The myth: seasonal and part-time workers don’t want health coverage
A lot of employers repeat some version of this idea. Seasonal and part-time workers are transient, the thinking goes, so they don’t value benefits the way full-time staff do. Farms, warehouses, restaurants, and retailers use this belief to justify skipping benefits conversations with a large share of their workforce.
The idea did not come from nowhere. Turnover in these roles is real, and enrollment numbers in traditional plans offered to part-time workers are often low. But low enrollment in a bad plan is not the same as low interest in coverage. Those are two different facts, and mixing them up leads employers to the wrong conclusion.
Where the myth comes from
Traditional group plans were built around full-time, year-round employment. They assume steady payroll deductions over twelve months, a waiting period before eligibility, and a worker who plans to stay long enough to make the math work out.
Seasonal and part-time workers rarely fit that shape. A farmworker might be with one employer for eight weeks. A retail worker might pick up twenty hours one month and none the next. When you offer a full-time-style plan to someone in that position, the premium often outweighs what they can realistically use. So they decline it, and the employer reads the decline as disinterest.
It isn’t disinterest. It’s a mismatch between the plan design and the way these workers actually work.
What the data on informal healthcare use tells you instead
Ask around in industries with high seasonal employment, and a different picture shows up. Workers in these roles use urgent care and emergency rooms for things that should have been handled in a regular doctor’s visit. They skip prescriptions because paying out of pocket is not worth it that week. They put off checkups until a problem gets bad enough that it can’t wait anymore.
That is not what disinterest in healthcare looks like. That is what unmet need looks like when the available options don’t fit the person’s schedule or income.
What actually changes behavior
A few things tend to move the needle when employers get this right.
No waiting period. Seasonal work often ends before a standard 60- or 90-day waiting period would even finish. If coverage never kicks in before the job does, workers correctly conclude it isn’t for them.
No cost at the point of enrollment. Even a small payroll deduction can price out a worker who is budgeting week to week. Removing that friction changes who signs up.
Coverage that travels with the person, not the job. Workers who move between employers during a season benefit from access that isn’t tied to a single payroll system.
Plain language. Many of these workers have never had employer coverage explained to them in a way that assumes no prior knowledge. Jargon-heavy enrollment materials get skipped, not read.
John Zabasky, CEO of WorXsiteHR Insurance Solutions, has worked on this exact mismatch, building access models aimed at lower-income, part-time, and seasonal workers rather than assuming the standard group plan fits everyone. His work is one example of employers rethinking the default rather than accepting the myth.
What to check if you manage seasonal staff
If you’re responsible for benefits at a company that relies on seasonal or part-time labor, a short audit can tell you more than assumptions ever will.
- Look at how many workers were even eligible to enroll, not just how many did.
- Check whether the waiting period outlasts the average tenure for the role.
- Ask a few workers directly why they didn’t enroll. The answer is often cost or timing, not lack of interest.
- Compare your enrollment rate against a plan with no premium and no wait, if one is available to you. The gap usually tells the real story.
The takeaway
Seasonal and part-time workers are not opting out of healthcare. They’re opting out of plans that were never built with their schedule or budget in mind. Fix the design, and the participation numbers usually follow.
