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HRE- 5 Quick hits from the Health & Benefits Expo Hall

Nayya Marketing 

Today, Aflac announced a strategic partnership with Nayya that will fundamentally improve how employees access their supplemental health benefits. Nayya will power supplemental health claims integration to employers within Aflac’s industry-leading group benefits business, reducing the complexity and time associated with claims filing. Aflac has had a brand commitment to providing coverage that pays cash benefits with speed and accuracy. A robust, proactive medical claims integration solution is a natural extension of the firm’s long-standing values. 

At a time when medical cost benefits are surging, deductibles are climbing at a similar rate. Yet, research shows that 20-30% of supplemental health policies lapse after the first year**, often because customers don’t see the value in their coverage. Medical loss ratios can be similarly low. These challenges are in large part caused by confusing and/or reactive claims processes, resulting in employee populations that are underprotected from the financial impact of adverse events like accidents, critical illnesses, and hospitalizations. By partnering with Nayya Claims, Aflac is eliminating the burden of employees needing to identify and submit claims in the midst of an eligible medical event. The Nayya Claims Platform enables Aflac to offer employees automatic claims-filing by mapping medical claims data to supplemental health policies, and providing Aflac with a consistent stream of claims opportunities to process for leading employers across the United States. 

Nayya Claims enables automated claims decisions using a robust data warehouse and cutting edge pharmacy and medical claim enrichment methodologies. Nayya’s algorithms constantly review medical claims data looking for supplemental health claims opportunities which are filed on behalf of the employee. Once reviewed and approved by Aflac, the employee receives payment seamlessly. Nayya Claims is the fastest-growing claims technology in the supplemental health insurance industry.

To learn more about our new partnership, [read the full press release here](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aflac-group-partners-with-nayya-to-enhance-the-claims-experience-for-customers-302154216.html).

** _Eastbridge Consulting, 2023_

We're excited to announce our new partnership with Aflac.

News

Aflac Partners with Nayya to Make Supplemental Health Claims Payments Frictionless for their Customers

_The status quo will continue to challenge the American worker unless we harness the latest technologies to change the industry._

New York, New York, April 16, 2024 – Nayya, the data-driven adviser and leading provider of personalized employee benefits guidance, has published a report challenging the humdrum assertions made by many ecosystem players. The company, founded in 2019, already serves millions of employees, as well as many of the leading employers, consultants, PEOs, payroll companies, carriers, benefit administrators, and retirement providers across the United States. 

Nayya’s research showcases how offering more benefits is not solving the problem. Confusion and dissatisfaction with benefits are rising while the cost of living, healthcare costs, and inadequate retirement savings exert ever more pressure on employees. Traditional benefits education practices to drive benefits engagement continue to fall short of their promise, with point solution engagement in the single digits and as many as 60% of individuals selecting a more expensive health plan than they need.* Constant benefit administrator reports tout personalization and simplification. Why have these entities not solved the core challenges facing employees over the last 20 years?

Nayya’s report, titled "_Time to Build: How Employee Benefits Infrastructure Can Rise to Meet New Challenges_," comes at a time when nearly 50% of all Americans are concerned that a major health event would drive them into bankruptcy. Simultaneously, many of these same people are struggling with underutilizing their benefits. 

The standard industry approach is to throw more and more information at employees attempting to drive higher benefits engagement. And yet employee satisfaction with benefits reached an all-time low in 2023. Benefits education is often communicated in generic, long-form, and jargon-filled language. The entire employee benefits ecosystem has been constructed without a “last mile” adviser for the employee.

Nayya’s latest report offers a guide to understanding how the twin challenges of rising costs and low benefits engagement are causing employee benefits to fall short of expectations. In addition, it provides a first step for employers and consultants to take in delivering real value to employees. 

A new approach to employee benefits starts with holistic benefits guidance. In this new world, benefits pathways are tailored to the individual. These are based on health data, wealth insights, and tuned to personal preferences. The result is an employee benefits system that proactively delivers value in the moments that matter.

**Key highlights of the report include:**
- **Double Clicking into the Rising Costs and Impact to the Individual:** An overview of the current state of the economy and associated challenges facing employees, including why employers are in such a crucial position to help their teams navigate these times
- **The Role of Benefits in Financial Preparedness:** The significance of a cohesive benefits strategy in helping employees understand how to maximize the value of the resources available to them and bolster confidence in their protection
- **Driving Impact Through Digital-First Experiences:** Strategies for providing intuitive and effective benefits guidance that improve employee satisfaction and financial outcomes
- **Harnessing Technology for Holistic Guidance:** The importance of leveraging data-driven solutions to enable a scaled approach to optimizing benefits delivery 

Commenting on the release of the report, Catherine Spence, VP of Marketing & Member Impact at Nayya, said, "There comes a point where you have to cast aside systems that aren’t serving consumers. We realize that incumbent players delivering benefits guidance have proven unsuccessful. As an industry, we have the opportunity to make holistic, data-driven, benefits guidance the new standard of excellence.

Nayya is committed to continually providing research-based insights alongside our partners, so that we can collectively shift our focus to benefits that proactively, programmatically, and prescriptively deliver impact to employees. People deserve better support."

Time to Build: How Employee Benefits Infrastructure Can Rise to Meet New Challenges is now available for download on [Nayya.com](http://Nayya.com/time-to-build-report).

**About Nayya:**
Nayya is the leading provider of personalized employee benefits guidance. Leveraging data and technology to reduce user friction, increases benefits understanding, and drives benefits impact from enrollment to usage to re-enrollment. Nayya unites the employee benefits experience across health, wealth, and wellness to deliver clarity and efficiency across the entire benefits landscape. Nayya is proud to be trusted by the biggest name in benefits including MetLife, ADP, Prudential, and Guardian. Headquartered in New York City, Nayya is a privately held company backed by Iconiq, Felicis, and Viewpoint Investment Partners. For more information visit [www.nayya.com](http://www.nayya.com).


**Sources:**
* [_The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 132, Issue 3, August 2017_](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/132/3/1319/3769420?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false)


The traditional approach to employee benefits in the United States is failing to meet the needs of workers, with nearly 60% of individuals selecting more expensive health plans than they need. It's time for a new approach that focuses on personalized, holistic benefits guidance to improve the employee benefits experience.

We Need a New Deal for Employee Benefits

Today, Nayya is proud to announce that Nayya Claims will enable MetLife Connected Benefits across its supplemental health products. Nayya Claims maximizes the impact of supplemental health insurance for consumers by harnessing and enriching medical claims data to automate the identification and initiation of claims. This expanded relationship represents a significant expansion of MetLife Connected Benefits capabilities and is set to transform how millions of employees experience their benefits.

Voluntary benefit products play a critical role in consumers' wellbeing in the United States due to rising costs and coverage gaps in major medical insurance. To realize the value of their supplemental coverage, however, consumers are required to initiate and manage claims processes on their own. This means during medical events, they need to remember relevant policies, gather information from medical professionals, and deeply understand their coverage in order to appropriately file claims and receive any reimbursement. Moreover, MetLife’s new research found 62% of employees are not completely confident they know about all benefits offered to them, which can result in lower benefit utilization and satisfaction*.

Sina Chehrazi, CEO of Nayya, emphasizes the critical role of claims integration capabilities in today's benefits landscape: “It is always inspiring - in any industry - when a market leader seeks to improve the status quo. We are thrilled to support and work closely with MetLife on its commitment to meaningfully invest in delivering an enhanced benefit experience to meet the rising expectations and evolving needs of today’s employers and their workforces. Medical claims integrations are critical to bringing voluntary benefits experiences up to the standards that employees and their families deserve. Nayya Claims is a product that consultants and employers are turning to in order to help their customers and employees make the most of their benefits.”

Adds Sharon Cunninghis, Chief Growth Officer of Nayya, “As a leader at one of the world’s largest consulting firms for many years, this was the type of solution we dreamed about for our clients. While extremely complex to develop on the back-end with a high degree of fidelity, the front-end experience for the user is everything it should be: simple, proactive, and empathetic.”

The industry attempted to make progress with medical claims processing in recent years, but has struggled to deliver a product that meaningfully impacts loss ratios, satisfies consumer needs, and delivers the necessary security. Nayya Claims is taking a differentiated approach that prioritizes the following critical capabilities:

- **Consumer Experience:** Advanced data mapping and enrichment to remove friction through automation more often.
- **Efficiency + Accuracy:** Sophisticated algorithms and models that synthesize complex logic in order to streamline carrier processes.
- **Privacy + Flexibility:** Easily embeddable and dynamic consent-based workflows that operate under HIPAA and with the best interest of the consumer.

This technology enables Nayya to eliminate the need for employees to own the end-to-end management of their claims, instead creating experiences where claims opportunities for benefits such as accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity plans are automatically identified and initiated when they are needed. Nayya Claims can even identify scenarios where existing policies should be enhanced, for example offering additional covered dental cleanings for employees during a pregnancy or if they have been diagnosed with conditions like diabetes. 

These seamless benefits experiences are key for both employees and the employers that offer them. In recent years in particular, employers have been prioritizing employee wellness and enhancements to employee benefits offerings. Even with these investments, employee satisfaction with benefits reached its lowest point in the last decade in 2023**.

“Comprehension and utilization are critical parts of the employee’s benefit experience, in fact using and having a great experience drives increases in individual’s holistic health," said Bradd Chignoli, Senior Vice President of National Accounts & Financial Wellness at MetLife. “We are thrilled to continue our work with Nayya to deliver groundbreaking technology that simplifies the claims process while empowering employees to maximize the value of their benefits, leading them to feel more cared for and confident in the packages offered through their employers.”

The enhanced Connected Benefits experiences through Nayya Claims is available to MetLife clients today. For more information, please visit [nayya.com](https://www.nayya.com/).

**Sources:**

* MetLife 22nd Annual Employee Benefits Trends Study (2024)
* MetLife 21st Annual Employee Benefits Trends Study (2023)

Nayya and MetLife team up to maximize the impact of MetLife’s market-leading portfolio of products for consumers through tech-enabled medical claims integrations.

HRE- 5 Quick hits from the Health & Benefits Expo Hall

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