Eastbridge Consulting Group, Avon, Conn., found an increased confidence in the future of the voluntary industry in its recent survey Voluntary Industry Confidence Index. In fact, 82 percent of respondents anticipate employee enthusiasm for voluntary products to grow over the next year, compared to 71 percent of respondents in 2009.

"We hope that our respondents are correct as they accurately predicted the downturn and are clearly resuming their prerecession optimism," says Gil Lowerre, president of Eastbridge.

For this survey, the overall mean was 4.03 and is the highest mean yet. Nearly three out of 10 respondents expect employees to be "much more" enthusiastic about voluntary products, which is a significant driving force in this study.

The semi-annual Voluntary Industry Confidence Index study includes responses from active carriers, brokers and vendors. The index is a single number that evaluates the present results to a baseline measure. The first Voluntary Industry Confidence Index survey was completed in December of 2005, which serves as its base year.

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