Flexible Benefits Case Study - Aviva

Staying Relevant
Aviva is the UK’s largest insurer and one of Europe’s leading providers of life and general insurance, with
36,000 employees serving around 43million customers worldwide. In 2009, Aviva introduced the my Aviva
flex scheme and pension salary sacrifice to 23,000 UK based employees.

Debbie Waddington, Aviva explains

that

“Our aims were to:

 enable our employees to decide
what benefits they wanted
 offer competitively priced benefits
giving employees value for money
 help them save money and spread
the cost of benefits
 engage our employees as
advocates of our own products
 make it easier for employees to
see all reward related information”
The benefits included within my Aviva flex were a mixture of Aviva benefits e.g. pensions, private medical,
life insurance, RAC breakdown and externally provided benefits e.g. discounted shopping card, mobile
phones, bike to work scheme.

“Although my Aviva flex is now business as usual we have strived every year to ensure that it continues to
deliver for both employees and the company.”
Debbie Waddington, Aviva

In 2010, the scheme was modified to reflect employee

concerns about the economic environment and behind
the scenes, administrator processes were developed
to ensure the schemes was running smoothly and e-
mail password resets were introduced.

In 2011, the flex system was used as portal to enable

employees who were being transferred from the final
salary pension scheme to the money purchase
pension scheme to accept this change and to increase
or decreases their monthly contributions. In addition,
greater use was made of direct e-mail
communications and the ability to target messages to
specific employee groups.

In 2012, the flex scheme was moved to the TBS

platform provided by Aon Hewitt. This enabled a
benefits one-stop-shop approach with all of the
information about each benefit to be available in one
place at the point of selection and the ability to model
benefits and the impact on net pay

“The technology allowed us to deliver a benefits one stop shop”

Debbie Waddington, Aviva
A focus on educating not just advertising
 Employee reward communication has taken giant leaps forward since 2009 when the plan was launched
and Aviva have adapted the communications messaging and media to keep pace and engage with
employees.
 Over 2,600 employees attended one of 13 my Aviva Reward roadshows
 My Aviva flex video available on the website and on plasma screens in contact centres
 Several employee and manager WebEx sessions were held prior to and during enrolment
 Local plans were put in place to focus on midsized locations with support from local contacts
 Aviva financial advisors attended roadshows to offer advice to employees on all internal benefits including
pensions
“We used a mixture of communications channels including e-mail, intranet, z-card, video, WebEx sessions,
roadshows, briefing packs and local champions”
Debbie Waddington, Aviva

Results
The effort put in since 2009 has really paid dividends, Aviva have:

 Compiled a strong reward package for employees as the table below displays:

Top 5 Benefits in 2012

1 Buying and selling of holiday (21%)
2 Home computers (14.5%)
3 Life insurance (11%)
4 Payroll giving (8.7%)
5 Private medical (8.3%)

 helped employees to understand the flex scheme, the benefits on offer and the benefit to them of taking
part in the scheme
The average benefit holding increased from 1.1 to 1.4
 enabled employees to choose the benefits they want and to save money
Average benefit spend increased from £35.60 to £39.50
 increased the take up of the benefits within my Aviva flex year on year:
Take-up rate
2009 30%
2010 57%
2011 65%
2012 74%
 increased the awareness and engagement with the pension scheme
Scheme participation for employees under 30 increased from 42% to 53%
  increased the awareness and engagement with the
pension scheme
Scheme participation for employees under 30
increased from 42% to 53%
 promoted the advocacy of Aviva products through
their inclusion in the scheme
Critical illness (an Aviva product) first year take up
was 4.64%
 driven the communications of the overall reward
package including financial and pension education

The Future
Although my Aviva flex is extremely successful, new challenges and opportunities are always on the horizon.

As Debbie Waddington explains “Obviously we want to keep the scheme fresh and appealing – but we
also believe we can get the twitter/facebook generation and contact centre areas more engaged; there is
more we can do to optimise the scheme design, the range of benefits and pricing; and enhance employees
understanding about tax and benefits-in-kind. Ensuring we face the future from a strong position relies on a
good design, strong technology and a focus on communications.”
“Ensuring we face the future from a strong position relies on a good design, strong technology and a focus
on communications”.
Debbie Waddington, Aviva

As Martha How of Aon Hewitt adds “Along with

many other organisations the scheme will have to
adapt to global rather than local strategies. In terms of
the benefits marketplace, we also expect to see
changes in the design of benefits plans with shrinking
core benefits and a greater emphasis on the benefits
funding from employers with the associated
requirements to include savings modellers and
financial planning. Communication media will expand
with more online and mobile communications.”
“Expect to see changes in design … and more online
and mobile communications.”
Martha How, Aon Hewitt