During the 2026 Employee Benefits Leadership Forum in May, the outgoing chair of The Council of Employee Benefits Executives (CEBE), Lisa Hawker, sat down with Kerry Finnegan, former senior partner at Mercer and also a past CEBE board chair, now a senior advisor at Oliver Wyman. CEBE is the executive committee that guides The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers government affairs team in benefits-related advocacy and policy decisions.

The two discussed a range of topics, including the changing role of the benefits broker and the plan sponsor in an environment of increased fiduciary duty, talent and training in the AI era, and advice for new CEBE Chair Ken Olson, vice president of EB growth at BroadStreet Partners.

Eric Rentsch, Zywave’s chief product officer and head of emerging markets, talks with Leader’s Edge onsite at the 2026 Employee Benefits Leadership Forum.

The conversation centers around AI use in insurance industry operations and covers issues including embedding AI more effectively into existing workflows, roadblocks to implementation and strategies for overcoming them, how to measure AI ROI, and that recent industry uproar over AI being used in personal lines distribution.

Speaking with Leader’s Edge onsite at the 2026 Employee Benefits Leadership Forum, Jon Trevisan, vice president and head of distribution for group insurance at Prudential, shares takeaways from Prudential’s recently published research in its Benefits and Beyond series.

The conversation covers employees’ financial strain and the trade-offs they make as a result, the effects on their mental and physical health, employers’ response, and the disconnect between employers’ and employees’ view of benefits value.