By now, most benefits managers running flexible benefits programs and/or offering multiple health benefit options have had a chance to summarize their firms' fall enrollment season results.

In my experience, those results make great 'tea leaves' for emerging industrywide benefits trends.

If you're close to the benefits elections data at your firm, how about sharing your results with us? No need to name names, or even provide numbers - just your take on what the patterns foretell.

The most interesting statistic in our enrollment this year was a jump in our POS enrollment. It went up 30% over the previous year. It's only gone up 37% (total including this year) since 1996 enrollment! I only came to work here in December, but my manager assures me there was no special emphasis or education regarding the POS plan. It appears that many people who typically enrolled in the deductible plan may have chosen the POS plan since enrollment in the deductible plan changed very little while our other two options (HMO and waive out) remained stable.

We had an increase in our Vision Plan this and it is an employee pay all plan with a two year enrollment (can't drop for two years). We attributed this to our enhanced communication. Most associates in the past were not even aware we had a vision plan.