United Benefit Advisors Insight and Analysis Blog

We recently shared healthcare cost benchmarking best practices and reported on the best and worst industries/states for group healthcare. But how much are you contributing toward healthcare costs vs. your employees? That’s a key benchmark, especially when “cost-shifting” is the main strategy for mitigating risk for employers. You may have the most affordable plan, but if you are passing most of that cost on to your employees, you may not be a competitive employer.

Many employers benchmark their health plan against carrier provided national data. While that is a good place to start, regional cost averages vary, making it essential to benchmark both nationally and regionally—as well as state by state. For example, a significant difference exists between the cost to insure an employee in the Northeast versus the Central U.S.—plans in the Northeast continue to cost the most since they typically have lower deductibles, contain more state-mandated benefits, and feature higher in-network coinsurance, among other factors.

Our 2016 Health Plan Survey results are in and as our preliminary findings indicated, while employer costs remained steady, employees continue to take on more cost for coverage. With PPO deductibles rising 50 percent, UBA finds that consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) continue to increase in popularity even though they are offering less savings than a year ago. Our newly released 2016 Health Plan Survey Executive Summary finds 26.4 percent of all U.S. employees are now enrolled in CDHP plans, an increase of 21.7 percent from last year and nearly 70 percent from five years ago.