EXCLUSIVE: Holiday buy and sell, critical illness cover and travel insurance are among the benefits with the highest take up in flexible benefits, according to research by benefits consultancy and technology provider Vebnet.
The research, which is from 52 employer clients across five different industry sectors that have a total of more than 172,000 employees, also found that car salary sacrifice, dental insurance and health cash plans also receive high take up.
The top two benefits, holiday buy and sell, and critical illness, both receive an average take up of 20%.
But take-up rates vary between organisations. The research found that of the 41 employers that offer a travel insurance policy in flex, the average take up ranges from as low as 0.6% to 30.3% take up.
Emerging benefits in flex such as car parking benefits, gadget insurance and a golf membership, however, are only offered by four, three and five employer clients respectively.
But home technology fares better with it offered by 10 employers in their flexible benefits plan with take up ranging from 1% to 10%.
Take up of company car salary sacrifice schemes also has relatively high take up across the 52 organisations with an average of 10%.
However, the research found that employers in the financial services and professional services sectors have the highest take up levels, while the media industry has the lowest.
Richard Morgan, head of Vebnet, said: “We know from conducting detailed analysis of data for individual clients that age, gender and salary have a significant effect on the take-up of certain benefits.
“The structure of a scheme also has an effect. Where a benefit is at least part funded take up will be higher, for example life assurance has an average take up of 92% across 40 of the organisations that offer the benefit.
“The variation between different sectors is interesting to see and it surprised me to see that those in the pharmaceuticals sector have come out with an average lower across benefits than those in the financial services.
“Emerging benefits such as gadget insurance, home technology and golf membership however show promising signs and I expect take up to grow.”
