Open enrollment season is here — and for most HR teams, that means a familiar mix of tight deadlines, complex plan details, and the nagging worry that employees will make decisions they'll regret by February.
The stakes are real. Benefits are one of the most significant parts of your total compensation package, and the choices employees make during open enrollment affect their financial security, their healthcare access, and their satisfaction with their employer for the entire year ahead. When the communication falls short, employees default to whatever they chose last year — often without realizing their plan changed, their costs went up, or a better option is now available.
Getting open enrollment communication right isn't complicated. But it does require intention.
Start Earlier Than You Think You Need To
Most employees don't think about their benefits until the enrollment window opens — and by then, they're overwhelmed. The goal of early communication isn't to get employees to make decisions ahead of time. It's to reduce the cognitive load when the window does open.
Start building awareness 4–6 weeks before enrollment begins. Let employees know it's coming, what's changing at a high level, and where they'll be able to get more information. A single email or Slack message that says "Open enrollment starts November 1 — watch for details" does more than you'd expect.
Lead With What Changed — Not What Stayed the Same
This is the single most important principle in open enrollment communication: employees don't need a full recap of every plan option every year. They need to know what's different.
If premiums are increasing, say so — and by how much. If a plan is being discontinued, name it. If a new HSA-eligible option is being added, lead with that. If the prescription formulary changed, flag it for employees who take maintenance medications.
Employees who feel like they're getting the full picture — including the parts that aren't great news — trust the communication more. Burying a premium increase in a dense benefits guide is a fast way to erode that trust.
What to communicate clearly:
- Premium changes (employee and employer contributions)
- Plan additions, changes, or eliminations
- Network changes (new or departing providers, hospital systems)
- Prescription formulary updates
- Changes to deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums, or copays
- New voluntary benefits or changes to existing ones
- HSA/FSA contribution limit changes
Fully Insured vs. Self-Funded: What Your Employees Need to Know
The funding structure of your health plan affects how you communicate about it — and what your employees actually need to understand.
Fully Insured Plans
In a fully insured arrangement, your company pays a fixed premium to an insurance carrier, and the carrier assumes the financial risk for claims. From an employee communication standpoint, the key things to explain are:
The premium split. Employees see their payroll deduction, but many don't understand how much the employer is contributing on their behalf. Making the total premium visible — even informally — helps employees understand the value of their benefits package.
The network. Fully insured plans are tied to a specific carrier network. If the carrier or network changed, employees need to verify their doctors and hospitals are still in-network before they enroll. This is especially important for employees managing chronic conditions or ongoing specialist relationships.
Plan tiers. If you offer multiple fully insured options (HMO, PPO, HDHP), help employees understand the trade-offs — not just the premium differences, but the access and cost-sharing differences that affect how they actually use the plan.
Self-Funded Plans
In a self-funded (or self-insured) arrangement, your company assumes the financial risk for employee claims and typically uses a third-party administrator (TPA) to process them. Many self-funded employers also carry stop-loss insurance to cap catastrophic exposure.
Self-funded plans offer more flexibility in plan design — but they also require more careful communication, because employees often don't understand how their plan works.
What employees frequently misunderstand about self-funded plans:
- They may see a major carrier's name on their ID card (because the TPA uses that network) and assume they have a standard commercial plan. Clarify that the company is funding the claims directly.
- The plan document governs their benefits — not a carrier's standard policy. If there are custom plan features (enhanced mental health benefits, fertility coverage, direct primary care), make sure employees know about them.
- Prior authorization requirements and claims processes may differ from what employees experienced with previous employers. Walk them through how to get care, how to submit claims, and who to call when they have questions.
Stop-loss and plan stability. Employees sometimes worry about whether a self-funded plan is "safe." If your plan has stop-loss coverage in place, it's worth mentioning — it reassures employees that the plan has protections against catastrophic claims without getting into financial details that aren't relevant to their enrollment decisions.
Build a Communication Cadence, Not a Single Announcement
One email to all employees is not an open enrollment communication strategy. People are busy, inboxes are full, and a single message — no matter how well-written — will be missed by a meaningful portion of your workforce.
A simple cadence that works:
4–6 weeks out: Awareness message. "Open enrollment is coming. Here's what's changing."
2 weeks out: Enrollment guide and decision tools. Full plan details, comparison charts, premium schedules, and instructions for how to enroll.
1 week out: Reminder with deadline. Highlight the most important changes again. Include the enrollment deadline prominently.
During the window: Manager talking points. Equip managers to answer basic questions and direct employees to resources. They're often the first person an employee asks.
Final 48 hours: Last-chance reminder. Keep it short. Deadline, how to enroll, who to contact with questions.
Make It Easy to Get Help
Even the best-written benefits communication leaves employees with questions. Make it easy to get answers.
- Designate a specific HR contact (or benefits broker contact) for open enrollment questions and publicize their name and email
- Host a live Q&A session — even 30 minutes on Zoom — where employees can ask questions in real time
- If you have a benefits broker or consultant, ask them to be available for employee calls during the enrollment window
- Create a simple FAQ document that addresses the questions you know are coming
The goal isn't to eliminate all confusion — it's to make sure no employee makes a bad decision because they couldn't get an answer.
A Note on Decision Support Tools
For employers with multiple plan options, decision support tools — whether a simple comparison spreadsheet or a more sophisticated benefits decision platform — can meaningfully improve enrollment outcomes. Employees who can model their expected costs under different scenarios make better decisions and have fewer surprises mid-year.
Even a basic side-by-side comparison showing premium, deductible, out-of-pocket maximum, and estimated total cost for a healthy year vs. a high-utilization year gives employees a framework for choosing.
The Bottom Line
Open enrollment communication isn't about overwhelming employees with information. It's about giving them what they need to make a confident decision — clearly, early, and more than once.
Lead with what changed. Explain the plan structure in plain language. Build a cadence. Make it easy to get help.
Done well, open enrollment is an opportunity to demonstrate that your company takes its benefits — and its employees' financial wellbeing — seriously.
If your organization needs help designing your open enrollment communication strategy or navigating plan changes, TASE Creative Solutions works with businesses to build HR programs that employees actually understand and value. Let's talk.