UniFirst Corporation Selects Benefitfocus HR InTouch Marketplace

CHARLESTON, S.C., June 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Benefitfocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: BNFT), a leading provider of cloud-based benefits software solutions, today announced that UniFirst Corporation has selected Benefitfocus HR INTOUCH MARKETPLACE® to support benefits enrollment and Team Partner (employee) communications as the company prepares to upgrade its benefit administration tools and to address changes related to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Headquartered in Wilmington, MA, UniFirst is one of the world's largest workwear and specialty apparel service and supply companies, with 225 facilities outfitting more than 1.5 million workers in clean uniforms every business day at 260,000 business customer locations throughout the U.S, Canada and Europe. UniFirst plans to roll out the HR INTOUCH MARKETPLACE portal for its 8,000-plus U.S.-based Team Partners by having them complete all their benefit elections during the company's annual open enrollment period next month.

"We have a large and culturally diverse workforce spread over a wide geographical area," explained Cynthia Croatti, Executive Vice President at UniFirst. "HR InTouch Marketplace impressed our team with its intuitive design and the opportunities it offers us to educate our Team Partners and help empower them to take advantage of the wide range of benefits we offer. Additionally, the reporting suite will provide us the visibility into our overall healthcare costs and our plan performance, as both areas have become increasingly important in light of healthcare reform."

HR INTOUCH MARKETPLACE consolidates benefits-related information into a centralized online portal. Built on a rules-driven engine, the portal enables UniFirst to address the needs of their workforce by configuring enrollment workflows based on the eligibility of their Team Partners for new hire onboarding, open enrollment and changes due to life events. This transforms the enrollment process into an online guided shopping experience that incorporates video communications, plan comparison tools and cost estimators to help users understand which plans align with their healthcare and financial preferences. The portal's responsive layout allows UniFirst Team Partners to access their benefits information from any web-enabled device, which accommodates the company's highly mobile workforce.

The portal's administrative user interface includes dashboards that create visual alerts to help UniFirst administrators prioritize upcoming tasks and monitor enrollment activity. Acknowledgement forms can be incorporated into the enrollment workflow to capture and report on whether or not Team Partners receive required information such as the mandated public exchange notice. UniFirst can leverage the user-friendly Message Center and Content Manager within HR INTOUCH MARKETPLACE to personalize communications based on eligibility, enrollment status and demographics.

"Employers are creating benefit programs that offer more choice to address the diversity of today's workforce," stated Benefitfocus President and CEO Shawn Jenkins. "UniFirst attributes its success to its diverse workforce, and Benefitfocus is proud to deliver a solution that will enable them to support a wide range of benefit plans and meet the unique needs of its entire employee population. Our technology is designed to help consumers make the right choice while helping employers manage a comprehensive benefits program with efficiency and ease."

About UniFirst
UniFirst, a North American leader in the supply and servicing of uniforms, workwear, and protective clothing, outfits more than 1.5 million workers each business day. The company's most popular brands include UniWeave®, SofTwill®, UniWear®, and Armorex FR®. UniFirst also offers Facility Service Programs including floor mats, mops, and restroom products. For more information, contact UniFirst at 800-455-7654 or visit www.unifirst.com.

About Benefitfocus
Benefitfocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: BNFT) is a leading provider of cloud-based benefits software solutions for consumers, employers, insurance carriers and brokers. Benefitfocus has served more than 23 million consumers on its platform, that consists of an integrated portfolio of products and services enabling clients to more efficiently shop, enroll, manage and exchange benefits information. With a user-friendly interface and consumer-centric design, the Benefitfocus Platform provides one place for consumers to access all their benefits. Benefitfocus solutions support the administration of all types of benefits including core medical, dental and other voluntary benefits plans as well as wellness programs. For more information, visit http://www.benefitfocus.com/.

Except for historical information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Actual results might differ materially from those explicit or implicit in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: the need to innovate and provide useful products and services; changes in government regulations; the immature and volatile nature of the market for our products and services and other factors that could impact our anticipated growth; management of growth; fluctuations in our financial results; general economic risks; reliance on key personnel; our ability to compete effectively; our ability to maintain our culture and recruit and retain qualified personnel; privacy, security and other risks associated with our business; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in our SEC filings, copies of which are available free of charge within the Investor Relations section of the Benefitfocus website at http://investor.benefitfocus.com/sec.cfm or upon request from our investor relations department. Benefitfocus assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Benefitfocus, Inc.
843.284.1052 ext.6846
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SOURCE Benefitfocus, Inc.