Growing Opportunities in the US Group Life, Voluntary Benefits, and Supplemental Health Market | Blog

Growth in the group life and voluntary benefits space: 

The US group life and voluntary benefits sector is witnessing substantial top-line growth, driven primarily by digital acceleration and expanding consumer preferences. In 2024 alone, the market spend for core technology solutions in group life/benefits insurance is projected to exceed US$1 billion, with the broader technology market, including core augmentation, approaching US$3 billion. Concurrently, the overall services market in the US is estimated at around US$3 billion, reflecting a robust ecosystem ripe for continued expansion. 

Insurers are now aggressively diversifying their offerings from traditional group life insurance to a comprehensive suite of voluntary benefits. These offerings now commonly include critical illness coverage, dental and vision insurance, pet insurance, and wellness-focused products.  

Moreover, carriers are increasingly prioritizing the cross-selling and upselling of multiple benefit products, embedding wellness programs, and emphasizing digital-first experiences. This shift significantly enhances both consumer choice and insurer profitability, creating a vibrant growth landscape. 

Furthermore, notable examples from leading carriers illustrate this industry’s expansion. Unum has been hiring underwriters and employee benefit specialists, signaling a strong commitment to broadening its group and voluntary benefits offerings.

MassMutual is strategically recruiting leaders for its benefits business and internal wholesalers for voluntary benefits, underscoring their focus on distribution and enhanced benefits strategy. Similarly, Aflac continues its expansion in group benefits, evident through its ongoing recruitment for senior roles like Benefits Coordinators and Specialists to support tailored insurance solutions.

MetLife and Nationwide are also amplifying their portfolios, investing significantly in digital innovation and expanding their voluntary product lines to align closely with evolving consumer needs. 

Complementing the expansions by major carriers, a new wave of specialized providers is gaining visibility as employers and employees gravitate toward voluntary benefits that span pet insurance, mental-health support, and holistic, 360-degree wellness. Within pet insurance alone, differentiation is striking: 

• Trupanion offers a single accident-and-illness policy with unlimited annual payouts and a one-time, per-condition deductible 

• Nationwide reimburses holistic and alternative therapies and adds a 5 percent multi-policy discount 

• Healthy Paws removes all per-incident, annual, and lifetime caps to simplify coverage 

• ASPCA Pet Health Insurance provides fully customizable plans for pets from eight weeks of age with no upper-age limit, covering services such as hydrotherapy, chiropractic care, and low-level laser therapy 

These niche players underscore how rapidly the voluntary benefits ecosystem is diversifying, giving employers more levers to boost employee well-being, while opening fresh growth avenues for insurers. 

The technology provider landscape: powering 360-degree, wellness-led benefits: 

A fast-growing cadre of tech vendors is giving insurers and employers the plug-and-play tools they need to bundle mental health, holistic wellness, and data-driven incentives into their group and voluntary portfolios: 

Mental-health platforms: 

• Modern Health – delivers World Health Organization (WHO)-validated well-being assessments, on-demand “Pathways” self-care kits, and access to certified coaches and licensed therapists in 80-plus languages, all in a single app. Employers receive real-time, de-identified dashboards that spotlight registration, engagement, and symptom trends, enabling continuous program tuning 

• Lyra blends artificial intelligence (AI)-powered provider matching with a global network of evidence-based clinicians, digital self-care content, and condition-specific intensive programs. Peer-reviewed studies show members recover twice as fast while employers cut total health-care claims by 26 percent 

Incentive-driven wellness InsurTechs: 

• Vantage Fit combines gamified Wellness Leagues (Bronze/Silver/Gold) with a fully configurable dashboard and seamless device/app/human resources (HR) integrations. Employer analytics peg the return at roughly US$3.27 in medical-cost savings for every US$1 invested 

• Wellness360 offers turnkey incentive management, consumer-grade user/admin portals, and live analytics that optimize engagement; deep fitness-device ties and game mechanics drive sustained participation 

Full-spectrum well-being platforms: 

• CHC Wellbeing follows a “True Potential” roadmap spanning physical, emotional, social, and financial domains. A decade of longitudinal data shows a 25 percent drop in benchmark risk factors, reinforced by a science-based rewards engine 

• Aduro links well-being directly to performance through the Aduro Connect suite: 800-plus digital experiences, expert coaching, and biometric “Wellmetrics.” Clients report measurable gains in both health and productivity 

Enabling infrastructure: 

• Engagement and enrollment specialists Sureify, Nayya, and Proformex are redefining omnichannel communication and personalized decision support 

• Qumata (especially in developing regions in Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets) and Human Application Programming Interface (API) streamline data ingestion and risk scoring, accelerating underwriting and powering precision pricing 

• Wellness-centric innovators such as dacadoo, Alan, and Betterfly embed gamified health scoring, rewards, and charitable-giving features directly into employer-sponsored benefit suites 

Together, these technology providers give carriers and employers a modular toolkit to create richer, high-touch benefit experiences, tightening retention, trimming claims costs, and positioning voluntary benefits as a strategic lever in the war for talent. 

Product evolution and demand drivers: 

Demand for voluntary and supplemental health benefits continues to evolve, driven by consumer lifestyle shifts, increased healthcare costs, and employers’ efforts to attract and retain talent through enhanced employee benefits. Popular products include critical illness insurance, accident and hospital indemnity coverage, telemedicine, and mental health services, reflecting rising awareness and consumer preference for comprehensive health coverage. 

Financial wellness solutions, such as student loan assistance, identity theft protection, and emergency savings accounts, have gained traction as employers increasingly recognize their value in promoting overall employee well-being. Additionally, lifestyle-centric benefits like pet insurance, childcare assistance, subscription discounts, and wellness programs are rapidly becoming standard offerings due to heightened employee demand for flexible, personalized benefits. 

Hybrid solutions, such as flexible benefit wallets and bundled lifestyle insurance products combining wellness and social impact, exemplifying how product innovation continues to respond dynamically to emerging market demands and consumer expectations. 

Opportunities for technology and service providers: 

For technology and service providers, this vibrant market presents extensive opportunities. Insurers and intermediaries alike seek strategic partnerships to expedite product delivery, integrate advanced analytics and AI capabilities, and streamline operational efficiencies through modernized platforms. 

Providers capable of offering specialized modular solutions, seamless integration with existing PAS platforms, and robust API ecosystems will find abundant opportunities. Additionally, there is significant potential for firms that deliver innovative customer engagement solutions, sophisticated underwriting and claims automation technologies, and wellness-focused digital platforms. 

Let’s dwell deep into implications and opportunities for key stakeholders:  

IT service providers / integrators 

• Stand up cloud -native benefit-data hubs that harmonize life, retirement, and wellness feeds and surface out-of-the-box dashboards for claims utilization, loss ratios, and participation 

• Launch “AI-in-a-box” governance services, model inventories, bias-testing pipelines, and board-ready reports, to accelerate AI/Machine Learning (ML) rollouts while keeping carriers audit-ready 

• Curate open API marketplaces that snap wearables, tele-mental-health, and pet-insurance partners into carrier cores, enabling real-time personalization and incentive loops 

Insurers / group life carriers: 

• Package integrated total-rewards bundles (life + retirement + wellness) and pair them with transparent employer reporting to capture unmet demand 

• Upskill, and actively recruit, actuarial and data-science talent to advance AI-enabled underwriting and parametric product design under enterprise model-risk governance 

• Act as ecosystem orchestrators, wiring wellness, telehealth, and voluntary benefits through open APIs to deliver year-round engagement and dynamic, experience-based pricing 

Technology providers / InsurTechs: 

• Ship modular, API-first benefit platforms that carriers can white-label, complete with utilization analytics and employer self-service tooling 

• Provide AI underwriting and fairness toolkits, explainable models, bias monitors, and consent management, to meet tightening regulatory standards 

• Offer interoperability layers that normalize wearable, telehealth, payroll, and other real-world data, making personalized coverage and incentive programs scalable 

Propelled by a US $6 billion technology-and-services tailwind, the US group life and voluntary benefits market is scaling rapidly, rewarding those who move first: IT integrators should debut cloud-native benefit hubs and turnkey AI-risk governance; tech vendors should harden white-label platforms with open, bias-free APIs and prove impact alongside a flagship carrier; and insurers need cross-functional strike teams to launch life-plus-wellness bundles within a year.

Stakeholders who act now will roll out products faster, deliver richer member experiences, and lock in superior ROI, while those who hesitate risk watching rivals seize the momentum in this digitally charged arena. 

In conclusion, the US group life, voluntary benefits, and supplemental health sector is poised for continued dynamic growth, characterized by innovation, digital transformation, and an expanding product landscape that increasingly aligns with evolving consumer preferences and employer objectives. 

For further details on North-America’s evolving Group life insurance technology space you can read the following PEAK report – Group Life Insurance Core Technology Products PEAK Matrix^® Assessment 2025: North America. 

If you found this blog interesting, check out our Agentic AI In Insurance: Transforming Risk, Relationships, And Results | Blog – Everest Group, which delves deeper into another topic regarding the Insurance sector. 

To share your perspectives and to hear more about the latest advancements in the group life tech market, please reach out to Akshay Pawar ([email protected]) and Vigitesh Tewary ([email protected]).