Dive Transient:
- The common value of employer-sponsored medical insurance climbed to $17,496 in 2025, up 6% from the yr earlier than and in extra of charges of inflation and wage progress, in keeping with Mercer’s current 2025 Nationwide Survey of Employer-Sponsored Well being Plans.
- Prices are projected to proceed to rise one other 6.7% in 2026, making the typical value per employee $18,500, the survey discovered.
- A “sharp progress” in prescription drug spending, together with dear GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, helped gas the rise, Mercer stated. Prescription drug spending was up a mean 9.4% amongst giant employers, these with 500 or extra employees, whereas GLP-1 protection for weight reduction among the many identical group climbed to 49% in 2025 from 44% the earlier yr.
Dive Perception:
Studies of ever-increasing healthcare prices will not be briefly provide.
Final month, KFF’s 2025 Employer Well being Advantages Survey confirmed that household premiums for employer-sponsored medical insurance have been up 6%, or $1,408, in comparison with final yr. All instructed, household premiums have been on common $26,993 in 2025, or increased than the price of a brand new Toyota Corolla Hybrid, as KFF President and CEO Drew Altman put it.
In the meantime, HUB Worldwide’s 2026 Advantages Price Pattern report, launched on the identical time, predicted that medical and prescription profit prices will enhance 8% to 10% subsequent yr, pushed partially by way of high-cost medication, akin to GLP-1s and auto-immune drugs.
However all hope shouldn’t be misplaced, in keeping with a world well being and danger chief for built-in and international options at WTW.
“One glimmer of hope for employers is that funding in applied sciences, together with AI, is resulting in increased prices for the time being however following this part new applied sciences maintain the promise of lowering healthcare value traits in the long run,” the WTW chief stated earlier this month.
Within the meantime, there are steps employers can take to handle prices, Mercer’s U.S. Well being and Advantages Chief Ed Lehman stated.
“Employers wish to decrease will increase in paycheck deductions whereas making certain workers throughout all pay ranges can afford the care they want, after they want it,” Lehman stated. “It’s a tricky problem, however there are methods that employers could make healthcare extra reasonably priced for workers.”
That includes providing workers extra medical plan choices, encouraging them to decide on high-performing suppliers and providing specialised well being packages, he stated.
For instance, 32% of enormous employers offered a standalone specialised diabetes program in 2025, 28% supplied a musculoskeletal program, and 23% supplied a fertility program, Mercer discovered. These packages are usually low value or free and delivered just about, per the survey of two,010 employers.
