How Health Insurers Can Partner with Grocery Stores to Improve SNAP and WIC Enrollment  

A wealth of evidence demonstrates that health-related social needs (HRSNs), such as access to stable housing and enough healthy food, significantly impact people’s health outcomes and health care costs. Recognizing this, health insurers across Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial markets have increasingly focused on addressing HRSNs for their members over the past decade.  

Yet health care is still in the early stages of learning how to address these needs effectively and widely. Models such as North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots and California’s Whole Person Care Pilots,  which connect Medicaid beneficiaries with community resources, have shown promise but primarily focus on higher-risk, higher-cost populations. A critical question remains: how can HRSN interventions be scaled in an ROI-positive way for broader populations with unmet needs? 

To address this, some payers are pursuing strategies beyond traditional health care systems by focusing on public benefit programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). These programs can directly address HRSNs through their existing infrastructure and federal funding. 

However, there is an intuitive but underutilized partner for payers seeking to increase SNAP and WIC uptake among their members: grocery stores. 

Growing Health Care interest in Public Benefits   

SNAP enrollment has proven to be a powerful tool in reducing food insecurity, improving health outcomes and lowering annual medical costs for low-income adults by up to 25% (or by about $1,400 less a year), with even higher cost savings for people with chronic conditions such as hypertension (nearly $2,700) and coronary artery disease (more than $4,100). Similarly, WIC has demonstrated impressive results in reducing infant mortality and childhood obesity rates, and every dollar invested in the program is shown to save up to three dollars in medical, educational, and productivity costs. 

Increasingly, public and private sector actors recognize these significant impacts and have begun taking steps to boost access to public benefit programs. State health agencies have been among the early leaders, with states like Michigan and Minnesota creating user-friendly online portals that allow individuals to more quickly and easily apply for Medicaid and other benefits concurrently. Private sector health care organizations like Kaiser Permanente are also harnessing data analytics to identify and reach out to SNAP-eligible members.  

Despite these efforts, millions of Americans leave billions of dollars in public benefits on the table. Only an estimated 78% of eligible people are enrolled in SNAP, meaning that 9 million people leave nearly $20 billion in SNAP benefits unclaimed each year, with seniors and Latinos having particularly lower rates of SNAP participation. WIC participation is even lower, with just an estimated 51% of those eligible enrolled, leaving nearly $4 billion in WIC benefits unclaimed.  

While statewide public and private sector entities like health insurers have some ability to close this gap on their own, their efforts are hampered by their limited physical presence in communities, reducing their ability to engage in-person with people to increase benefits uptake at key moments, such as when food and nutrition are top of mind.  

Grocery Stores Are Perfect Partners for SNAP and WIC   

Supermarkets are ideal partners for insurers in their efforts to increase SNAP and WIC enrollment. With their local high-traffic brick-and-mortar presence, supermarkets engage when customers are already thinking about and buying food, providing an optimal setting for SNAP and WIC screening and application support.  

These partnerships would serve grocers’ interests as well, given that 93% of all SNAP benefits are redeemed in grocery settings such as supermarkets (e.g., Kroger), superstores (e.g., Walmart), and grocery stores (e.g., Trader Joe’s). In fact, many of these retailers actively compete for customers who receive benefits already: Giant and Meijer frequently offer SNAP-specific discounts, Walmart+ membership is half-price for SNAP and WIC recipients, and most major retailers now allow SNAP benefits to be used online.  

A SNAP- or WIC-focused partnership between health insurers and supermarkets serves all parties: lowering health care costs for insurers, increasing grocery spend for retailers, and most importantly improving food security and health outcomes for their customers.  

Grocery Stores Have Already Begun Partnering with Health Insurers  

Nearly two-thirds of leading food retailers now view health and well-being as central to their business strategy. Kroger, for example, has embraced Food as Medicine trends, launching in-app nutritional scoring systems and providing dietitian counseling services.  

In their push into health care, nearly half of grocery industry leaders anticipate partnering with health insurers, and many already have: Target and Kaiser operate in-store clinics to manage chronic conditions, and Kroger and Elevance provide co-branded insurance plans. Despite these advancements, few insurer-grocer partnerships have made SNAP and WIC enrollment a central focus. Even in partnerships like Walmart and CareSource’s, which offers in-store community health workers and tele-nutrition services, benefits enrollment appears to be a secondary goal. 

This represents a missed opportunity for insurers, especially as some grocers are already prioritizing benefits enrollment even outside insurer partnerships. For example, in 2023, as part of a customer fundraising campaign, Albertson’s committed to facilitating 50,000 new SNAP signups, which could potentially generate $70 million in annual health savings for payers not yet involved in these efforts. 

What Could a Partnership Focused on SNAP and WIC Look Like?  

Grocery stores can drive SNAP and WIC by screening for eligibility, educating customers on how and where to apply, and most critically, providing one-on-one assistance with preparing and submitting applications. Simply informing individuals about their potential benefits eligibility nearly doubles the likelihood of enrollment, but offering screening and application assistance can increase enrollment by three to seven times. These services could be offered in various settings such as enrollment tables and checkout areas or through pharmacy or nutritionist interactions.  

State Medicaid agencies and Medicaid managed care organizations are especially well-positioned to lead the creation of these partnerships. Medicaid is the nation’s largest payer for lower-income people (including lower-income pregnant women and young children), and several state Medicaid programs are already national leaders in addressing HRSNs. With most Medicaid programs now using managed care models, managed care organizations are financially accountable for their members’ health care costs. And in many states, Medicaid is housed in the same agency as SNAP and WIC, which facilitates cross-program coordination.  

While grocers benefit from increasing SNAP and WIC enrollment, insurers have even stronger financial incentives to support these efforts. After all, each 1,000 new SNAP signups could reduce their healthcare costs by $1.4 million. As a result, insurers may elect to share a portion of the value they capture with grocers, such as via shared savings arrangements. Regardless of how this value is shared, significant value would be created, above all for the people whose health and food security would improve.  

Unless payers become more proactive and creative in harnessing the potential for public benefits to improve health outcomes and reduce costs, much of this value will remain on the table.