The cost of health coverage is slowing down.
The sea of potential employees continues to diversify and expand. The job market is becoming more competitive for employers too.
Today’s companies need to find new ways to retain their employees. Not only are employers looking to give workers incentive to stay, they are developing new techniques to attract potential hires. The latest bait is the leveling cost of employee health coverage.
In study by Mercer, a global survey company, where over 1,600 employers were surveyed on how much they plan on raising their charges on employees for health benefits, researchers found that most employers were going to charge 5.4% more for health benefits this year!
But this is actually an improvement from last year.
Despite the fact that this percentage is well above annual wage growth and the rate of inflation, it is the lowest increase in the cost of health benefits since 1997 – something positive to appreciate in these tough economic times.
One reason for this decrease is that employees appear to be handling their personal health better and are thus having fewer chronic illnesses and conditions. This means that they’ll make less visits to the doctor’s office.
Because of this, employers no longer need to dig as deep into their pockets to provide coverage. This allows them to take on more new hires.
Another attractive aspect of this leveling plane of health benefits is that fewer costs will be shifted to employees.
Mercer’s study found that many employees plan to raise premiums or deductibles this year. Of those, 36% plan to raise the price for coverage of employees with family members, while 33% will charge more for single employees.
Companies will now be expected to offer health savings accounts and high deductible plans, or even health reimbursements to employees.
Just like a fisherman carefully selects the perfect lure to bring home a keeper, employers must now strategize on how they’ll make benefits more appealing so that they can reel in a trophy catch.
One of these lures is allowing workers to set aside tax-free money for their non-insured health expenses. Good benefits have become an essential component to the job package.
In fact, benefits are starting to become as important as salaries and commissions.
The Mercer study proved this, as it showed that the number of job seekers looking into employee perks before considering a company has significantly increased in the last five years.
Has your company modified your health insurance benefits? How much attention do you pay to the health benefits offered when hunting for a new job?
The web is a behemoth of information. The overwhelming myriad of available knowledge can be a little intimidating, especially when one is crunched for some deadline or when one is searching for new ways to handle employee benefits or insurance issues.
Thankfully, there are free, automated and unbiased tools available to help sort through this information. This can save you time researching, without any extra costs.
About the Author
Carolyn Sokol writes about issues that may affect small businesses such as HRMS and HR Payroll Technology. Her background is in marketing and communications, employee education and training, development of policies and procedures and the ongoing delivery of outstanding service to customers.
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