Life Insurance With Long-Term Care Benefits Deserve a Different Enrollment Strategy

When employers add a new benefit to their portfolio, it's natural to look for the most efficient enrollment strategy. In many cases, open enrollment is the obvious choice.

However, life insurance with long-term care benefits present a unique challenge. Because employees are often unfamiliar with how the coverage works and why it matters, a traditional enrollment window may not provide enough time to fully evaluate the opportunity. The answer is, often, an off-cycle enrollment approach.

While HR might initially view an off-cycle enrollment as another task and more work, the purpose of a well-run off-cycle engagement is not to create another annual benefits exercise. It is to give employees the time, education, and support they need to make an informed personal financial decision.

Not All Benefits Require the Same Buying Decision

Many voluntary benefits, such as accident, critical illness, or hospital indemnity are relatively familiar to employees.

Life insurance with long-term care benefits are different.

Many employees may not understand how the life insurance and long-term care components work together or how this protection could fit into their long-term financial strategy.

Another consideration is timing. During open enrollment, employees are already evaluating medical plan changes, rate increases, and other benefit decisions. Introducing a less familiar financial protection benefit at the same time can create information overload.

Products such as accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity naturally complement medical coverage and often fit within those discussions. Life insurance with long-term care benefits, however, serves a different purpose and may be better understood when given its own dedicated focus.

When a less familiar benefit is presented alongside medical, dental, vision, retirement plans, HSAs, and FSAs, it's easy for employees to treat it as just another checkbox without fully evaluating it.

The Challenge of Open Enrollment

Open enrollment remains an effective way to offer many voluntary benefits. Eastbridge research found that participation increased for most carriers - 19 of 29 - when voluntary benefits were enrolled alongside medical and other employer-sponsored benefits.¹

At the same time, employees have limited time to absorb information during enrollment season. According to LIMRA, most employees spend less than an hour reviewing and enrolling in their benefits, while ongoing communication can improve benefit understanding by 10 to 30 percentage points.²

For benefits that require more education and consideration, additional time and resources can make a meaningful difference.

What an Off-Cycle Enrollment Really Accomplishes

A successful off-cycle enrollment creates a dedicated opportunity for employees to learn about a benefit before making a decision.

An off-cycle enrollment strategy can:

• Give the product its own education and communication campaign
• Encourage employees to actively accept or decline coverage
• Provide multiple learning opportunities through emails, text messages, webinars, benefit counselors, and one-on-one support
• Create a dedicated channel for questions before enrollment decisions are made
• Reduce the administrative burden on HR by allowing enrollment partners and carriers to manage much of the communication and enrollment process
• Support employers' financial wellness and total rewards strategies

Simply put, the goal isn't just to drive enrollment. It's to educate employees.

Off-Cycle Enrollment Drives Participation

At Trustmark, we've seen this work: off-cycle enrollments can increase employee participation.

In one off-cycle enrollment for life insurance with long-term care benefits, 75.81% of 277 eligible employees actively accepted or declined coverage after receiving a coordinated communication campaign that included emails, text messaging, webinars, and HR advocacy.³

While a single case study doesn't guarantee results in every case, it reinforces an important point: employees are more likely to engage when they're given time, education, and support.

A Different Measure of Success

Success isn't measured solely by participation rates. Whether employees elect coverage or decline it, they should have the opportunity to understand a benefit that may become increasingly relevant as their needs evolve over time.

For employers, a dedicated enrollment strategy can help deliver that experience without placing the full burden on HR. With the right enrollment partner, much of the education, communication, counseling, and administration can be handled externally, allowing HR to focus on supporting employees rather than managing the process.

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For familiar products, open enrollment may be sufficient for employees to make informed choices. But for life insurance with long-term care benefits, a dedicated off-cycle enrollment strategy gives employees the time, information, and support needed to better understand a benefit that could play an important role in their financial future.



¹Eastbridge Consulting Group. Understanding Voluntary Participation Rates SpotlightTM Report. 2024.

²LIMRA. 2024 BEAT Study: Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker. 2024.

³Trustmark Book of Business. 2025.