Are you overlooking valuable workplace protections?

Ask most employees what they love about their benefits package, and you’ll probably hear the usual: vacation days, maybe a flexible schedule, a cool gym membership. Ask them about their life or disability insurance coverage, though, and you’re likely to be met with a shrug, if not a blank stare. It’s not that people don’t care. It’s that these benefits are quietly tucked into onboarding paperwork and soon forgotten.

“What we often see is that employees don’t fully understand the scope of their benefits,” says Harriet Taylor, Head of Zurich Global Employee Benefits. “And that is a problem, because they often overlook protections such as life, disability and income protection cover.”

In fact, in a 2024 survey of roughly 4,000 U.S. employees, only 56 percent said they understood their life insurance while just 47 percent understood their disability cover. With that lack of understanding comes missed opportunities to identify and address gaps that could leave workers and their families exposed when life takes an unexpected turn.

Three coverage gaps most people miss:

• Income protection that replaces only part of your earnings and is capped at a level higher earners outgrow.
• Life cover tied to a job that disappears when the job does.
• Post-retirement long-term care, where employer-sponsored support may not be enough to meet later-in-life care needs.

What should you look for?

Start with three simple essentials:

1. Understand what your employer already provides as part of your benefits package.
   Explore the basics of life, disability, pension and voluntary benefits. Check the length of cover, not just the amount – a serious illness can keep you out of work for years, not weeks. Employee benefits structures also vary significantly from country to country, so employees should always confirm how local regulations, social security systems and employer-sponsored benefits interact in their own market.
2. Assess whether your coverage matches your current circumstances.
   Employer-provided cover is often linked to salary, but financial obligations do not always grow at the same rate. For example, the “sandwich generation” – employees who are simultaneously supporting children and aging parents – has a more complex set of protection needs. If you have family or other commitments, then the fine print matters: Are these benefits offered as a lump sum? An annuity? Would it help cover your significant financial obligations?
3. Explore any voluntary benefits or top-ups available.
   Identify the additional cover available to you at group rates. This is the customizable layer, the part you control, often with better pricing, easier access and greater flexibility than comparable products in the retail market.

Why top up?

If employer benefits are the foundation, top-ups are the walls and roof that turn a basic structure into a home. Here’s the basic idea: Your employer’s baseline life cover might be one or two times salary. A top-up lets you add more, often without the medical exams or premiums of buying individually. The same applies to income protection, critical illness, accident cover and, in many markets, pension contributions.

Top-ups tend to make the most sense when major responsibilities arrive, whether that’s having children, taking on a mortgage or becoming the primary income earner in a household.

But they aren’t automatic wins. Limits vary widely, and some policies carry exclusions. They may not follow you when you leave the employer, and “voluntary” means voluntary – no one signs you up, which is precisely why so many people miss out.

Preventing the claim

The benefits discussion usually revolves around what happens after something goes wrong. But the value isn’t only a payout you hope never to need. “We also want to help you minimize the chances of something going wrong,” explains Taylor.

Insurers are increasingly equipping employers and employees at the front end of the journey to help individuals stay well and financially steady in the first place. “I think the key word is resilience,” says Filippo Mazzei, Head of Proposition Management for Zurich Corporate Life and Pensions. “Employees need benefits that make them resilient from a financial point of view, physical point of view and mental point of view.” In practice, that means enabling access to services such as savings planning, mental health coaching and digital physiotherapy before a claim even exists.

Benefits packages aren’t just paperwork. They’re a promise that if life takes a hard turn, you and the people who depend on you won’t face it alone and that someone is working to keep that turn from coming at all. But it only holds up if you understand what’s on offer. Ask the questions and identify the gaps before life forces the issue. Because in the end, protected employees really are motivated employees. Not because they’re thinking about worst-case scenarios every day, but because they don’t have to.