Benefitfocus Supports Growth in Consumer Directed Health Plans for Retail and Hospitality Industries

CHARLESTON, S.C., Aug. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Benefitfocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: BNFT), a leading provider of cloud-based benefits management software, today announced it has expanded its client base in the retail and hospitality sectors, with a diverse group of clients including American Eagle Outfitters, Tuesday Morning and Best-One Tire & Service. Leading employers across both the retail and hospitality industry have turned to Benefitfocus' mobile technology and personalized communications tools to attract, engage and retain employees through a world-class benefits experience.

Data from The State of Employee Benefits shows that consumer-directed health plans are increasingly popular with employees in these two industries. In the retail industry, high-deductible health plan (HDHP) adoption has increased 30 percent and voluntary benefits adoption by 77 percent since 2016. To assist employees in enrollment decisions, the Benefitfocus Marketplace provides personalized plan recommendations and comparison tools while the Benefitstore offers a range of voluntary benefits for more holistic coverage and to close the deductible gap, especially valuable to hourly workers. Benefitfocus' mobile application makes both information and enrollment available to geographically dispersed employees on the go.

"Complementing Benefitfocus Marketplace with Core Analytics ultimately helped us increase our HDHP adoption by getting employees to evaluate their true coverage needs," said Tammy Fennessy, Senior Benefits Manager, American Eagle Outfitters. "The platform's education, communication and mobile tools were essential in driving engagement and comprehension."

Similarly, auto service and tire retailer Best-One Tire & Service applied Benefitfocus technology to ensure employees not only have the right coverage, but also added financial protection through voluntary benefits. "Benefitfocus technology gives us more flexibility to personalize our benefit plans without adding administrative complexity," said Melinda Adams, Benefits Generalist, Best-One Tire & Service.

With its ability to automate data exchange across insurance carriers, payroll and HRIS systems, Benefitfocus also eases benefits administrative burden for HR teams. "Eliminating manual processes like payroll deductions helped reduce the workload for our benefits administrators and increase efficiency," said Patty Stark, Benefits Manager, Tuesday Morning. "Additionally, Benefitfocus' communication tools give us a time-saving, effective means of engaging our geographically dispersed employees around benefits."

"The shift to higher out-of-pocket health care costs is a radical change for many employees, requiring them to completely rethink the way they consume health care," said Benefitfocus Co-founder and CEO Shawn Jenkins. "Employers must realize the importance of communication, education and decision support to aid employees with this approach—an effort in which retail and hospitality employers have been particularly successful with through our platform."

About Benefitfocus
Benefitfocus (NASDAQ: BNFT) provides a leading cloud-based benefits management platform that simplifies how organizations and individuals shop for, enroll in, manage and exchange benefits.  Every day leading employers, insurance companies and the consumers they serve rely on our platform to manage, scale and exchange benefits data seamlessly.  In an increasingly complex benefits landscape, we bring order to chaos so our clients and their employees have access to better information, make better decisions and lead better lives. Learn more at www.benefitfocus.com, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Actual results might differ materially from those explicit or implicit in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: the need to innovate and provide useful products and services; changes in government regulations; the immature and volatile nature of the market for our products and services and other factors that could impact our anticipated growth; management of growth; fluctuations in our financial results; general economic risks; reliance on key personnel; our ability to compete effectively; our ability to maintain our culture and recruit and retain qualified personnel; privacy, security and other risks associated with our business; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in our SEC filings, copies of which are available free of charge within the Investor Relations section of the Benefitfocus website at http://investor.benefitfocus.com/sec.cfm or upon request from our investor relations department. Benefitfocus assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

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SOURCE Benefitfocus, Inc.