Updated for 2025
In today’s competitive job market, top talent expects more than just traditional health insurance. Employers who offer Ancillary benefits — such as Dental, Vision, and Disability coverage — are better positioned to attract and retain employees. As a health insurance broker, understanding Ancillary benefits is essential to helping your clients build well-rounded, competitive benefits packages. This guide breaks down everything you need to know about these valuable additions so you can effectively explain them to employers.
What Are Ancillary Benefits?
Ancillary benefits are supplemental insurance products that complement primary health insurance coverage. These benefits fill gaps in traditional medical plans and provide additional financial protection for employees and their families. While not mandatory like health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, Ancillary benefits have become increasingly important in comprehensive benefits packages. When explaining to your clients, emphasize that these are the “extra” benefits that enhance their core medical offering and provide employees with more complete protection.
When explaining to your clients, emphasize that these are the “extra” benefits that enhance their core medical offering, providing employees with more complete protection. Whether employer-sponsored or voluntary, these benefits are highly valued by today’s workforce.
The Benefits of Offering Ancillary Insurance
Ancillary benefits aren’t just add-ons — they play a role in reducing employees’ financial stress, improving job satisfaction, and increasing retention. For employers, offering Ancillary benefits signals a commitment to employee wellbeing and strengthens their employer brand.
When discussing options with clients, highlight how Ancillary benefits:
- Reduce financial stress: Help employees cover unexpected health expenses.
- Improve retention & satisfaction: Employees highly value benefits beyond basic health coverage.
- Boost productivity: Less financial stress leads to increased focus and fewer absences.
- Offer cost-effective solutions: Employers can provide these benefits at a relatively low cost compared to the value employees place on them.
Industry Trends: The Rising Demand for Ancillary Benefits
The most recent BenefitsPRO/Eastbridge Consulting Group survey of Voluntary Benefits producers includes these key findings:
- Many brokers reported higher sales in 2023 as compared to 2022.
- Both quote and enrollment activity increased in this period.
- Familiar insurance choices continue to rank among the most popular.
- Benefit brokers — those who primarily sell core or employer-funded products but also sell voluntary benefits — beat the industry average with 7% sales growth in 2023
- These brokers produced total sales of $6.3 billion, or 68% of the total market.
- While voluntary sales grew by 5.4% in 2022 — 2023 surpassed that total with a 6.7% jump, which pushed total sales premium to $9.34 billion, the industry’s highest level ever.
- Insurance brokers are optimistic about clients’ and employees’ future receptivity toward voluntary during the next year.
These statistics highlight the growing importance of ancillary benefits in the overall benefits landscape and present significant opportunities for health insurance brokers to expand their offerings to clients.
List of Ancillary Benefits for Your Clients to Consider
Ancillary insurance coverage includes a wide range of options such as Dental, Vision, and Life as well as Accident, Critical Illness, Hospital Indemnity, Disability, and other secondary or health-supplemental coverage. Sometimes these are sponsored by an employer, sometimes they are entirely voluntary. The diversity of these benefits allows for customized solutions that meet the specific needs of your clients’ workforce.
- Dental and Vision Coverage: These are considered the “standard” ancillary benefits and are often the starting point for employers new to offering supplemental benefits. For clients hesitant about expanding benefits, these offer an excellent entry point with high perceived value among employees.
- Disability Insurance: This provides income protection when employees are unable to work due to illness or injury. When explaining to clients, emphasize that disability insurance protects their employees’ most valuable asset—their ability to earn an income, especially since many employees don’t have sufficient savings to weather an extended period without pay.
- Life Insurance: Group life insurance provides financial protection for employees’ families in the event of their death, demonstrating an employer’s care for employees’ families and long-term security. This typically includes basic coverage and voluntary options for additional protection.
- Supplemental Health Insurance: These policies help cover costs that primary Health insurance doesn’t, including Critical Illness insurance, Accident insurance, and Hospital Indemnity insurance. These benefits are particularly valuable alongside high-deductible health plans, helping to fill coverage gaps.
- Wellness and Financial Programs: Beyond traditional insurance products, modern Ancillary benefits include wellness initiatives and financial wellness benefits like identity theft protection, legal services, pet insurance, and student loan assistance programs.
Educating Clients About Ancillary Insurance Products
While you should always encourage clients to make the best product service offering available to their clients here are the most popular ancillary products sold based on 2023’s data:
| Among Benefits Brokers | Among Voluntary Brokers |
| Dental | Accidental Injury |
| Accidental Injury | Critical Illness |
| Short-Term Disability | Hospital Indemnity/Supplemental Medical |
| Critical Illness | Short-Term Disability |
| Term Life | Universal Life/Whole Life |
The results of MetLife’s 20th Annual U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study in 2022 found employees consider many Ancillary benefits to be “must have” or “nice to have.” Beyond Health Insurance, the most-desired insured benefits are:
- Dental Insurance
- Vision Insurance
- Life Insurance
- Disability Insurance
- Critical Illness
- Accident Insurance
- Hospital Indemnity
- Cancer Insurance
When discussing Ancillary benefits and insurance with clients, help them understand the strategic advantages beyond simply offering “more benefits.” Ancillary insurance products represent a cost-effective talent strategy, often proving less expensive than salary increases while being highly valued by employees. Many of these Ancillary benefits also come with tax advantages for both employers and employees, making them even more economical.
Effectively Presenting Ancillary Benefits to Clients
As a health insurance broker, your approach to discussing ancillary benefits can significantly impact client interest and adoption. Begin by understanding your client’s specific workforce demographics and priorities. A company with many young families might benefit most from different ancillary options than one with an older employee population.
When presenting options, focus on creating strategic bundles that complement the client’s primary health insurance plan. For example, if they have a high-deductible health plan, hospital indemnity and accident insurance become particularly valuable companions. For clients concerned about costs, prepare a clear ROI analysis that demonstrates the value these benefits bring in terms of recruitment, retention, and reduced absenteeism.
Many employers are concerned about the administrative burden of additional benefits. Address this proactively by recommending solutions that minimize complexity, such as working with carriers that offer integrated platforms or consolidated billing. Finally, offer guidance on communicating benefit value to employees — the most carefully selected benefits won’t achieve their goals if employees don’t understand or appreciate them.
Final Thoughts
By thoroughly understanding Ancillary insurance options and effectively communicating their importance, you can help clients create competitive benefits packages that attract and retain top talent.
For your clients, ancillary benefits offer a cost-effective way to enhance employee wellbeing, satisfaction, and productivity. In today’s competitive job market, a thoughtfully designed benefits package — including Ancillary insurance — can be a powerful differentiator for employers.
Word & Brown Products & Services
Word & Brown works with a variety of carriers and administrators to offer Ancillary insurance coverage as well as Voluntary and Worksite products and services. You can see lists, organized by state and coverage type, on our website. Or, visit our Ancillary page. You can also learn more by talking with your Word & Brown representative.
If you’re not already doing business with Word & Brown, contact our headquarters and we’ll put you in touch with one of our sales experts in your region. We have representatives throughout California and Nevada. Call us today at 800-869-6989.
