Agencies focused on the day-to-day business of employee benefits know this legislation will hit hard and force change. A report released in June by the business consulting firm McKinsey & Co. stated, "The shift away from employer-provided health insurance will be vastly greater than expected and will make sense for many companies and lower-income workers alike."

McKinsey surveyed over 1,300 companies of all sizes and found that:

• Overall, 30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering employer-based health insurance in the years after 2014.
• Among employers with a high awareness of reform, this proportion increases to more than 50 percent, and upward of 60 percent will pursue some alternative to traditional employer-based health programs.
• At least 30 percent of employers would gain economically from dropping coverage even if they completely compensate employees for the change through other benefit offerings or higher salaries.
• Contrary to what many employers assume, more than 85 percent of employees would remain at their jobs even if their employer stopped offering employer-based health insurance, although about 60 percent would expect increased compensation.

The less talked-about factor of PPACA is just how fast this forced change is coming. Depending on benefit effective dates, your clients are only two or three renewals away from government-mandated change in the main component of benefit spending. With this level of forced change quickly approaching, conducting business-as-usual is a poor strategy for success. If your thinking is, "My clients will stay with group medical because they want to have excellent benefits to keep and attract employee talent," the last bullet point from the above-cited research should give you pause. With the exchanges offering guaranteed issue health plans—subsidized or not—employer-based major medical will fade in importance. Finding Opportunity
On the plus side, voluntary insurance options will rise in importance. A full suite of group ancillary lines like dental, vision, disability, life, and even wellness plans can appeal to employers and employees alike. Employers may be receptive to funding or partially funding these enhanced benefits packages by using the significant savings they realize when they pull their dollars from health insurance.

Assisting employees at the personal level with needs such as permanent life, long-term care and annuities also will become a business-generating opportunity for agencies. For example: If you have 20 groups with 25 employees each, that equals 500 individual selling opportunities. If you could write life, long-term care, or annuities on only 25 percent of them, you would have 125 new policies written, or more than 10 per month over the course of a year.