As part of its efforts to offer and drive utilization of high-impact, family-friendly benefits for employers of all sizes, The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America® (Guardian) announced the completed integration of FINEOS AdminSuite for Employee Benefits into Guardian Absence Solutions™.
Whether a boutique business or booming enterprise, Guardian’s absence management solutions provide an integrated experience that supports all aspects of leave planning, from preparation to return to work, for employees and HR teams. A focus of the enhanced platform is on supporting employees’ financial wellness, helping to ensure they receive the benefits they need.
Learn more about Guardian Absence Solutions here.
According to data from Guardian, employees who have a positive leave experience are 75% more likely to stay at their job for five or more years and are twice as likely to say their employer cares about their well-being.
“Alongside an empathetic approach and comprehensive support, an integrated experience that provides clarity and transparency can be the difference for employees navigating a leave,” said Jonathan Mayhew, Head of Group Benefits at Guardian. “From helping to ensure timely access to benefits to connecting employees with a single claims case manager who can be by their side to answer questions, streamline the experience, and coordinate benefits, we’re making core investments to further our ability to deliver benefits that drive employee satisfaction and address well-being needs, while also easing administrative burdens on employers.”
Partnership fuels continuous innovation and collaboration
Powered by FINEOS’ cloud-based platform on the back end, employers can administer Guardian’s full suite of absence and disability offerings through a single, integrated system.
Capabilities include:
- Enabling increased visibility through an end-to-end core solution of the workplace benefits lifecycle, aligning plan administration and absence management under one platform suite.
- Offering flexible benefit options, which support the development of tailored plan structures, automated selection capabilities, and configurable durations to support diverse client needs.
- Continuous monitoring of regulatory compliance, including providing automated, timely updates that align with evolving absence regulations.
“The successful implementation of FINEOS AdminSuite on time and within budget gives Guardian a modern, purpose-built employee benefits core platform to enable a competitive edge over carriers who continue to rely on multiple outdated legacy core systems,” said Michael Kelly, CEO of FINEOS. “With unified billing, plan administration, claims, and absence within a modern core cloud native platform, Guardian can accelerate innovation, improve operational efficiency, and deliver a more connected superior experience to employers and employees.”
Over time, as employees’ absence needs continue to change, the partnership will enable Guardian to continuously evolve its offerings, services, and capabilities.
Modernizing benefits to support employees’ well-being needs
Enabled by the flexibility of the FINEOS platform and Guardian’s ongoing commitment to innovation, Guardian can more rapidly launch and scale absence-related offerings, helping to ensure employees have seamless access to and, in turn, are more likely to use their elected benefits.
To support employees’ absence needs, whether before, during, or after planned or unplanned leave, Guardian offers a suite of impactful, family-friendly benefits and is one of the only carriers with integrated solutions that provide consultative and compassionate support in the moments that matter. This includes:
- Enabling access to paid family leave as a standard employee benefit regardless of location through its paid leave benefit rider, the industry’s most widely available paid family leave offering.
- Being the first insurer to include caregiving support services in employer-provided disability insurance through Wellthy.
- Becoming the first insurer to include cancer support services in long-term disability insurance and offer at scale with Osara Health.
- Offering carrier-funded Uber vouchers to members with an approved long-term disability claim, supporting recovery and eliminating barriers to care.
- Providing access to a curated suite of instructor-led Peloton classes and wellness articles. Members with an approved long-term disability claim also receive a complimentary six-month Peloton App One membership.
- Launching the Maternity Life Event Hub, a centralized, online space that helps expectant mothers understand the benefits they have access to.
To empower brokers with the tools and knowledge they need to be consultative partners to their clients and help advise them on absence-related matters, Guardian has launched its Broker Absence Management Academy, a training program for brokers that complements Guardian’s existing Absence Management blog and Absence Academy webinar series.
Additionally, Guardian recently released The Employee Leave Experience report, which surveyed over 1,200 benefits professionals regarding the impact of a positive leave experience on employee well-being.
The collaboration between Guardian and FINEOS reflects a shared commitment to modernizing the employee benefits ecosystem through cloud-native innovation. By combining Guardian’s market leadership in absence solutions with FINEOS’ purpose-built core technology, the partnership establishes a scalable foundation for continued digital transformation in the group benefits market.
To learn more about Guardian Absence Solutions, visit https://www.guardianlife.com/absence-management.
