you've seen, feeling good about the technology. I think it's a win-win for everyone. So I'm going to turn it over to Jennifer to begin the demonstration. However, I do want to remind you guys there's a quick Q&A chat box. So feel free through the process just to type in questions. I'll happily answer those as we go through the demonstration here. And then also after we're finished with the demonstration, we'll also send out a video. So thank you for your time.
Jennifer Crow: Thank you, Lacey. So again, good afternoon. We do appreciate your time. We're excited to share with you here our latest advancements in insurance and benefit technology. So Broker Connect with Employee Navigator, as Lacey shared, it's really a suite of solutions, and it's going to make your client's implementation process quick and accurate. It's going to simplify the enrollment experience for their employees, for all your employer's employee population, and it's going to make administration and billing easy for you and your clients throughout the year. The product build guide and the plan setup APIs are both part of our streamlined implementation process that's supported by our dedicated onboarding team. I'm also going to share our embedded E of I or evidence of insurability experience that will not only eliminate tracking for administrators on the front end, but it's also going to reflect decisions back into employee navigator instantly. So we're moving that back end update process as well. Finally, we're going to look at our seamless data exchange, and that allows us to share data back and forth between Unum and Employee Navigator to update ads, terms, changes, and that's going to ensure that the client's billing and claim administration is accurate. I do want to note that in order to take advantage of our automated plan setup API and the embedded EFI experience, you must participate in the data exchange capability. Then that just ensures all the required information is available to both organizations. Um, so I'm going to start, um, on the onboarding side, we're going to look at the streamlined implementation process. Um, and we're going to talk about what does this experience look like? And we really focus on this area, the front side, right, the implementation process, because it's estimated that 90% of common service errors can be attributed to plan build errors on that initial product build, meaning that the plan was never set up accurately from the very beginning. And so it may be found, you know, months down the road or even years down the road, but it really originated with an incorrect implementation. So as I mentioned, we have an onboarding team that is 100% dedicated to our clients that use Employee Navigator. And they have a deep understanding of the system, both from their experience, but they also do an in-house certification program that all of the team is required to complete. So each client will have an option of implementing plans either through our plan build guide, which I'm about to review. And that is a one page per product document that will walk you through our plan set up of the employee navigator system. Or the second option would be you can use that plan set up API. And that automates getting the information into the employee navigator system from, you know, that allows you to import plans easily. And I am going to review both. But really, which option works best for you and your client is largely going to be driven by the timeline for enrollment. So always want to make a note of that. So because we have, again, that deep understanding of the employee navigator system and its capabilities, we're going to always make sure we provide standardized eligibility and plan provisions that we know we can expedite in the implementation process. Right. We're only going to provide those products that can be supported on the employee navigator system. We also provide quality checks during the data exchange integration phase, and that ensures that all the plans, excuse me, plan set setups are done accurately. And finally, we have to we are also going to provide a specialty resource to help support you and answer questions on how to build products in the employee navigator system when needed. So let's look at the streamline implementation process. In a moment I am going to talk to you about the plan configuration API and that's the you know real time connection that's going to seamlessly update plan provisions and the employee navigator system. But we recognize that there are going to be situations when you have a very short period of time before enrollment needs to begin and employee navigator. and you and your team, you just need to get these products filled out ASAP, right? So in those situations, we can provide a plan build guide, which you can use and follow the detailed and easy instructions to build the Unum plans that's gonna be done quickly and accurately. Our standard turnaround time for creating the plan build guide is three business days after implementation documents are finalized and signed by the client. So you can see here, this is just kind of a sample of that guide here. But on this Excel document, every applicable product will have its own tab. So we're going to have a product tab for each of those products. So that makes it easy for quick configuration for you and your team in Employee Navigator. You'd also use a plan proposal that's going to be provided to you by us here at Unum. And that's going to give you those specific plan rates. So all other provisions are going to be housed in the plan build guide. So you're really going to get two documents to build this out. You're going to get this plan build guide and you're going to get the plan provisions with rates. And as we shared with you, right, we believe that's going to save you quite a bit of time. Estimate about 50 percent of your bill time there. And the following the guide is really going to walk you through the build in employee navigator step by step. And we built it in a way so that the information is displayed in the order in which you need it. So that really reduces that potential configuration issue or errors. So the plan build guide is going to provide those more complex rules. So think about things like rounding rules, waiting periods. And it's going to provide those to ensure that you have an accurate configuration. The plan build guide is also going to make sure that we're providing with you all of the again, the example, excuse me, all of the different policies, all of the different plans here in this easy to follow process. So this is an example here of the document. As you can see, it's an Excel form. There are these tabs that you can see on the on the bottom. If the company hasn't been previously created, we can walk you through that step or maybe it is previously created and you're just adding our products here. But you'll see across the board, each product is gonna have its own tab. So all the products that have been sold and need to be built within the employee navigator system, we're gonna provide you all of these details. And so that's gonna give you information like the waiting period, termination provisions, all of the plan provisions will be here in these different tabs. And again, it's gonna be in that order that it is listed employee navigator. So it makes it really easy for you just to follow along with the document. And as I mentioned earlier, And while the guide is very accurate and it's going to make the process much easier, we do, of course, have that automated process as well. So when time permits, the more efficient solution is going to be used to use our plan automation. That's plan setup API. And that's what's going to be able to send Unum's plan information into the employee navigator system. And so we're going to go ahead and look at that. So this is still staying in that implementation side of the house. Right. So you're going to do one of these two options. So you're either going to do what I just shared with you, that plan build guide, or if you're able to, you are going to do this automated plan set up. And this is really what is recommended when you have the time to do that. So for our seamless API connection. What this does is it allows us to send your client's plans. So think about their rates, roles, provisions into the employee navigator system. So it's going to use that API connection, that application programming interface, that real time connection. And it's going to send those plan provisions into Employee Navigator. And from there, the builder is going to be able to review the information and then import the plans. And that eliminates that manual build. I do want to note this capability is available to new to Unum business only. So new clients for Unum. And the plan API setup is available five calendar days before or excuse me, after the onboarding documents are signed. So completed and signed, think of the master app, customer information form. So a little bit longer period than that, the build guide, but only by a couple of days. So really, when possible, you want to take advantage of this because the use of this capability, it's not just going to ease up the build, but it's also going to make sure your information is accurate. So again, your plans, your billing, your E of I rules, it's also going to reduce potential claim and administration issues. So you'll see here, as you go through this, you're going to create the client's overall account profile so that Unum benefits can be tied to that. And as I shared with you, if you haven't previously done that, that would be the first step. And once your client's profile and structure are ready to build, or excuse me, ready to be already available, you're going to be able to click add new integration here. And then once you get to this piece, you're going to search for, you know, in the search bar. And so and it's sorry, I apologize. It's clocking on me for a moment here. There we go. And so you're going to come out to this search bar. You're going to put Unum's information in here and then you're going to search for your specific client and the client name and find that information. And once that's been available, you're going to confirm that and click this save and go subscribe. And then on the Benefits tab, you're going to see here on the left all of the information. You're going to see all of the Unum plans that are available. And so we would recommend you just keep all of these. It's going to default. And so you would keep that clicked in here. And then that's going to provide you with the company information. And so you're going to confirm here contact information, company profile is going to display and you're going to be able to review and add any additional identifiers if needed. You're going to be able to complete this section here. And then that's going to this will send your request and the client's account information in real time to, you know, so you'd review this and complete save and complete. Once it's been submitted, it will display on the dashboard under the pending integration. So as you can see here, it says it's in a managed stage. It will initially be a pending integration. And then as you see, once on the dashboard, your client is once it's been reviewed, it's going to be moved to the requested status. That means that we here at Unum now have your request and we're going to verify the plan details so that they can be imported back into Employee Navigator. So that then is going to move this over from that requested status to an accepted status. So there's two different ways that UNOM is going to confirm that. As you could see here, first, the status will change from pending, as you saw previously, into this accepted status. And second, we will notify our contact via email so that you know that you can take the next step. So we're going to make sure you're aware that this process has been completed. So now that you have been notified that the integration is enabled, you'll navigate to the carrier group structure page where you'll be able to import in Unum structure information by clicking here in this add view section. And so for here, this action of clicking that add view, what that does is it's going to make a call out to Unum to gather all of the Unum structure information. So that includes Unum's assigned policy numbers, eligibility classes, and billing groups, right? So that's the information Unum is providing here. So you're going to click here. And you can see here, we're going to provide for you all of those policy numbers, the eligibility information, the group start date, Your onboarding specialist can help answer any questions here as well that you might have. But once you've reviewed all of these different plans that have been imported in, you're able to just come down here and you're going to click save. And the carrier group structure page is now going to show as incomplete. So until the structure is mapped by the employee navigator builder, these steps are to map Unum structure that that just has been imported into the client's account structure and employee navigator. So a couple of different steps there. You've got to import in Unum structure and then we're going to attach that to the client here. And so we're going to make sure those two systems are in sync. So you'll see all the incomplete information here. And then you're simply going to go here and you're going to click here to map to the employee navigator class structure, select the conditions used for the structure as we've defaulted here for the different classes or groupings and click apply. So now that you have imported the structure with a few clicks, you can see the two systems are now in sync and it's going to display as complete. So it moved over from that incomplete to green complete status. And then from here, you can now import in UDEMS benefit plans from the import from carrier system feature. So first we have to import the structure, which we've just done, but then you want to import in the carrier plan, the actual benefits, the life, the disability, whatever it may be that this particular client has. And so all of UDEMS plans are available. As you can see here, you're going to click the import here. You would see all of the different plans. that would be available for import are going to display on this screen. Every benefit plan can be expanded to show the details. So you can see here plan dates. You're going to be able to see the rates. For dental and vision plans, you're also going to be able to see benefit summary information. So that would be pushed in as well. I do want to note that this import process also allows you to view and compare import plans that were previously previously set up. So that's how we do that comparison when we send in accurate information here. So once you've reviewed, you're satisfied that the benefit plans are correct. You can click add. And now that the plans have been added, your client's benefits are now available for viewing. So you would see all of those different plans available. And from there, when you're ready, the enrollment can be turned on and it will be activated based on the dates you've provided. So we did work through all this process. The client was built. You imported the client structure that was built by Unum and then the benefit plans associated with it as well. And then lastly, once you've turned on the enrollment, you can use this checklist to ensure that the enrollment's ready to go and you can have everything set up accurately. It's going to give you good green check marks across the board where everything is ready to go. So I'm going to pause there. We have gone over the implementation, that front end process, whether it's through the plan build guide or the plan setup API. Lacey, any questions?
Lacey Parda: Yeah, we had a great question come in. The question was around what size groups will Employee Navigator and Unum work with? We're happy to support brokers and clients of all sizes with our broker connect integration and Employee Navigator. We usually see the lowest end of cases with around maybe 10 lives. We have no upper limit and we have many clients with hundreds of employees integrated via Employee Navigator. Ballpark average, I would say maybe we often see cases between 50 and 500 lives.
Jennifer Crow: Excellent.
Lacey Parda: One other question was around, is there a requirement for minimum lines of coverage? Yes, but we actually think it's quite gracious. To utilize Broker Connect for Employee Navigator, a client only needs to offer one or more plans from Unum's package. So as long as you're offering one plan, you'll be qualified for Broker Connect.
Jennifer Crow: Awesome. Thank you. Can't get much more minimum than that. That's right. All right. Excellent. So let's go over to the benefit side of the house and talk about the EFI experience. So our EFI solution, it's really going to help with the administrative burden, both of distributing paper forms. So a lot of times today, administrators are either going to give paper forms or emails. They're going to be responsible, ensuring the employee receives that information. But we also wanted to ease administration on the back end. And we're going to do that by displaying decisions into the employee navigator system instantly. So for employees, it's also an improved experience because it allows them to complete their EFI while in the employee navigator system during their actual enrollment event. And so, you know, it's going to know all of their demographic information. It's going to know all the enrollment data. So they only need to complete a medical questionnaire. And this experience increases EFI completion from less than 30 percent when it's done on paper to over 90 percent. And it also allows for those instant decisions for employees to review. So, again, it's really just making it a much easier process and engaging the employee in the enrollment. So I'm going to start here. And as I shared with you this, whether it's a new hire event, a life event or annual enrollment, the employee will go to their enrollment event and employee navigator and they're going to make their benefit selections. And the system will notify them in the enrollment that an E of I is needed to be completed for the request of coverage. So they're really going to get, as you can see here, kind of that soft edit, letting them know that an E of I will be needed. And so once their elections are made, they're going to go through this process. They're going to click and sign right here to complete that enrollment event. And this will launch the E of I. And the employee will be presented with the e-consent first. So it's populating still employee navigator. It's not even doing a single sign on. They're still in the employee navigator system here. So they're going to agree to complete their E of I electronically and they're going to click that submit. And then, as you can see here, this will actually start the E of I questionnaire. And it doesn't take the employee out of the employee navigator system again. Instead, it's just embedded within the system. And also because all of the demographic information is sent to us via the integration, the employee only has to complete the medical questionnaire piece of it. So again, we know exactly how much coverage the employee needs to be underwritten for. We know their demographic information, policy information. The employee doesn't have to worry about any of that. They're just going to answer their height and weight, answer this quick questionnaire with these yes, no questions. We'll make it easy for them to go through this process quickly and easily. And once they have completed this, They are going to receive a real time response. And so we're going to receive an approved, a pending or denied automatically. So they'll always receive a response. Our example employee here you can see has been approved and we can see the coverage type. We can see the begin date. We can see the coverage amount here. All of this has been reflected in employee navigators. Decisions are going to display here, but they're also going to display on the dashboard for the administrator to be able to review. So no actions are going to be needed for the EFI with that final for the final decision, but they are going to be able to track that information. They'll also always have access to EFI reporting within Unum as well. So it's not strictly in employee or is updated employee navigator, but they also have access to EFI reporting. And then you can see here for this individual, the administrator and the employer are going to be able to see their updated coverage. Amber can see that she has been approved that new coverage amount. It's also going to update her payroll information if there's any deduction tied to that so that she has everything updated. And you can see here when employees go through that process, over 85 percent will receive that final decision automatically, meaning approval or declinations. For the other 15%, they may be pending and we'll reach out for additional information if we need anything additional to make that final decision for them. But the approval will be sent here. And as I shared with you earlier, that has really taken our completion rates to less than 30% to over 90%. Because again, we're gonna go ahead and engage them while they're in this process. You can see here for this particular example, the approval has passed over. The administrator does not have to update anything And unlike most of our competitors, if this is in a pending status, once that decision has been made, we're going to pass that over. So it doesn't have to be automatically the first time the employee goes to the questionnaire. If they go through the pending process and then receive an approval or declination, that information will also pass that over into the employee navigator system. All right. I don't see any other questions just yet. So let's go to our next solution here, the data exchange. And this is going to be our last solution to review. And since employee navigator is the true system of clients records, right, the employee data for them, for the client. So think about, you know, enrollment data, terms, changes, ads, all of that's done in employee navigator. So when that's made in the system, that's going to transfer to, you know, accurately and quickly so both systems are in sync by using this seamless data exchange. So when we have this again, this would need to be in place so we can do that API connection for implementation as well as the E of I piece, but it really keeps the two systems in sync. And so this is a data exchange file that communicates all of those changes between Employee Navigator and Unum so that claims and billing administration is always going to be up to date because these updates are processed same day they're received. So as mentioned earlier, we will also do an audit on your plans when setting up the data exchange to ensure accuracy from the beginning. The partner error tool we're going to review in a minute is created on your client's employee navigator system only after the weekly file is processed. And if there are any errors that need to be reviewed on that file. So the good news is if the partner error tool does not appear after the data exchange file has been set up, Then it means everything processed as expected and there's no errors to review. The use of the tool means that you don't have to receive a discrepancy report like you would in a traditional file feed from carriers. So all that information, again, is going to flow through at the enterprise level through the employee navigator system. And our deep partnership with employee navigator means that we are continuously reviewing and reducing kickout errors so that the process is quick and efficient for you. So I'm going to go ahead and jump into the demonstration here. And so what we're really gonna consider here in this example is that the data exchange has been set up, a file has been processed and it's been processed with errors. So this dashboard or partner error tool is where you or your client can come and see all of those member level details here. And so to search, to find this information, you're gonna see this discrepancy report search. So you would click in here to access that tool. And that immediately takes you to the partner tool here. And as you can see here, it's going to give you a couple of headers at the top with errors in different categories. Right. So it's going to show you errors not processed, what's been processed with errors, as well as what is informational. And so within these categories, you can see here really what those mean is. If it's not processed, that obviously means that we received a change or a request and we haven't updated it at all. So a good example of that could be if we get a request for a termination, but we don't have the employee in our system, that would be not processed because no actions at all were taken on that. An example of an item that has been processed with errors, a good example of that, for example, would be if perhaps someone is going through the enrollment event and the tobacco status was not provided. So we just defaulted them as a tobacco user. So it has been processed, but there was missing information. And so we would just recommend that that be reviewed because it was processed with errors. Informational errors would be items being reviewed by Unum that we will reach out if anything is needed. So an example may be a system error Unum needs to review. One thing I do always want to note is that we have a list of common errors out on Unum's page on Employee Navigator's Zendesk. So if you do see a particular error that you maybe never seen previously, you can go out to that Zendesk and see some information on those different errors. You can also see all of the individuals. So it's going to display all of this information here. You're going to be able to see the individuals that have an error associated with them. And so we're going to provide you that information and you can really break it out here. We're also going to give you a description of each type of error. And so beside that description, we're going to tell you in this example, a member ID does not match the specified format, right? So we're giving you an idea of what that is. But we also like to provide a possible resolution. So you can see it here. So what we're basically telling you here is that we think there's an issue with the formatting. So we're not only going to provide you with a description of the error, but a recommended resolution as well. So you'll have that information there. You can also hide completed errors. Really just depends on how you work. We would probably recommend that as you're working through this. So if you want to have a really clean dashboard so it's easy to go through that process, you're able to easily hide those errors as soon as they've been completed and you click that it's going to hide that information there. And for the, again, those informational discrepancies, we're going to break that information out for you. Again, this isn't anything that you would need to take action for, but it is helpful for you to know if there has been a pause on the processing of an individual, you're going to see that description, that resolution, and make sure that you have all the information you need so that if it, again, has a delay, you'll see that it's, you know, I'm reviewing that information and we will reach out if anything additional is needed. You can also download this the data or the discrepancy report via a CV or CSV or Excel spreadsheet. So if it's easier for you to use an Excel to work these errors, you can easily click on that to pull all this information here. And then you can also search historical discrepancies. So if you want to see past error information, you're able to see that. We are going to keep the errors on the report until they've been resolved, just so that we ensure that they're being reviewed and resolved. But you could see past historical discrepancies as well. So, Lacey, I'm going to pause there again. Any questions on the E of I experience or the data exchange?
Lacey Parda: I have a question on that, but I did have one that was associated with the cost for ongoing administration after initial setup. I think that's a great question with a better answer. No, there's no cost or fees associated for the broker or the client involved with this Broker Connect technology. So as long as you actively are licensed with Employee Navigator and your client is offering you benefits, you can take advantage of all the solutions that we've provided today. Excellent. OK, Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing that technology with us. I hope everybody's excited about what they've seen today. If you have questions, feel free to reach out to us. We'll also get you a copy of this session that we'll email out to you after. So thank you guys for your time and have a great afternoon. Thank you. Have a great day.
