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Alight Solutions - Benefits Administration: Employee Wellness Reimagined
Vendor Analysis
published on Jan 16, 2025
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Report Overview:
This NelsonHall vendor assessment analyzes Alight Solutions' offerings and capabilities in next generation benefits administration
Who is this Report for:
NelsonHall’s Benefits Administration profile on Alight is a comprehensive assessment of Alight offerings and capabilities, designed for:
- Sourcing managers monitoring the capabilities of existing suppliers of Benefits Administration Services and identifying vendor suitability for security services RFPs
- Vendor marketing, sales, and business managers looking to benchmark themselves against their peers
- Financial analysts and investors specializing in the Benefits Administration Services sector.
Scope of this Report:
The report provides a comprehensive and objective analysis of Alight’s Benefits Administration Service offerings and capabilities, and market and financial strengths, including:
- Identification of the company’s strategy, emphasis, and new developments
- Analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, and outlook
- Revenue estimates
- Analysis of the profile of the company’s customer base including the company’s targeting strategy and examples of current contracts
- Analysis of the company’s offerings and key service components
- Analysis of the company’s delivery organization including the location of delivery centers.
Key Findings & Highlights:
Alight, Inc. provides integrated digital human capital and business solutions, including health, wealth, wellbeing, absence management, and navigation. Alight has ~10k employees across North America, EMEA, and APAC, supporting HR and Cloud services.
Alight was formed in May 2017 after the acquisition of the benefits outsourcing business of Aon PLC by Blackstone Group L.P. and other co-investors. In 2017, Aon sold its outsourcing businesses (including benefits administration, multi-process HR services, and cloud HR/payroll services) to Blackstone for ~$4.3bn. However, the company has operated for more than 25 years. Most of its benefits administration capabilities are derived from the Hewitt Associates outsourcing business. Following the 2017 transaction, the Alight benefits administration platform continued to power the Aon Active Health Exchange, and in October 2021, Alight purchased back the Aon Retiree Health Exchange.
Alight made several strategic acquisitions in recent years to strengthen its benefits administration capabilities, including:
- December 2022 - ReedGroup, a provider of absence management, disability management, and clinical decision support solutions to the large employer market in the U.S. and Canada via four core segments - outsourcing, SaaS, Canadian outsourcing, and MDGuidelines; added new content, capabilities, and products that simplify HR interactions and decision-making
- October 2021 - Aon Retiree Exchange; allowed Alight to provide comprehensive support for the full spectrum of retiring workers: those with employer-sponsored retiree health coverage, those with employer-subsidized individual Medicare coverage, and those without employer support
- October 2021 - ConsumerMedical; to expand health navigation services with enhanced clinical guidance and expert medical opinions, as well as expanded health plan options through reseller relationships.
In July 2024, Alight completed the sale of its professional services, payroll, and HCM outsourcing businesses to an affiliate of H.I.G. Capital. The sale of the businesses, which now operate as an independent business and has been renamed Strada, included a transaction value of ~$1.2bn. The sale was part of Alight's broader transformation strategy, which focuses more on its core strengths in technology and digital solutions to streamline operations and further develop its cloud-based platforms.
Currently, Alight services ~5k benefits administration clients, of which ~700 are H&W clients with ~12.8m participants (not including dependents or other integrated services). Alight administers ~13k unique health plan designs, ~$100bn in annual premiums, and integrates with thousands of carriers, health and wellbeing vendors, and client partners.