Health Insurance Premium Increases – and what you as an Employer Can Do about It

We just got notice that our annual health insurance company has raised the premiums for Catalogs.com about 17%. I was told my insurance consultant that out of hundreds of companies he is representing, ONLY Catalogs.com has the same number of renewals as last year. When I questioned “What do you mean by this?” he went on to tell me that out of hundreds of clients that he is personally servicing, EVERY OTHER COMPANY has had either layoffs or has decided, with our fabulous economy, to stop offering health insurance as an option.
I was flabbergasted! But in retrospection, maybe I should not have been so surprised. It is quite unfortunate those companies have suffered so much, and that one of the MOST expensive components on P&L’s is employee health insurance.
At Catalogs.com, we decided that it was worth the extra hours and hours involved in obtaining competitive quotes from 8 different health insurance companies, and keeping constant the same percentage that we pay for our employees. We ended up switching plans, offering an HMO that had very low co-pays and excellent prescription benefits, and still keeping the plan affordable for ALL employees. Of course it would have been more profitable to have simply reduced the percentage we pay, but that would NOT have been a good outcome for our employees.
Employers … remember the basics … look out for the well being of your employees, do everything you can to make them healthy and productive … and most importantly, try to be fair and keep them happy. Trust me … it will help you sleep better most nights.