How your benefit lens can change in an instant

There are seasons that arrive all at once, both mentally and medically heavy. My husband needed a series of medical tests. The results came back normal, yet we were still left without answers. Not long after, my son landed in the emergency room with a hand injury. Surgery followed, and his physical and mental healing will extend for months, possibly longer.

In the middle of all of it, open enrollment opened for the new benefits year.

In recent years, our benefits have been on autopilot. I reviewed the options, usually continued on the same path, and rarely gave much thought to the ancillary services offered alongside our medical plan. But, as our season changed a different question came in mind: do our benefits actually have our back?

The question is harder to answer than it should be. Most benefits are designed for someday. When someday arrives, what do they actually provide?

What Someday Reveals

• The medical plan is only the starting point. Deductibles, coinsurance, and the out-of-pocket maximums suddenly matter in real dollars, not hypothetical ones.
• Ancillary benefits are easy to skip until you need them. Accident insurance, hospital indemnity, and critical illness coverage can pay cash benefits to help offset costs not covered by the medical plan. Many employees could not tell you whether they enrolled.
• Wellness benefits take on an entirely new meaning. Preventive screenings, fitness reimbursements, and lifestyle spending accounts often feel like perks during enrollment. When a family is recovering or waiting for answers, they become practical tools for managing stress, rebuilding routines, and staying ahead of what comes next.
• Recovery is not only physical. Mental health support may be available in more places than employees realize. It is often covered under the medical plan, included in an employee assistance program with a set number of counseling sessions at no cost, or offered as a standalone benefit such as a virtual therapy. Yet these resources remain among the least used, often because employees do not know where to start or which option applies to them.
• Spending accounts become an essential tool. When large expenses arrive all at once, an HSA or FSA shifts from a tax strategy to a practical way to cover deductibles, surgery costs, prescriptions, and months of follow-up care with pretax dollars. A health FSA makes the full annual election available from the start of the plan year, and HSA funds stay with the employee year after year. Open enrollment is the moment to set those elections with real life in mind, since FSA elections generally cannot change midyear without a qualifying event.

Why This Matters for Benefits Communication

Enrollment materials tend to describe benefits by feature: what is covered, what it costs, how to enroll. Employees default to autopilot because nothing in that framing connects to their real life until something happens.

The better question isn’t "what does this plan include?” but "if something happened tomorrow, how would this plan help me?"

How We Help Employees Find Their Answer

• Use scenarios instead of feature lists. Walk through an ER visit, a surgery, a chronic condition, or months of follow-up care, and show what each benefit contributes.
• Bring ancillary benefits into the main conversation. When they appear only on the last page of the guide, employees treat them as optional extras.
• Connect the accounts to the moment. Show how an HSA or FSA works alongside the medical plan when a large expense hits.
• Communicate beyond enrollment. The moment employees need clarity most is rarely during open enrollment. Reminders about EAP access, claims processes, and supplemental benefits belong in year-round touchpoints.

The Lens Shift

In the past, I would have reviewed our benefits the way I always have. Today, I see them through a different lens, and I suspect many employees only gain that lens after it is too late to change their elections.

The job as benefits professionals is to help them see it sooner.

Has a life event ever changed how you evaluate your benefits? What do you wish you had known before someday arrived?

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