Pru's Breitbart Touts Tech for Benefits

As the new president and CEO of Prudential WorkingSolutions, Newark, NJ-based Prudential Financial's voluntary benefits portal, Gary Breitbart will rely on the Net and Web-enabled call center reps to make his business successful.

"Our model is built for the new world," Breitbart says, describing how traditional voluntary benefit offerings operate very "paternalistically," where the employer searches and finds benefits for employees. "We brings products together from various providers for the employee. The employees choose what they need."

WorkingSolutions, according to Breitbart, has been built from the ground up in a Web-enabled environment. "We made sure everything was Web-enabled," he says. "Employees can work online or through a call center, where the reps are knowledgeable in all of the voluntary benefits products"—including real estate services, mortgages, homeowners and personal auto insurance, banking products and legal and financial advice.

He also says the key to the success of Web-based employee benefits will be the development of the HR-XML, a standard being developed by the HR-XML Consortium (Raleigh, NC). "HR-XML and other standardization efforts will make it easier to get information about employees to process voluntary benefits," Breitbart says.

Breitbart reports to Jean Hamilton, CEO of Prudential Financial's institutional and employee benefits division, and "was instrumental in the creation and development of WorkingSolutions. His extensive work with leading HR organizations will enable us to provide employers with a way to help employees achieve financial success," she says.

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio