Guess on Insurance Increase % for this year?

Kymm · September 2003

I was recently in a conversation with the management team regarding how much we thought our medical insurance may go up for next year... I know that last year it was close to 30%... do any of you have some idea on what it looks like for 2004? (or could you let me know the % of increase that you most recently had to gulp?) Thanks!

Balloonman · September 2003

Kymm,
If you had a decent year figure on a 13.5% increase......... :-)
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

JM in ATL · September 2003

We are estimating nearly 30% this year. We had two babies and are expecting a thrid before the year is finished. We only hire hypochondriacs and the terminally ill, so our insurance is already outrageous. Add those babies to it and we will be paying probably the max rate at the end of this year.

scottorr · September 2003

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-24-03 AT 10:34AM (CST)[/font][p]Our plan year starts 12/1/03 so we have our rates for 2003-2004. We got a 0% increase in our medical, yes I have signed contracts! Our utilization came in way below (25%) the predicted amount. We budgeted for a 17% increase. For dental we are getting a 10% increase. I am sure next year we will make up for the low increases this year.

psrcello · September 2003

Our 2004 renewal originally came in at a 20% increase. However, our union contract requires that if the increase is over 15%, we have to negotiate plan changes, contributions, carrier changes, etc. Our account exec has been torn to bits by our union employees on several occasions, and was willing to reduce the increase to 15% in order to avoid another unpleasant confrontation.

Cinderella · September 2003

I don't know about this year, but last year was about 14% and we were happy about that b/c we heard others had it MUCH worse.
Cinderella

mwild31 · September 2003

Kymm

I just went through this process and our increase was 11.5%. It didn't start that way though. To renew with our current coverage we were looking at a 39% increase (the insurance company didn't want to sell the product any more so they raised the rates). I sent out an RFP to several brokers in my area & we seriously looked at 4 candidates (one included our current broker of 14 years). The first rates they brought back reflected a 16% increase - still too much. I hate to say it, but I got them in a bidding war - negotiating, of all things, their commission rates. We did go with another broker (current broker was a pompous jerk) and actually were surprised with how much more the new broker could offer as far as services & somewhat cutting edge healthcare packages. I would recommend the RFP route, it was time consuming, but with the way insurance is going - more money for less coverage - it really pays to shop around.

Hunter1 · September 2003

National survey stuff that I've read says more like 20%+. If you renew under 15% for the same benefits, I'd say you are fortunate. I budgeted 15% and am having second thoughts.

mwild31 · September 2003

In Seattle, it's about an 18% to 25% average increase. Our benefit plan did change slightly, in that there is a deductible this time around, but our employees were fully aware of the increasing costs (thanks to company wide meetings, newsletters, payroll inserts, emails) and the renewal was painless. BTW, our rates are for September 2003-August 2004.

MS HR · September 2003

would there be any chance of you emailing your rfp as i am about to do my first one.
it would be greatly appreciated.

[email]jchromy@ci.gulfport.ms.us[/email]

LindaS · September 2003

At our 6-month review it was anticipated that we would NOT have to increase our premiums. If that stays the same way, we are looking at the 4th year in a row without having to increase premiums!

Mentel · October 2003

Who is your insurance carrier?

SamanthaQ · September 2003

Our broker is estimating a 20% increase in premium provided we keep the same plan. The increase was similar last year but we increased our co-pays to bring it down to a 16.2% increase.

marc · September 2003

We came in at 11%. This was following two years of 40+% increases. Our broker thought 12% was the average for our area. Amazing coincidence that we beat the average?

Rob S · September 2003

We have a person who has been on the waiting list for a heart/lung transplant for a while now. Last Jan 1 we had a 102% increase, and the year before we had a 40% increase. I had to put my family on an idividual plan because my rates to keep them on our plan was going to be around $12,000 a year (health ins only). I'm lucky because my family has no pre-existing conditions so I could put them on the individual plan.

It is very hard to recuit employees who want to put a dependent on our insurance plan.

Rob S

Alex2003 · September 2003

Often it depends on things like: are you self-insured? Or, you are fully insured? Sometimes, it may be a combination of both. In the first case scenario, your ratings depend only on your organization's usage. In the second, it depends on the insurance company's pool it uses to identify the rates.

Our fully-insured piece' rates, HMO, will go up by 20%. I estimate that our self-insured piece (Indemnity) will hover around 15-17%. It was only 12% from 2002 to 2003.

HRGirl · September 2003

Our broker advised us to expect at least 14%. I guess we'll find out soon, we start the renewal process in the next month or two. Just another thing to make the holiday's go smoothly.

Dasher · September 2003

Nice thread. Guess I will stop grumbling and complaining. Our insurance company estimates a 13% increase for 2004. I asked our broker to give me other bids so we can compare. The dental and disability insurances will remain the same though, because we had 2-year contracts (nice when you can get them).

LBL · September 2003

I don't use a broker and have 1200 participants . . . personally I'm not sure what value they bring to the equation. Last year we had a 6% increase; this year (October 1 plan year) we are looking at a 2% increase. We have a self-insured PPO plan with a $150,000 specific stop loss. My advice is . . . don't buy the 16% "medical trend" without asking a whole lot of questions about your own experience. It's so easy for us to just take the increase and think that everyone else is getting the same or worse!

bamahr · September 2003

We have a COBRA Participant on the waiting list for lung transplant. I do not have renewal numbers yet - I am expecting the worst. 102% that is what I was thinking.

Rob S · September 2003

I feel your pain.

Our person waiting for the transplant should either have it soon, get taken off of the list because he is getting to sick or pass away pretty soon (I'm getting to sound morbid). As soon as one of those three happens, we will put our policy out for bid again (even if it is not renewal time). I have been told that our rates should get back in line when that happens.

Rob

mrsbowden · September 2003

Hello all,
I am new to the insurance game and I am not even sure what an RFP, would any mind sharing their definition or possibly showing me a copy of one? Thanks again! We should find out in the next few weeks about our increases, but of course we just keeping hearing its not good, if it gets much higher I don't even know if I will be able to keep insurance.

Hunter1 · September 2003

Request For Proposals: For health insurance, fairly straight forward: This is the coverage we provide, this is our experience for the last three years, these are the changes we will consider, or you can make suggestions. What is the cost? What services do you provide?

deniseE · September 2003

An RFP is a "Request for Proposal" sometimes you'll see an RFQ "Request for Quotation".

These are big long complicated documents that are either published publicly or submitted to 'pre-qualified' Vendors that would like to provide the service your company is seeking. After reading the RFP, the Vendor will put together a written proposal-usually it explains the methodology, cost analysis, and the expected outcome.

After your company receives the responses they are evaluated using pre-determined critera. You can then select your chosen Vendor.

The last one we did was a nine month process!!!

mjuliano · October 2003

Our 2003-2004 increase originally came in at 42.3%. After switching to a less rich plan, and then massaging that a little bit, we managed to get it down to 14.1%. Now we are in internal discussions as to which plan we are going to choose (out of 3 choices each with 2 prescription plan subchoices). It looks as though the most likely thing to happen will be to go with the middle choice with a higher prescription plan. If that does happen, our increase will be 16.1%. Also, we're looking at changing the company's portion of the health premium from 80% to 85%. This health insurance increase is coming at a bad time for our company, because we've recently taken on a very large new client, and our employees have been working their butts off for us. So, to reward them with a large health insurance increase seems like a slap in the face. I was actually pretty impressed with my boss (one of the owners) for taking into consideration the feelings of the employees. That has not necessarily been his attitude in the past.

marc · October 2003

Good for the boss. You can get some points with the ees and make sure to communicate with them about this. Get as much mileage as you can when the good things happen.

mrsbowden · October 2003

I am not holding my breath for a good number...is there such a thing as a good number when it comes to benefits increases :-S Our insurance brokers just came today to talk to the VP of Finance and open enrollment is soon...I am scared to see the results. :-S

Pork · October 2003

NO CHANGE IN EE PREMIUM OF $12.00 PER WEEK FOR SINGLE AND $41.50 PER WEEK FOR FAMILY. NO CHANGE IN THE $300.00 DEDUCTIBLE. we went from $200.00 last year to $300.00 and that helped hold down our overall cost for this year to N/C.

PORK

marc · October 2003

Are those the whole premiums or just the ee portions?

TN HR · October 2003

Pork,

Am I understanding your post correctly? These seem to be the ee's portion of the premium which is not indicative of your actual premiums.

In any event, I just negotiated (without a broker, I might add), a richer plan at a 20% savings over current premiums! Needless to say, our leadership was impressed!

Gene

njjel · October 2003

We just received our quote for renewal and it came in at 14.17% with Aetna.

Guess on Insurance Increase % for this year?

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