Help your employees better understand pre-tax benefits

We analyzed our website to determine what pages employees were visiting the most in 2020. By doing so, we hope that it will help you assist your employees in finding the resources they need. As a result, this should help them better understand pre-tax benefits and how to effectively use their accounts.

Benefits and COVID-19

It should come as no surprise that employees had to rethink their benefits due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m sure you did as well. Their concerns came in three major areas.

1. Spending dependent care funds. With child care options more limited due to the pandemic, Dependent Care FSA account holders wanted to know if their pre-tax dollars could be used to pay for a babysitter. Fortunately, the answer is yes… if certain criteria are met. We talk about this in more detail in our blog “Your Dependent Care FSA: babysitter hiring options“.
2. HSA withdrawals. As a result of the financial hardship caused by the pandemic, employees explored the option of dipping into their HSAs.
3. Making changes to their benefits. Employees were worried about losing their funds, particularly their Medical FSA dollars, and were exploring to see if they needed to make benefit changes because of COVID-19. Fortunately, with the relief that was included in the year-end spending bill, employers can take steps to help with this. Reach out to your assigned specialist for more information.

The basics

Enrolling in pre-tax benefit accounts doesn’t automatically make your employees experts on the ins and outs surrounding those benefits. There are plenty of nuances that can even trip up those who have enrolled in those benefits in the past!

How well do employees understand pre-tax benefits? Find out by downloading our Knowledge Gap eBook.

Basic info about their plan

Our “Account Basics” pages (such as our FSA Basics page) get a lot of traction year-round, as well as our FAQs. So even if employees don’t know everything, they seem to be actively seeking out information to answer their questions. Here are some additional resources you can point them to – organized by resource type.

Eligible expenses and eligible merchants for health accounts

Two of our most visited pages include our Eligible Expenses & Eligible Merchants page — which discusses eligible medical expenses and qualified merchants who provide these eligible products or services — and one of our blogs, Top 8 places to use your Health FSA. This tells us that employees are eager to spend their pre-tax health dollars, but they don’t always know how.

Here are some additional pieces of content that can help point them in the right direction:

• Quick Reference Guide to Eligible Expenses
• Sample Chart of Eligible OTC Items
• 15 Eligible Medical Expenses Under $15
• 7 ways to use up your FSA money in 7 days

This leads us into our next section…

Using the Beniversal^® Prepaid Mastercard^®

Your employees WANT to use their funds! And the Beniversal Card is what allows them to do it. Help them use it effectively.

• Starting out. After receiving their card in the mail, your employees (especially those who don’t read the information that comes with their card) are probably wondering: “What’s next?” Our blog, The Beniversal Card Guide for Newbies, can help with this.
• Checking their balance. We provide employees with multiple ways to check their balance. They could call our Participant Services line, but we’ve made it easier by allowing them to check it via BRiWeb, BRiMobile, receive alerts via BRiAlerts, and provide their information to our automated phone line. Those options are laid out in this blog.
• Receipt requests. Employees often end up in the FSA supporting documentation FAQs to try and determine what their next steps are when they get a receipt request. Our Ultimate Receipt Guide or can help employees avoid them altogether.

In conclusion, your employees WANT to use their benefits and have many resources at their disposal. Help by pointing them in the right direction: Send them to our Resource Center!

We have an entire section dedicated to employee resources. For instance: videos, blogs, calculators, flyers, and more! Our Resource Center can help your employees better understand pre-tax benefits.