Most industry experts will call voluntary products a win-win-win. They happily serve companies, employees and brokers alike.

Though the rising cost of health care, coupled with the weak economy, has spurred companies to add voluntary benefits, they are also turning to voluntary to attract and retain skilled employees.

And employees love the option of pet insurance or legal insurance and other benefits they might not have thought of. According to a Hartford study, employees who are offered voluntary benefits reported higher satisfaction with their benefits than did those who were not offered voluntary products (64 percent and 56 percent, respectively).

And of course, these voluntary products are intended to most benefit the holders of the product economically.

“Over the last decade, wages have not kept pace with household needs and families often rely on two incomes,” Risk says. “This has increased their vulnerability to events that disrupt their cash flow. More expensive medical insurance with higher deductibles only worsens the situation. Voluntary benefits can help employees close these gaps at little or no cost to employers.”

Let's not forget, too, that voluntary benefits are especially important to brokers as they look for new revenue streams with health reform changes. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's medical loss ratio spells out changes that may hit a broker's bottom line hard, unless they consider new ways of doing business. Out of every premium dollar, 85 cents has to be used to pay claims, leaving 15 cents to pay for carrier expenses, including broker commissions.

Introducing voluntary products might literally save some brokers their job.

“Brokers are now deciding whether to cut staff or services, or merge with other brokers,” Steve Hannah, regional vice president of group benefit services at Mutual of Omaha, told Benefits Selling in December. “There's also a mass influx of brokers, and some are now calling themselves voluntary benefit experts.”

The coming years—especially with further implementation of health reform—will only mainstream voluntary products more, experts agree.

So it might be a good idea to brush up on critical illness/cancer, accident, disability, life, long-term care, vision and dental insurance—just to name a few.