BALTIMORE — Despite all the attention on benefits and conversations about what's wrong with the industry, there's still one common theme: frustration and confusion.
"Benefits are still very fragmented and frustrating to figure out and sort through," Howard Lapsley, consultant and partner at Oliver Wyman, said Thursday during a session at LIMRA's 2014 Group and Worksite Benefits Conference in Baltimore. "It's very much of a frustrating feeling for consumers and employers."
But with a surge of consumerism — driven in part by private exchanges — Lapsley anticipates that confusion will die down eventually.
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"Private exchanges are trying to unlock the power of the consumer," he said. "There's a new consumer-driven marketplace on the rise — we're going from volume to value."
Though he admitted there isn't much hard data yet on how private exchanges are faring, Lapsley said they're growing exponentially. And there's still a lot of opportunity out there for successful players in the field, he said.
"Private exchanges are a very popular theme this year — but it's still very, very wide open who ultimately the winners and the losers will be, both health plans and ancillary carriers," he said.
He pointed to the early winners: exchanges run by Aon Hewitt, Buck Consultants, Mercer and Towers Watson.
"Exchanges want to be the front door for consumers to think about their health … and find solutions," Lapsley said, noting that consumers are looking for convenience, transparency, mobile capabilities, social media, health news and education.
"The private exchanges who can do that and do that well will be the differentiator," Lapsley said.
And, he said, it will be harder for smaller, regional broker exchanges to compete with that.
Among the changes he predicted: the private exchange model will bring more interest and enrollment in supplemental and ancillary products. He also said elements such as tele-doc consults and health coaching are both poised for growth if presented correctly on the exchanges.
Brokers, too, are an important piece of the puzzle, he said.
"Brokers are important in developing the exchanges; they can help control the consumer experience," he said. They're also necessary in educating consumers and helping them understand how exchanges and benefits work.
"To make this work … it takes a village. No one is going to own what's important on their own going forward," Lapsley said. "It's about how [an exchange] partners with a health plan, their interaction with the outside world, the consumers — all of those things are really important."
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