BCBS of Kansas City Develops Video Communications

Looking for a way to distinguish its communications from the text-heavy e-mails that flood inboxes day-after-day, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City ($1.703 billion in 2007 revenue) has developed an online video communication program to better reach its employer group customers and individual coverage applicants, as well as the broker community. (See examples of how the carrier has used the Benefitfocus Video as a Service (VaaS) offering so far.)

The videos are produced and hosted by Benefitfocus, a healthcare benefits software provider that the carrier also uses for its electronic enrollment and e-billing applications. The Charleston, S.C.-based vendor's Video as a Service (VaaS) offering provides the Kansas City Blue carrier with video production, post production, delivery, online content distribution services and professional on-air talent. Benefitfocus also offers hosting services for the videos through a partnership with Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai.

Roger Foreman, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City suggests that video gives the carrier a better chance to engage a member, customer or broker than a traditional e-mail. "The people that we're trying to reach are inundated with e-mails. Frankly, it's very easy not to read a message, especially if it's too long," Foreman says. "What we're finding is that people will at least take a glance at the video and, if it's interesting enough, they'll sit there and listen to it."

Wingate Insurance, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based agency, has similar justification for its own VaaS investment. "We feel that a lot of the employees will -- just in the way that they interact today -- actually watch a minute and half video before they'll read a 300 word document," says Owen Wingate, the agency's president and co-owner.

BCBS of Kansas City, which first began producing videos last summer, has developed a video message to make employer group customers aware of ancillary product offerings that can been packaged with health benefits, such as dental, vision and life insurance plans. To distribute the video, the insurer is leveraging its existing relationship with Benefitfocus by embedding the ancillary products video in the Web-based e-bill that is sent to each BCBS of Kansas City employer group customer.

The carrier also uses the vendor's online sales system for its individual business. That system is set up to deliver new applicants an e-mail message with links to videos outlining how to complete the application process. Foreman estimates that the carrier sends the video to 5,000 to 6,000 new individual policy applicants each month.

In addition, Foreman says that BCBS of Kansas City has been "very aggressive" in creating health and wellness programs for customers, especially those groups with 100 or more employees. "We have developed a video that is sent to the customers themselves to let them know about this program," Foreman says of the wellness efforts.

In some instances, the insurer's group customers have asked to use the VaaS offering to present videos, typically featuring the group's CEO or head of human resources (HR), to their employees. "We had a very, very strong Jan. 1 in new sales for the large group market and I think we're probably going to have at least five or six employers that are going to use that [video] service to send very specific messages out to their employees," Foreman relates, adding that the carrier is not charging groups for the video productions. "It's a value added service that we're providing."

On the agency side, Owen Wingate says his company uses the VaaS service to create personalized marketing tools for prospective clients. A short holiday greeting video to its clients was also created in December, he says. In addition, the agency has created a series of videos to be viewed by the employees of its group customers during the online enrollment process. Those videos seek to provide basic information to the employees, Wingate says, around such topics as HSAs, deductibles and co-insurance.

Currently, Wingate says the agency is developing general marketing videos to appear on the Wingate Insurance Web site. Those introductory videos will support a traditional advertising campaign that is underway.

While Wingate Insurance expands the use of video to other parts of its business, Foreman says that BCBS of Kansas City has received great feedback from its employer groups and that he sees "endless possibilities" for video at the carrier. "I think that you're going to find that, in the insurance world, it's always a challenge to reach whatever constituents you're trying to reach," Foreman says. "I believe that video technology will be something that becomes a common practice over the next few years."