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November 22, 2017
After seven years, the OneExchange Blog is suspending publication. We’ve recently renamed our Willis Towers Watson business segment from Exchange Solutions to Benefits Delivery and Administration and we have also unveiled a consumer-facing brand, Via Benefits, which signifies a journey toward finding a personalized portfolio of insurance coverage to meet the diverse needs of participants.
As our business has evolved, Exchange Solutions and the OneExchange brand did not accurately reflect the full scope of our benefits delivery solutions. We believe the new segment name and brand will more accurately capture the spirit and reality of our vision.
As we continue to evolve our user experience toward a more unified look and feel in the coming years, we will still be focusing on our primary goal, which is to provide an excellent user experience. We look forward to continuing to solve our client’s challenges and helping them meet their organizational goals and the needs of their diverse workforce populations.
Please visit the Willis Towers Watson Wire to access future content from our internal team.
Nearly 100% of employers are satisfied using a benefits marketplace (also known as a private exchange) to deliver an online shopping experience for choosing health and other benefits to employees, according to the 2017 Employer Experiences on Benefits Marketplaces Survey report by Willis Towers Watson. The majority of employers believe it has impacted their employees and company in a positive way by helping to control costs, simplify administration, and improve company culture:*
- 97% of employers are satisfied with the benefits marketplace.
- 86% think the benefits marketplace has helped them control benefits costs.
- 89% say moving to the benefits marketplace has impacted their company culture positively.
Willis Towers Watson surveyed employers who use our benefits marketplaces to offer employees health benefits and more. This survey targeted employers with benefits effective dates between April 2016 and March 2017.
Read the full employer report: Willis Towers Watson Employer Satisfaction with Benefits Marketplaces 2017.
Read the employee report: Willis Towers Watson Health Care Consumerism in a Marketplace Environment 2017.
See the full infographic: Willis Towers Watson Infographic Everybody Wins
Click for the full WTW 2017 Employer Satisfaction Survey Infographic
*Data reflective of Willis Towers Watson Mid-Market and broker channel market
League of California Cities Partners with OneExchange on New Private Exchange Offering
September 13, 2016
The League of California Cities® announced today that it is working with Willis Towers Watson to give cities more health care options to offer to their retirees through the League of California Cities’ Health Benefits MarketplaceSM (HBM). The HBM launched in August and is a consumer-driven platform that lets cities redesign their approach to medical insurance and gives retirees and active employees coverage choices that align with their individual needs.
League of California Cities Health Benefits Marketplace (HBM) partners with OneExchange to provide Medicare and early retiree medical coverage options to California cities
“California city officials have expressed the need for solutions to the ongoing pressure they face in reducing Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) liabilities and providing competitive health benefits to active employees and retirees,” said Chris McKenzie, executive director, League of California Cities. “The Health Benefits Marketplace provides cities with the flexibility to leverage technology to enable greater health care choice as well as help manage OPEB liabilities and rising health care costs by decoupling and unbundling active employee and retiree costs.”
Reducing OPEB liabilities and providing health benefits to active employees and retirees is a challenge for many cities. The HBM provides cities with an efficient tool to leverage technology to enable greater health care choice as well as help manage OPEB liabilities and rising health care costs by allowing cities to handle retiree health benefits separately from health benefits for active employees.
Medicare and early-retiree coverage on the HBM is provided by Willis Towers Watson on its OneExchange™ marketplace. OneExchange lets cities achieve an immediate reduction in retiree health benefit costs, including long-term liability and the administration of health plan management. Retirees enjoy the value and transparency of a robust marketplace, meaningful choice of individual plans, and the expert assistance of licensed benefit advisors to help them choose coverage that fits their needs.
Diversified Benefit Strategies serves as the League’s private exchange consultant.
“The League went through a rigorous selection process to choose its partners for the Health Benefits Marketplace,” said Barry Eyre, lead consultant, Diversified Benefit Strategies. “Willis Towers Watson and Connecture have proven to be excellent partners in the creation of a highly flexible platform designed to meet the needs of public agencies in California.”
To learn more about the League’s Health Benefits Marketplace visit www.cacities.org/hbm and for the full announcement, see League of California Cities Announces New Partners in Offering Improved Health Benefits Options to Local Cities.
Towers Watson Acquires Acclaris, Expanding Benefits Administration and Consumer-Driven, Account-Based Benefits
May 11, 2015
Towers Watson announced today that it has acquired Acclaris, a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based technology and services for consumer-driven health plan and reimbursement accounts, including health savings accounts (HSAs), health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and other consumer-directed accounts.
The acquisition enhances our position as a leading benefits administrator and private benefit exchange provider. By 2017, Towers Watson research shows that approximately 50% of employers could offer account-based health plans (ABHPs) as their only option – with about 20% already doing so in 2015.
Acclaris’s scalable platform offers integrated technology and services to support account-based benefits. As of March 2015, Acclaris supports 1.4 million accounts across all account-based benefit types and works with 6,000 employers, including more than 40 Fortune 500 companies.
Jim Foreman, managing director of Towers Watson’s Exchange Solutions unit had this to say:
Going forward, Towers Watson and Acclaris will enable clients of any size to offer health benefits in new and cost-effective ways. Acclaris stands out from the competition for its operational efficiency, and its scalable and configurable SaaS-based technology and service delivery.
We believe this combination will allow us to offer the end-to-end process for both traditional benefits administration and private benefit exchange solutions, and to deliver a seamless experience for our employer-clients, an exceptional experience for consumers and high-quality customer support for both.”
Read the full announcement of the Acclaris acquisition here.
Companies Keep Coming Back
June 5, 2014
OneExchange today marked an important milestone: 50 employer clients have used our private Medicare solution to transition multiple groups of customers.
Workforces can be complex, and changing benefits for multiple groups at once may not always be possible. Union contract negotiation timelines differ. Employers may want to test-drive a new approach like an exchange with a portion of their population first. And newly acquired companies may present an opportunity to streamline benefits administration after an initial group has already transitioned.
These are all reasons why employer clients have come back time and time again to OneExchange in addition to the reasons they chose Towers Watson’s Medicare solution in the first place.
71% of companies that offer retiree health care report that they already offer retirees access to a private Medicare exchange or plan to by 2016 – just 10 years after our inaugural enrollment season as the U.S.’s first private Medicare exchange in 2006.
Read the full announcement here.
71% of companies that offer retiree health report that they already offer retirees access to a private Medicare exchange or plan to by 2016
The Bay Bridge at night, looking to its footings in Alameda County
Each year, Kathy Foster and team analyze the funds in their organization’s trust to figure out how long the money will last. More than 20,000 people rely on those funds when they retire – for income and health coverage – one of the biggest costs in retirement.
Foster is Assistant CEO of the Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Association (ACERA) – steward of the retirement benefits fund for the nation’s seventh largest county.
In February 2012, ACERA was one of California’s first counties to use a private Medicare exchange. A year later, ACERA is sharing how it made the decision, what the move entailed and taking a 20/20 look back to measure projections.
Read Building a Bridge to the Future: ACERA’S Retiree Medical Strategy.
Learn more about Towers Watson’s OneExchange solution for retiree healthcare.
Pro Advice for CFOs: Exchanges as a Cost Management Tool
March 29, 2014
Check out some hard-hitting questions on how private exchanges can measure up as a cost-management tool by Towers Watson’s Managing Director of Exchange Solutions, Bryce Williams.
Skyrocketing health benefit costs have made cost management strategies a concern for every company officer. CFOs feel this acutely and are looking for solutions that transcend the traditional.
I spoke with three engineers of the next frontier of benefits delivery – chief actuary Dave Osterndorf, strategist Ben Pajak and active employee exchange expert Cathy Tripp – to get their best advice on how CFOs can leverage health insurance exchanges to tame health benefit costs now and down the road – when the stakes get even higher.
Here are their best thoughts on what’s driving the savings on exchanges, how much employers can expect to save and the impact on HR and benefits.
View original post 2,177 more words
OneExchange Headlines Towers Watson’s Exchange Offerings
February 16, 2014
Find out more about testOneExchange
Welcome to our new look! The OneExchange blog.
The blog’s new name and face reflect changes that began over a year ago when Towers Watson launched OneExchange.
Building on our private Medicare exchange roots, this blog has expanded to include news, research, trends and insights for all workforce populations – from full-time and part-time employees to pre-65 retirees in addition to our original Medicare perspective.
See OneExchange everywhere
You can see the new OneExchange look at all our sites, including:
- On Twitter:
- @OneExchange– Check out the new face of our tweet stream.
- @brycewatch –
Follow us on Twitter at @OneExchange & @BryceWatch
Check out the latest from our managing director, Bryce Williams, at his tweet stream.
- Online:
- medicare.oneexchange.com – Check out the new face of our private Medicare exchange
Towers Watson’s private Medicare Exchange
- medicare.oneexchange.com – Check out the new face of our private Medicare exchange
Towers Watson Announces Expansion of Exchange Solutions Segment
January 25, 2014
Jim Foreman to lead Exchange Solutions, Carl Hess to succeed Foreman as managing director of Americas Region
In a move designed to help employers better navigate the dynamic health care environment, global professional services company Towers Watson announced plans to unite the company-wide expertise and resources dedicated to health care exchanges and administration within its Exchange Solutions segment.
Health Pocket Survey: Employee Choice
July 25, 2013
In a new survey from Health Pocket released this week, 65 percent of respondents said they would prefer to choose their own insurance carriers rather than have their employer choose for them. But the majority of Americans don’t have the ability to choose their own insurance company. Sixty-six percent of insured Americans receive coverage through their employer, where health care options are limited to the insurers selected by the company.
Private exchanges emerging into the market today from a number of companies, including Towers Watson, offer the kind of choice that the survey indicates people want. A report by Accenture predicts that private exchanges will surpass enrollment in public exchanges by 2018.
Read the Health Pocket survey here: http://www.healthpocket.com/healthcare-research/surveys/group-health-insurance-plans-americans-prefer-to-choose-provider
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