When a plan sponsor was seeing musculoskeletal issues come up in disability claims, it wanted to figure out if it could do more to support employees, according to Tamara Harduwar (pictured right), Manulife Canada’s director of health insights and outcomes for group benefits.
During a session at Benefits Canada’s 2025 Healthy Outcomes Conference, she said a data review determined the plan sponsor client’s musculoskeletal disability claims were on the rise and they were also higher than at peer organizations.
Manulife found the claims tended to be in industrial and supply chain-related roles, had grown over the last three years and that employees who went on disability were either underutilizing their musculoskeletal benefits or maxing them out and not having their needs met.
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Those findings led the plan sponsor to invest in preventative musculoskeletal support, including workplace modifications, job training and encouraging “preventative habits” by rewarding plan members with Aeroplan points for engaging with health content.
It’s just one example of how data can be used to move from “treating disease to preventing it,” said Bill Rowell (pictured left), Manulife’s assistant vice-president of business analytics and advice for group benefits, also speaking during the session. “We see this as a turning point, an inflection, where we can use data and understanding to figure out how we move from sick care to well care.”
The insurer has already identified a powerful insight around diabetes care, he said, noting Manulife found plan members across its book of business who saw a dietician before starting to take medication for the condition were much less likely to progress through the tiers of diabetes drugs. Those who saw a dietician at any point after their diagnosis had more positive outcomes than those who didn’t, including having lower rates of co-morbid cardiovascular claims and lower diabetes-related long-term disability incidences.
Harduwar’s team also found, in working with a different plan sponsor client, increasing mental-health coverage can encourage more employees to use the benefit. A plan sponsor that increased its mental-health coverage from $3,000 per employee per year to $10,000 found the biggest contributor to cost increases was the number of unique claimants.
“Because [the plan sponsor] had increased this benefit, it . . . helped to normalize the use of this program and help more people start to access care,” she said.
In another book-of-business review, Manulife also found plan members on disability leave who had used their paramedical benefits in the year before their leave were far less likely to transition from short- to long-term disability.
Read more coverage of the 2025 Healthy Outcomes Conference.