Employers are offering a broader range of voluntary products as a way to entice diverse job candidates and retain good workers. Financial counseling, legal services, pet insurance, cancer insurance, long-term care insurance and concierge services like funeral planning, dry cleaning, dog walking and movie tickets are garnering more attention from businesses as employers reach beyond the boundaries of the traditional core benefits package to boost their recruitment and retention powers.

While the vendors of these different products may trumpet the market's need and desire for the new offering, how employers really feel is less clear. Funeral services provider Everest has been in the news recently and we decided to take the company and it's offerings — funeral planning, pricing and concierge services — to the readers of our sister publication, Employee Benefit News, which is read by benefit professionals at small, medium and large organizations throughout the country.

A recent EBN QuickPoll shows some considerable resistance to the funeral services benefit concept among benefit managers. More than half (51%) of respondents said they wouldn't consider offering funeral planning as a voluntary benefit, while 25% said they would consider it, and 10% said "maybe, down the line." Another 14% weren't sure.

Across the United States, more than 65,000 employees, their immediate families and retirees have access to Everest's planning tools and products as an employee benefit, and several significant corporate contracts are planned for the near future. While the employer that is providing this benefit to its workers declined to comment for this article, other benefits managers shared their impressions.

Larry Becker, director of benefits and policies at Xerox, says, "I get dozens of calls from vendors about all sorts of benefits ideas. This is a new one to me. Getting this right 100% of the time and meeting all of the family's wishes in any location on a moment's notice seems challenging to say the least. The good news is that deaths of the working population are infrequent."

He adds, "I cannot think of either a more trying time or a more emotional time [than when a family member dies]. This might be a great service, but there would need to be a track record over a sustained period of near zero defects and very high customer service scores for any provider to be considered in this space."

Betty Purkey, manager of work-life strategies for Texas Instruments, says, "This is something I've never been pitched before. We'd probably spend our money on other places before we'd spend it there. It's not something we would pull out separately," but it could fit well within an umbrella program that offers a range of voluntary benefits from which employees can choose. Some of the services that Everest provides, such as the pre-planning advice, are already available through some employee assistance programs, she notes.

"I know it's a big issue, having paid for two [funerals] already. People are often caught off-guard and don't know what to do," she adds. "With the aging of America, [funeral benefits] could be something that could take off" and gain popularity. EBA

By the numbers

• The average funeral costs $10,000 to $20,000.
• Nearly 2.4 million people die in the United States each year.
• Almost 1% of the U.S. population dies each year.
• 92% of employers offer paid bereavement leave for the death of immediate family member and in-laws.
• 51% of employers offer bereavement leave for other relatives.

Sources: Everest, U.S. Census Bureau and Society for Human Resource Management.