Each year, the MyChoice^TM Recommendation Engine Benefits Insights Report aggregates the responses of employees using Businessolver’s proprietary decision guidance tool to uncover the state of mind of American workers during annual enrollment.

Our 2020 report captured what employees were thinking as they made their benefits elections in the fall of 2019, prior to the onset of COVID-19.

For this special report, we analyzed the responses from employees using the decision guidance tool whose annual enrollment is “off-cycle”—taking place in late spring or early summer of 2020 (post March 2020). Their responses provide an early indication of how the pandemic has impacted what employees are thinking and how they are behaving when they choose their benefits.

It is clear from this data that benefits literacy has been the most significantly impacted and where our analysis points to a notable decrease.

If these employees are indicative of the larger workforce, a critical opportunity exists for employers to focus more attention and resources on helping employees be better prepared to make benefits choices this fall.