Two Employee Benefit Studies Don’t Agree on Everything – But Do Agree on 52% HDHP Adoption

By Clive Riddle, February 19, 2016 

Benefitfocus has just released the “Benefitfocus State of Employee Benefits 2016,” based on benefit selection data from 700,000+ people at 500 large employers, based on actual behavioral versus self-reported data. They cite that 52 percent of large employer clients now offer high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). 

The report notes that “millennials—born between 1980 and 1989—selected HDHPs more than any other age group. However, while approximately 44 percent of employees in this group chose HDHPs, a much smaller number of these employees took full advantage of health savings accounts (HSAs.)”

In addition, the report found that their clients “should be well positioned to navigate the Cadillac tax to be levied on higher-cost health care plans in 2020 under the Affordable Care Act. Total premiums across all 2016 plans averaged $14,974 for family coverage and $6,096 for individual coverage—both well below the tax’s respective target thresholds of $27,500 and $10,200.” 

While voluntary benefits have receiving much publicity as a popular solution and offering in consumer driven plan environments, they report that “only 36 percent of large employers offered such voluntary benefits for 2016, and only 14 percent of employees actually enrolled.” 

Meanwhile, Wells Fargo Insurance  has just released their Employee Benefits Trend Study surveying 650 middle-market companies and large corporations, which painted a somewhat different picture. They found that “fifty eight percent of employers surveyed expect their medical plan costs to exceed the thresholds for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) excise tax, or “Cadillac” tax, which was originally to take effect in 2018, but has been delayed until 2020.” Their findings state that “As more employers offer high deductible health plans, the C-suite is also aware of the financial exposure that employees face with these types of plans. As a result, they are looking to mitigate those costs by offering voluntary benefits solutions (e.g. critical illness and accident insurance).” 

But the Wells Fargo survey did agree to the penny with the Benefitfocus study on one item – HDHP adoption, citing that “half of the employers in the study said they will continue to make changes to their plans either this year or in 2017 by adding a high deductible plan option (52 percent), increasing the employee contribution percentage (56 percent), or increasing co-insurance features (55 percent).