Dozens of unionized staff and faculty members at the University of Vermont protested on Thursday, demanding an end to an ongoing health insurance audit that union leaders say threatens the sensitive information of their members.
Members of the UVM Staff United, United Academics, and United Electrical unions, which together represent more than 2,500 staff and faculty members, gathered on the steps of the Waterman building, and later marched inside of the university’s executive offices, to express their fears around handing over personal information to a third party company.
In July, the university began asking employees to submit personal documentation, such as birth certificates or marriage certificates, to Willis Towers Watson, a multi-national insurance brokerage company. The university hired the firm to verify whether family members and dependents enrolled on employees’ insurance plans were eligible for health benefits.
The university is paying the company a fee range of $109,000 to $114,000 to conduct the audit, according to Adam White, a public information officer with the university.
If employees fail to complete the verification process, their dependents will be removed from the university’s medical, dental and vision plans, according to information posted on the university’s website.
The audit comes as the University of Vermont, like many institutions and companies in the state, has seen ballooning health insurance costs. The university said on its website that it has a “fiduciary duty” to ensure that plans are only used by employees and dependents who are eligible.
In a statement, Chris Lehman, the chief human resources officer at University of Vermont, said that while the audit “differs from past practices at UVM, it is critical for how the university can care for its employees, as it ensures the integrity and sustainability of its healthcare plans.”
Verifying eligibility, Lehman said, “helps protect all employees by minimizing unnecessary costs and mitigating broader financial risks to employees and the institution” and can “help preserve the university’s capacity to assist those who may be in more vulnerable situations.”
“Employee cooperation strengthens the university’s collective ability to care for every member of its community,” he said.
But members of UVM Staff United, United Academics, and UE Local 267 on Thursday decried the process, and said the university administration was forcing its employees to share sensitive family documents with an “unaccountable” multi-national firm.
The university has not produced evidence of insurance fraud, union members said.
In a press release, union leaders pointed to a data breach that Willis Towers Watson reported in 2023 that compromised individuals’ names and social security numbers.
“We’re talking about sharing our birth certificates, our marriage licenses with a company that’s going to have all of our sensitive information that is not our employer, and is not accountable to us,” said Claire Whitehouse, a co-president of the UVM Staff United.
More than 650 unionized employees, in a survey about the audit, said they had concerns about data privacy. And at the rally on Thursday, members described their fears of handing over sensitive documentation to a company with a history of data breaches.
Ellen Kaye, a member and co-president of the UVM Staff United, described the audit as “harmful and chilling,” and likened the practice to the federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
“The practices of a federal government that is dismantling institutions and firing workers on the premise of getting rid of ‘waste, fraud and abuse’ has come home to Vermont,” she said at the rally.
One employee, whose statement was read anonymously, said they worried about a family member on their insurance plan who was assigned a different gender at birth than is on their documents now.
“If that information gets breached, that could be a problem for that person in this political environment,” Whitehouse said.
Lehman, in a statement, said that the university’s information security office “conducted a thorough review of WTW’s system and approved its use.”
He added that the company “recommends redacting social security numbers from submitted documents, which adds another layer of protection to the process.”
Kaye, Whitehouse and other union members called on the university’s new president, Marlene Tromp, to meet with the unions next week to discuss the audit process in bargaining.
If not, they said they would “take their message to the incoming class of 2029 at convocation,” Kaye said.
“The university wants to review its health insurance options, that’s within its right,” Whitehouse said, “but how it affects employees and its implications are mandatory subjects of bargaining, and we want to bargain how that impacts us.”
