Health Insurance Daily

More Firms Adopting Consumerism

Only 5.8% of employers provide consumer-driven health plans, up from 2.6% last year, with 3.4% of all covered workers enrolled in these plans, up from 1.9% last year. The increase stems, in part, from smaller employers adopting CDHPs, reveals a new benchmarking survey from the United Benefit Advisors.
The group, which represents nearly 140 independent benefit advisory firms, conducted an extensive, nationwide survey examining health plan enrollment, design, cost and premiums. Nearly 10,000 employers representing over 1.5 million workers responded to this year's survey.
The average annual health plan cost per employee is $6,629, with an average employee cost of $2,031 and an average employer cost of $4,592. The average employer contribution to health reimbursement arrangements was $1,033 for single coverage and $1,965 for family coverage, while the average employer contribution to health savings accounts was $938 for single coverage and $1,533 for family coverage.
Businesses may be relieved to see that premiums increased an average of 8.6% this year, compared to 9.6% last year. About 32% of all plans required no employee contributions. Among plans requiring contributions, employees contributed an average of 26.9% of the premium, or $88, for single coverage and 45.3% of the premium, or $361, for family coverage.
“With employer health plan information reported for over 2,700 cities from virtually every state in the country, differences in plan design and plan costs between various regions and industry groups become apparent,” says David LoCascio, UBA’s co-founder.

Article provided by BenefitNews, Sept 14, 2006.

posted by Mike @ 8:15 AM