Employee-funded programs have altered the way specialty benefits carriers are doing business today. As the market has shifted the financial burden of paying for products to individual employees, the platform used by insurance carriers has needed to be shifted, too, according to Doug Fick, second vice president and CIO of the specialty benefits division of The Principal Financial Group. "The introduction of the voluntary market to the work space certainly has been a business driver for us to go to a new technology," he says.

The market space is becoming consumer driven–whether that's healthcare or, in The Principal's case, specialty benefits, with products including The Principal's life, disability, dental, and vision offerings, explains Fick. "On the 401k side, it used to be [employees] had a pension, but now they have decisions to make. It's not only how much do they want to divert out of their paycheck into their 401k, but how do they want to invest [funds], and what's their asset allocation going to be? As providers of those services, we have to be willing to deliver ease of use for [participants] to interact with us."

Along with determining platform changes were needed, The Principal also looked at ways to improve speed to market by using the adaptive capabilities of packaged applications as opposed to home-grown, continues Fick.