Findings Report
Healthcare Benefits
In a world changed by a global pandemic, it’s more important than ever for companies to take care of their employees with comprehensive health benefits. Year after year, people-driven companies of all sizes continue to offer a full range of healthcare and welfare benefits to their employees. In this report, we dive deep into the topics and metrics that are driving the conversation.
New 2022 healthcare data is coming! Get early access:
Take the Healthcare Survey ➞
Program Strategy
Nearly all companies continue to offer a full range of health and welfare benefits to their employees, with PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) plans being the most common plans offered year after year. The plan type with the most significant growth trend is HDHPs with HSAs, which continue to gain popularity with employers. The demand for digital point solutions continues to expand beyond primary care, with behavioral health offerings now offered by nearly half of companies.
Like this data? It gets even better with the participation of HR experts like you.
Costs & Budget
Employee healthcare typically represents one of the top expenses for any company, and juggling those costs can present challenges as they build competitive benefits programs. Understanding whether you’re spending too little or too much compared to your competitors is essential to staying on budget and attracting talent. On average, we found that the total annual cost per employee for medical, dental, and vision coverage was over $12,000 in 2021, but that number shifts as companies scale.
Contributions
Companies are continuing to bear the vast majority of the cost of healthcare, especially for employee-only coverage. Contribution levels vary by plan type and company size, but HDHPs with HSAs are consistently covered at 100% for employees, likely due to the associated employer savings when employees choose these plans.
Plan Design
Properly designing medical, dental, and vision plans can be complex. Depending on the plan type, companies opt for different amounts for deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket maximums. Our data has revealed the most popular ways companies are designing their plans. Explore the most common plan designs for medical, dental, and vision below.
Self-Insurance
As companies grow to over 500 employees, we start to see a shift towards self funding of healthcare and income protection benefit programs. Why do some companies make the switch from fully insured programs? Many report that it’s due to financial savings and flexibility.
Specialized Care Benefits
Offering additional benefit provisions and programs has become increasingly important for companies to attract and retain talent. While a majority of all companies offer telemedecine and chiropractic coverage, large companies are much more likely to offer specialized acupuncture, Transgender-inclusive, and advanced fertility benefits.
Methodology
Insights from this report represent data collected from Sequoia’s Employee Experience Surveys (2017 – 2021), anonymized information and trends from our database, and Dataforest surveys. Dataforest is refreshed periodically with updates from new survey submissions.
Explore more
Compensation
Are you compensating your people adequately?
The New Workplace
Uncover key factors influencing the new workplace experience.
Global Benefits
How are companies caring for their global workforce?