Employees still have high expectations that their companies will pay a large portion of their health insurance premiums, believing that the responsibility lies with them.
This expectation is not waning even though employers are increasingly shifting a larger percentage of health insurance costs to their workers. A recent survey by Aflac found that 52% of employees expect their employer to pay at least 80% of the cost of their medical insurance, and another 14% said they expect an employer to pay the total cost or 100% of their health insurance.
“These expectations may be just a bit too high, as the average employer pays about 70% of an employee’s health insurance premium, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,” said Matthew Owenby, chief human resources officer at Aflac, the Columbus, Ga.-based supplemental health insurance company.
After a decade of moderate growth, premiums for both individuals and families of employer-sponsored health insurance increased by an average of 4% this year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2015 survey. Premiums haven risen an average of 5% annually since 2005, compared to 11% annually between 1999 and 2005. The average annual premium for single coverage is $6,251 with workers paying an average of $1,071. The average family premium is $17,545 with workers on average contributing $4,955.
Since 2010, both the share of workers with deductibles and the size of those deductibles have increased severely. The combination of these two factors result in a 67% increase in deductibles since 2010, much faster than the rise in single premiums of 24% and about seven times the rise in workers’ wages of 10% and general inflation of 9%, the Kaiser survey found.
“With deductibles rising so much faster than premiums and wages, it’s no surprise that consumers have not felt the slowdown in health spending,” Foundation CEO Drew Altman said.