Protecting Freelancers

For the workers building careers between coffee shops, contracts, and coworking desks.

As traditional office structures dissolved and coworking spaces surged, Colonial Life asked us to help explore how this shift was reshaping workers’ expectations around protection and benefits. The goal: uncover new opportunities to serve a workforce no longer tethered to a single employer or office.

We conducted immersive field research inside coworking communities—speaking with freelancers, founders, contractors, and mobile professionals. What we found was a population that valued flexibility and autonomy, but felt unsupported by traditional benefits structures. Insurance and protection products often failed to match the fragmented, portable nature of modern work.

Through this work, we identified emerging opportunity spaces for portable benefits, peer-based coverage models, and digital-first engagement strategies tailored to the independent workforce. Our insights helped shape Colonial Life’s strategic thinking about how to expand relevance and value for this growing segment.

As work continues to evolve beyond static workplaces, this foundational research continues to inform how carriers can innovate to meet workers where they actually are—not where they used to be.