How does Service 1st Benefits support my business during open enrollment?

We personally manage the entire open enrollment process — from educating employees to handling enrollment forms and answering plan questions. Our goal is to make open enrollment smooth and stress-free for everyone.

Can employees contact you directly for help?

Yes. Employees can reach out to us anytime for questions about claims, coverage, ID cards, or plan details. We act as your team’s benefits partner, not just your broker.

What size businesses do you work with?

We specialize in serving small and medium-sized businesses, typically ranging from 1–200 employees. If you’re growing or planning to expand, we help scale your benefits as your team grows.

Do you handle communication with insurance carriers for us?

Absolutely. We take care of claims issues, employee changes, renewals, and any carrier communication so you don’t have to spend hours on hold.

Do you offer voluntary or supplemental benefits?

Yes. We can provide optional add-ons like disability, accident, or critical illness insurance to enhance your benefits package at little or no cost to the employer.

What types of group benefits do you offer?

We provide comprehensive group health, dental, vision, and life insurance options for small and medium-sized businesses. We help you compare plans, handle enrollment, and manage carrier communication.

What information do you need to provide a quote?

We typically need: Number of employees Basic employee census (age, gender, ZIP code) Current plan (if applicable) Desired benefits or coverage goals We keep the process as simple as possible.

Do you charge fees for your services?

No. Our services — including plan comparison, open enrollment, and year-round support — are provided at no additional cost to your business.

Voluntary Benefits Explained: What They Are and Why More Small Businesses Are Offering Them

Charlie Hopgood
1 hour ago
5 min read

When small business owners think about employee benefits, health insurance tends to dominate the conversation. And for good reason — group health coverage is the foundation of any competitive benefits package.

But there's another category of benefits that many small businesses are leaving on the table entirely: voluntary benefits.

Voluntary benefits can meaningfully strengthen your total compensation package, improve employee satisfaction, and even help with recruiting — often at zero additional cost to your business. Yet they remain widely underutilized, especially among smaller employers who either haven't heard of them or assume they're too complicated to offer.

This guide demystifies voluntary benefits and explains why more small businesses are making them a core part of their benefits strategy.

What Are Voluntary Benefits?

Voluntary benefits — sometimes called supplemental benefits — are additional insurance products that employers make available to their employees, typically at group rates, where the employee pays the premium through payroll deduction.

Unlike core group health insurance (where the employer usually contributes toward the premium), voluntary benefits are most often employee-paid. The employer's role is simply to make the benefit available and facilitate the payroll deduction.

This is what makes voluntary benefits particularly attractive for small businesses: you can offer meaningful coverage options to your employees at little or no direct cost to your company.

Common Types of Voluntary Benefits

Accident Insurance

Accident insurance pays a lump-sum benefit when an employee (or covered family member) experiences a qualifying accident — such as a broken bone, emergency room visit, hospitalization, or serious injury.

This type of coverage has become increasingly popular as employees take on higher deductibles under their health plans. An accident benefit can help bridge the gap between what insurance pays and what employees owe out of pocket.

For employees with active lifestyles, children in sports, or physically demanding jobs, accident insurance can provide meaningful peace of mind.

Critical Illness Insurance

Critical illness coverage pays a lump-sum benefit if an employee is diagnosed with a covered illness — such as cancer, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure.

The benefit can be used for anything: medical bills, travel to treatment centers, mortgage payments, childcare during recovery, or any other expense the employee faces.

Critical illness insurance is a particularly valued benefit because a serious diagnosis often comes with costs that go far beyond what major medical insurance covers.

Life Insurance

Many employees — especially younger ones — don't have adequate life insurance on their own. Group term life insurance is one of the most commonly offered voluntary benefits, and it gives employees access to coverage at rates far lower than they'd find in the individual market.

Employers can offer a base amount of life insurance as a core benefit and then give employees the option to purchase additional coverage voluntarily.

Short-Term and Long-Term Disability Insurance

Disability insurance replaces a portion of an employee's income if they are unable to work due to illness or injury. Short-term disability typically covers the first few weeks to months of a disability, while long-term disability kicks in for extended absences.

Many employees have no disability coverage whatsoever — which means a single health event could be financially catastrophic. Offering disability coverage as a voluntary option gives employees the ability to protect their income at an affordable group rate.

Hospital Indemnity Insurance

Hospital indemnity plans pay a fixed daily or per-event benefit for hospital stays, ICU admission, or surgical procedures. Like accident and critical illness coverage, hospital indemnity benefits help employees manage the out-of-pocket costs that their health insurance doesn't fully cover.

Dental and Vision Insurance

While dental and vision are sometimes offered as core employer-paid benefits, many small businesses offer them on a voluntary basis — where employees who want coverage can elect it and pay the premium themselves. Even as employee-paid benefits, dental and vision are widely appreciated and used.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

EAPs provide employees with confidential access to mental health counseling, financial advice, legal consultations, and other support services. EAPs are often available at very low cost through carrier relationships and are considered one of the highest-perceived-value benefits among today's workforce.

Why Small Businesses Should Take Voluntary Benefits Seriously

They Strengthen Your Total Compensation Package at No Employer Cost

The most immediate advantage is financial. Voluntary benefits allow you to offer a more complete benefits package without adding to your monthly premium spend. Employees who value these benefits pay for them directly — but through the convenience and affordability of group rates.

Employees Genuinely Value Them

Survey after survey shows that employees prioritize financial security. They want to know that if something goes wrong — an accident, a serious illness, an extended recovery — they have a financial backstop.

Voluntary benefits directly address that concern. And because employees choose which benefits to enroll in, they tend to value the ones they select more than benefits that are simply assigned to them.

They Help You Compete With Larger Employers

Large employers routinely offer comprehensive supplemental benefit packages. Small businesses that overlook voluntary benefits are leaving a gap that larger competitors readily fill.

Adding accident, critical illness, and life insurance options to your benefits package — at no cost to you — immediately makes your total compensation story more compelling to job candidates.

They Support Employee Retention

Employees who have accident coverage, life insurance, or critical illness protection through their employer develop a financial dependency on those benefits that creates real retention value. Leaving a job often means giving up benefits they've come to rely on.

They Require Very Little Employer Administration

Voluntary benefits are typically easy to add to your existing benefits platform. Enrollment happens alongside your regular open enrollment process, and premiums are collected through existing payroll deductions. There's minimal additional administrative burden for your HR team.

How to Choose the Right Voluntary Benefits for Your Team

Not every voluntary benefit makes sense for every workforce. The best approach is to consider:

Your employees' demographics. A younger workforce might prioritize accident or life insurance. An older workforce might value critical illness or disability coverage more.

Your current health plan design. If employees carry high deductibles, benefits that help cover out-of-pocket costs — like accident or hospital indemnity insurance — add obvious value.

What your employees have told you they want. If you've done any benefits surveys or had informal conversations about what your team values, that input matters.

What your competitors are offering. A quick conversation with your benefits broker can give you a sense of what employers in your industry and region typically provide.

What Service 1st Benefits Can Do for You

At Service 1st Benefits, we help small and mid-size businesses in Oklahoma and beyond build benefits packages that are competitive, strategic, and efficient — not just a basic health plan.

We'll help you:

Identify which voluntary benefits make the most sense for your workforce
Present options to employees during open enrollment with clear, easy-to-understand materials
Add voluntary benefits to your existing enrollment platform without adding administrative complexity
Review your voluntary benefit offerings annually to make sure they're still serving your team

And as always, our services come at no additional cost to your business.

You Can Offer More Than You Think

Many small business owners assume that a strong benefits package requires a large benefits budget. Voluntary benefits prove that assumption wrong.

With the right strategy, you can offer your employees access to accident insurance, critical illness coverage, life insurance, disability protection, and more — often without spending a single additional dollar as an employer.

That's not just good for your team. It's good for recruiting, retention, and your reputation as an employer who actually takes care of its people.

Ready to Explore Voluntary Benefits for Your Business?

If you've never added voluntary benefits to your package — or if you're not sure what you're currently offering stacks up — we'd love to help you take a closer look.

Contact Us →

Schedule a free consultation with Service 1st Benefits. We'll review your current benefits program, identify voluntary benefit opportunities that fit your workforce, and show you exactly how to strengthen your package at no additional employer cost.