Continued from page 15 PRODUCT NEWS employees. The pandemic has not made these financial challenges any easier. For more information, visit www.voya.com. size, industry and bandwidth of HR teams, so we are creating solutions to meet them where they are,” said Sheila Sokolski, head of Life, Absence and Disability Product and Marketing for Sun Life U.S. “Employers are not always suited to either a fully self-ad-ministered or fully outsourced solution. We are enhancing and expanding our absence offerings to make sure we address the unique needs and goals of all of our employer clients.” Sun Life AbsenceTech Bundle offers employers the people support typically provided by an outsourced solution, but with the capability to still manage absences in-house, a balance that makes more sense for employers with fewer employee leaves. Employers also have access to Sun Life Accommodation Consultants who facilitate the interactive process for employee ADA accommodations, which allow a disabled employee to continue working. As the digital component, Leave Genius Pro is included within the AbsenceTech Bundle, enabling employers to self-admin-ister absence in compliance with federal, state and local leave laws. Employers can track employee absences and receive auto-generated regulatory leave forms, no-tices, eligibility information and employee coverage calculations, taking the guess-work out of absence compliance. There are no file feeds, no implementation, and getting started is quick and easy. The new offering complements the Sun Life Absence Management Solution, which was launched in January, and provides larger and multi-state employers with one system that integrates federal/FMLA, state, local and company-specific leave plans with short-term disability, statutory disability and paid family and medical leave (PFML). Sun Life AbsenceTech Bundle is now available to all employers with 100+ employees, with effective dates starting January 1, 2022. including premiums for riders, waived for a specified period of time. For many employ-ees, time away from work means less in-come —which can lead to difficult choices, such as whether or not to continue paying for supplemental insurance coverage. The absence from employment premium waiver, which is an optional benefit that is chosen by the employer for an additional cost, can help lessen this burden for their employees. Infectious Disease Benefit—While COVID-19 has always been a covered infectious disease benefit, to help avoid any confusion for customers and better address their financial wellness needs, the critical illness insurance product offered by Voya now specifically names COVID-19 on its list of covered severe infectious diseases. The pandemic has changed day-to-day life for just about everyone, and the infectious disease benefit is designed to ease employee stress and help an individual effectively care for themselves or a family member if they become seriously ill. To qualify for this benefit, the covered individual would need to be diagnosed with a severe infectious disease by a doctor and confined to a hospital for a specified period of time, which is standardly five or more consecu-tive days. New Voya research shows 81% of em-ployees are interested in employer support that would help improve their overall financial wellness, and 75% of working Americans want help navigating an unex-pected life event such as a critical illness. Caregivers of people with special needs and disabilities regularly incur significant out-of-pocket expenses, and unexpected medical costs and potential insurance gaps can drastically affect their overall financial wellness. In a survey conducted by Voya Cares, nearly half of caregiving employees (47%) report living paycheck to paycheck and are barely getting by financially, compared to three in 10 general population PRODIGY LAUNCHES LEVEL-FUNDED PRODUCT Prodigy Health Insurance Services, a full-service MGU headquartered in the Pacific Northwest, has launched an ERISA qualified level-funded health program to combat rising healthcare costs and the ero-sion of employee’s benefits. The new product, Integrated Health Solu-tions, is designed to provide employers and employees with manageable monthly costs while delivering affordable access to health-care and long-term price stabilization. With a commitment to complete trans-parency, core features of IHS include a two-year total maximum cost guarantee, fixed monthly contributions and a standardized plan document with balance-bill protec-tions. More information can be found at www.prodigystoploss.com. SUN LIFE EXPANDS ABSENCE-MANAGEMENT SUITE Sun Life U.S. has expanded its absence-man-agement offerings to meet the needs of employers that want support in meeting absence compliance obligations but are cur-rently better suited to self-administer. Sun Life AbsenceTech Bundle provides support from Sun Life experts, paired with Presagia’s Leave Genius Pro, a self-administration absence technology platform that simplifies compliance with leave regulations. “The absence-management needs of employers can truly vary depending on 18 ABS | benefitspecialistmagazine.com
America's Benefit Specialist October 2021: Page 18
