With open enrollment season here, health insurance—and its costs—are hot topics. Wondering how your organization’s health care offerings compare to your peers’? A new report, Employee Benefits Survey: 2018 Results, examines the types of health care plans offered by employers, the average deductible and the share of premiums employers are covering.

The report found that for employees with deductibles, the average deductible they can expect to pay is $1,491 with single coverage and $2,788 with family coverage.

Looking more closely at the findings, of those who have single coverage health insurance:

• 7% have no deductible
• 16% have a deductible under $500
• 19% have a deductible between $500 and $999
• 46% have a deductible between $1,000 and $2,999
• 6% have a deductible between $3,000 and $3,999
• 6% have a deductible that is $4,000 or higher.

Of those who have family health care coverage:

• 7% have no deductible
• 3% have a deductible under $500
• 11% have a deductible between $500 and $999
• 29% have a deductible between $1,000 and $2,999
• 26% have a deductible between $3,000 and $4,999
• 23% have a deductible of $5,000 or higher.

As expected, deductible amounts vary based on the type of plan an employee is enrolled in. Employees in a more traditional, non-high-deductible plan average deductibles of $932 for single coverage and $1,931 for family coverage. Employees in a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) have an average deductible of more than double that of a non-HDHP plan—$2,296 for single coverage and $4,104 for family coverage.

The report also found that the average share of the health care premium paid by an employee—23% for single coverage and 31% for family coverage—is holding steady, with an increase of less than 1% over the previous four years.

Employers are offering a wide variety of plan types for employees and often offer more than one type of plan. The most common type is a preferred provider organization (PPO), offered by 73% of employers. High-deductible health plans (HDHP) with a health savings account (HSA) continue to grow in prevalence—59% of employers report they offer an HDHP with an HSA, up from 46% in 2014. Just over a quarter of employers, 26%, offer a health maintenance organization (HMO) plan.

Want to See How Your Organization’s Other Benefits Compare?

Employee Benefits Survey: 2018 Results is an employee benefits benchmarking survey that provides a comprehensive look at the health care, retirement, paid leave and work/life benefits offered by employers across the United States. (The data above is exclusively from single-employer plans, referred to as corporate employers—multiemployer and public employer plan sponsor data has been removed.)

Get your copy of this new report at www.ifebp.org/BenefitSurvey2018.

Brenda Hofmann
Communications Manager at the International Foundation