Benefits for hourly and variable-hour workers have long been harder to administer than for salaried staff. Hours change week to week, turnover is high, and eligibility can shift as employees move above or below thresholds. The technology behind those programs is now becoming part of how brokers are judged.
The latest administrator to invest in that area is Fringe Benefit Group (FBG), an Austin, Texas-based third-party administrator focused on hourly and prevailing wage workforces. On October 14, it announced a mobile app giving plan members access to enrollment tools, plan details, benefit cards and claims, along with new login and registration features. FBG said an enhanced enrollment process and an employee benefits administration portal will follow later this year.
FBG, founded in 1983 to help government contractors meet Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act requirements, says it serves thousands of restaurants, staffing agencies, retailers, healthcare organizations and prevailing wage contractors through a nationwide network of brokers and advisors. Its products, The American Worker and The Contractors Plan, cover what it describes as hundreds of thousands of workers. Chief executive Travis West said the company’s goal is to give those members “a highly secure, state-of-the-art digital experience.”
FBG did not disclose how many members are using the app, or which features have driven the investment.
The coverage gap for hourly staff is wide. According to KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey, 80% of workers at employers offering health benefits are eligible for the company plan, but only 67% at firms with many lower-wage workers, and 53% in retail. Just 27% of large firms offering coverage extend it to part-time staff.
Federal rules allow much of that gap. Under the Affordable Care Act, applicable large employers, generally those with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees, must offer affordable coverage to people averaging 30 or more hours a week. Employees below that threshold can be excluded without penalty.
That threshold is where administration gets difficult. Employers with variable-hour staff have to track hours over measurement periods to work out who qualifies, and get it wrong in either direction at a cost: offering cover to people who are not eligible, or missing people who are, which risks ACA penalties.
Pressure is building elsewhere too. Individual Marketplace enrollment fell 13% from its 2025 peak to 19.2 million by February 2026, after enhanced premium tax credits expired, and KFF found the average Marketplace deductible rose 37% to a record US$3,786. For lower-paid hourly workers, employer coverage is becoming more important just as it gets more expensive. Mercer projects employer health benefit costs will rise 8.2% per employee in 2027, the largest increase since 2003, and 59% of employers plan cost-cutting changes such as higher deductibles.
Employers increasingly weigh technology when choosing benefits and brokers. In The Hartford’s 2026 Future of Benefits Study of 500 employers, 54% said HR technology and benefits platforms are highly influential when selecting benefits. Smaller employers lean more on brokers, with 58% looking to them for open enrollment guidance, against 42% of larger employers.
Zywave’s 2026 survey of more than 1,400 employers found failure to adopt modern technology and AI tools now ranks among the top eight reasons employers would consider switching brokers.
Time with employees is short. A Lincoln Financial and Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) study released on October 1 found 86% of employees spend four hours or less reviewing enrollment materials. For hourly staff, who may have no work email and limited time on shift, mobile access matters more than for office-based employees.
For brokers placing benefits for hourly and prevailing wage clients, the question is not whether an administrator has an app, but whether its technology solves the problems these workforces create. Useful questions to put to any administrator include:
