Nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of plan members are open to receiving personalized communications about their health from their benefits plan provider, according to the 2025 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey.
This is up from 66 per cent in 2018, when the question was first asked. The question clarified that the respondent’s employer wouldn’t be aware of any information shared by the insurance company.
During a panel launching the survey results at Benefits Canada‘s 2025 Toronto Benefits Summit, Troy Diakow, vice-president of life, disability and operations at Alberta Blue Cross, said he believes plan members do want personalization, but the experience often falls short.
Read: 2023 Group Benefits Providers Report: Prioritizing partnerships, personalization and prevention
“Today, the messages are sometimes generic, they’re clinical, they’re often transactional and they do push that cost-containment. Where we need to take the conversation for plan sponsors and carriers [is to] make it more human and more supportive.”
Insurers need to distill the data they have about plan members down into “human language,” he said, including through guides or white papers on certain illnesses that can help members understand what’s impacting them today and help them navigate their way through their benefits plan.
Diakow also suggested communications must reach members at the right moment, with “a significant amount of time and effort” put into making sure employees don’t drop off after the personalized reach-out.
“Perhaps they’ve just gone on disability, perhaps there’s a prescription medication they’re on. How do we take the data we have today and make it more meaningful, in terms of curation, and then how can we help the employee on a go-forward basis?”
According to the survey, an openness to personalized health information was higher among respondents who felt it’s acceptable for their employer to reduce benefits in the wake of high costs (83 per cent), who described their plan quality as excellent or very good (82 per cent) and who are willing to personally pay extra for additional coverage under their plan (81 per cent).
Also speaking on the panel, Kate Kilganan, assistant vice-president of pharmaceutical benefits and innovation at Sun Life, said these groups are likely plan members who are generally doing well financially and mentally.
“We see the people who are open to personalized health information are people who are already engaged in their health — they’re already taking preventative measures such as healthy lifestyle choices [and] nutrition. They’re already using those benefits.”
To reach employees outside of those groups, she recommended plan sponsors look at their benefits data to understand who’s opening the emails and clicking on the links. “Look at what’s driving plan [costs], what’s driving your absences and use that for prevention and management.”
Download the full 2025 Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey report here. Look for more coverage of the panel discussions analyzing this year’s results in the coming days.