Ask most Americans where their health coverage comes from and the honest answer is: a job. It arrives through an employer's HR portal, an open-enrollment email, a payroll deduction. Now subtract the employer. That is the world tens of millions of gig workers, drivers and freelancers actually live in - and the gap that Workers Benefit Fund was built to close.
Founded in 2018 and based in New York City, Workers Benefit Fund - often shortened to WBF - describes itself as a PEO-style solution for the gig industry. A professional employer organization normally handles benefits and HR for a company's staff. WBF does something stranger and harder: it delivers those same benefits to people who, by definition, do not have a single employer to route them through.
Its method rests on three building blocks - technology, outreach and partnerships. WBF designs and administers benefits programs, builds the mobile-first enrollment tools to run them, and markets directly to workers who will never see a company benefits fair. Then it partners with the institutions that can fund and sponsor coverage: gig platforms, labor unions, benefit funds and public agencies.
"We believe in a future where all workers, regardless of job type, have access to tools and services that improve their quality of life."
— Nick Abramovich, Chief Executive Officer
