Nine out of 10 employers think it’s important for their employees to understand and appreciate their benefits, but most employees don't, according to a Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company survey.

More than 90 percent of employers who responded to the survey said it was important to their business that employees understand and appreciate the value of their benefits. Research has shown employee loyalty and morale are directly tied to the benefits they receive and the more employees know about them, the more likely they are to be happy in their jobs.

But only 21 percent of employers think their employees have a good understanding of their benefits and nearly 5 percent think their employees know nothing at all about their benefits.

Colonial Life asked employers about the methods they use to communicate with employees and found 90 percent of employers said having one-to-one meetings would improve employees' understanding of their benefits but only 58 percent of companies offer them.

Eighty percent of employers use group meetings to explain their benefits, 44 percent have employees enroll for benefits via the Internet and 40 percent of employers require employees to self-enroll for their benefits.

Columbia, S.C.-based Colonial Life, which offers disability, life and supplemental accident and health insurance policies in 49 states and the District of Columbia, surveyed more than 650 human resource managers and benefits administrators at the recent national conference of the Society for Human Resource Management. Colonial Life is a subsidiary of Unum Group.

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