Health Insurance Costs Even Increasing for Insurers
To reduce costs, carriers employed a variety of methods from increasing the employee portion of the premium to increasing deductible levels.
Insurance Networking News, June 18, 2010
Insurance agents, brokers and carriers aren’t exempt to rising medical costs. Insurance companies are increasing premiums in an effort to keep up with the rising demand of health care, according to the 2010 Compensation Data Insurance survey results. Insurance employers had an average premium increase of 9.6%. More than half of survey respondents report paying more than $9,600 annually for an employee-plus-family plan.
Employee-plus-spouse plans annually cost employers more than $7,200. Insurance organizations pay more than $2,400 per year for employee-only coverage, with just over 40% of employees paying more than $900 per year for the same coverage, according to Compdata Surveys. Although employees have become responsible for paying a larger portion of their medical insurance premiums over the last few years, employers still cover more than 70% of the total cost.
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To reduce costs, survey respondents, who represented health & disability, life, property/casualty and other lines of business, employed a variety of methods. Increasing the employee portion of the premium was most prevalent at 63%, with an increase in deductible levels following at 48.5%. The results showed that 29.7% of organizations increased employee co-insurance levels. Offering a choice of deductible levels was utilized by 15.2% of survey respondents.
Cost-containment measures also are a popular option, as 90.7% of organizations surveyed use coordination of benefits to bring costs in line. More than 60% of insurance organizations employ utilization review, disease management and pharmacy benefit management to contain costs.
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