Canada (EN)
Voluntary benefits are everywhere, but value isn’t always.
For many employers, voluntary benefits have become an important way to round out a competitive benefits strategy without adding significant cost. Accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and wellness benefits promise meaningful financial protection. Yet too often, the story ends at enrollment.
Employees forget they have coverage.
They don’t realize a doctor visit qualifies.
They miss filing a claim or never know one exists.
The result? Benefits that look good on paper, but don’t deliver in real life.
That gap between coverage and actual value is exactly where Alight’s new partnership with VB Scout comes in.
The real problem with voluntary benefits isn’t enrollment; it’s utilization
VB Scout was built around a simple truth: voluntary benefits only matter if people actually use them.
Employees frequently miss out on reimbursements they’re entitled to because the process is manual, confusing, and disconnected from the moments when claims should happen. An employee may go to the ER, deliver a baby, or attend a preventive visit, without ever realizing those events trigger a voluntary benefit claim.
VB Scout changes that by using medical claims data and plan information to identify when an employee may be eligible for a voluntary benefit and then proactively nudging them at the right moment to take action.
This isn’t about adding another tool. It’s about making benefits behave the way people expect them to: responsive, timely, and human.
Why volunteer benefits utilization matters more now
Across organizations, there’s a growing expectation that employee benefits programs do more than exist. They should work in measurable, meaningful ways. Employees want benefits that are easier to understand and use. Leaders want greater clarity on whether benefit investments are delivering real value.
VB Scout helps bring greater visibility to how voluntary benefits perform in practice. By connecting real-world events to benefit eligibility, it helps surface value that can otherwise go unrealized, supporting more consistent utilization, clearer insight into plan performance, and a stronger link between benefit design and real outcomes.
When the value of voluntary benefits is easier to see and access, it becomes clearer to employers how these benefits are being used. This visibility allows them to recognize the real dollar value of benefits - both current utilization and potential. What was once difficult to measure becomes more transparent.
From open enrollment to everyday value
When used in partnership with Alight WorklifeTM, those insights become part of the benefits experience employees already use. Instead of relying on employees to remember what they enrolled in or recognize when coverage applies, personalized notifications are delivered when a qualifying event occurs, prompting them to take action.
In simple terms:
- VB Scout detects when coverage may apply
- Alight delivers that guidance within the employee’s everyday benefits experience
Together, this helps close the gap between voluntary benefits enrollment and actual utilization by connecting real-world medical events to the coverage employees have already elected.
For employees, the experience becomes intuitive: when a qualifying event occurs, they receive timely prompts to file claims they may otherwise overlook.
For employers, this reduces reliance on employees to interpret plan details or navigate multiple systems and provides realized value for the benefits programs the employer offers.
What changes when voluntary benefits actually work
When voluntary benefits are connected to real‑world medical events, the impact extends well beyond individual claims. By linking medical claims activity to voluntary benefit eligibility, employers gain clearer analytics to benchmark plan performance, understand utilization gaps, and track outcomes tied to eligible claims.
By highlighting benefit eligibility at the most relevant time and integrating this information into a comprehensive benefits platform, VB Scout and Alight deliver a distinctive solution that enhances how employees and employers engage with their benefits. Employees receive timely guidance that’s easier to act on, while employers gain confidence that the benefits they offer are being used as intended.
Ultimately, this enables benefits leaders to move beyond assumptions and clearly evaluate, their voluntary benefits are delivering the financial protection and value they were designed to provide.
