Insurance Renewal Rates

Nicole

Our group health insurance is up for renewal in April. Has anyone recently received renewal rates and if so what kind of increase did you have?

I know it's kind of like asking how long a piece of string is since we all have different plans with different provisions - I'm just trying to get an overall, real life idea of what to expect which in turn will be an indication of how many valium I'll need to take before opening the renewal package! :-S

Betty I_O

We received renewal info (fully insured plans) for one of our affiliated organization. It was 16% for one plan (HMO), and 14% for the other (PPO). We lucked out on dental, though--that was only 8%! We have heard that some companies in this area have had as much as a 24% increase in the health insurance; dental has been running about 10%.

JM in ATL

We are on a POS in 5 states.

GA - 9% increase
OH - 3% increase
NY - 20% increase
PA - 0% increase
CA - 5% increase

overall we experienced an average of 8.5%.

I was extremely please with that and expected a whole lot more.

It is so hard to predict what kind of increase you can expect. The only way to have a good indication would be to ask your employees if they used their insurance and what for... and we all KNOW that we CAN'T do that so.... we sit and wait.

Good luck and pray for a low single digit #!

Nicole

Happy to report that the renewal paperwork came in with a 5% across the board increase on the HMO and PPO plans.

Phew! What a relief!

Thank you for sharing your numbers.

Nicole

Even better news! My agent came back with a revised increase of 3% with no changes in coverage... AND if we add a voluntary dental plan we will incur no increase at all this year!

Life is good!

Judith

how did you get such low renewal rates? I am looking at a possible 30% increase!!

Human Resources Manager

We are a self insured plan and utilize a TPA as well as a reinsurer. We just had our first renewal meeting with our broker, and the proposed increases on our total fixed cost range from 69.5% to 31.2%. We could lower that if we are willing to increase our specific from the $50,000 it's at now.

We were actually plesantly surprised, we have experinced some large claims this past year, at least two of which are ongoing, so we expected a pretty heft increase.

Dutch2

We too are a partially self funded plan with a reinsurer. We ended the year with a couple of large on going claims and our reinsurer placed a laser or rider on just these two individuals. Basically this means the company is responsible for a much larger poriton of the cost for these two before the reinsurer would start paying. Our specific is set at $30k. Our program was in the 20% - 25% increase range and we passed on half of the increase to our ee's. They do not seem to complain as much as usual as they now understnad that it is happening to everyone and that overall we have a very sweet deal, compared to other local companies. This is our fourth year on the partially self funded plan and we still believe that we made the right decision leaving a full funded plan. The biggest catch is you can't be sure what your health insurance will cost and for those business on a set budget, such as public schools, this would drive them nuts.
Good luck,
Dutch2

mushroomHR

Our renewal is April 1 as well. We have been told our increase will be around 15%. We may do some tweaking with our plan to possibly raise the deductibles and copays. I'll let you all know what our percentage is when the final figures are in.

System

We asked this question on the HRhero.com Monthly Survey for January, which had 2,312 respondents:

__________________________________________
How did your health insurance costs change in the past year?

Rose 1-9% -- 25%
Rose 10-20% -- 49%
Rose more than 20% -- 14%
Stayed about the same -- 6%
Decreased -- 2%
__________________________________________

If you subscribe to our monthly Employment Law Letter in your state, you can see the complete survey results in the Subscribers Area of this website:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/lc/[/url]

You also can manipulate the data, like seeing the results from companies the same size as you.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

mushroomHR

We just got our preliminary quote for an increase of 37%! Needless to say we'll be looking at changing our plan or going with another carrier.

Rockie

I feel your pain Mushroom! We were handed a 42% increase, but battled it down to 31%. We will be looking at other options for this year.

HRGuyMS

Our renewal date is 1 April and our rates increased average 38%. We're definitely shopping.

amwkim

Our renewal was 12/1/03. We were quoted a 41% increase in medical alone!!! We shopped around and got a similar plan for 11% over what we were paying.

For dental, we switched to a self-funded plan. So far it has been painless and cost-effective. But then again, it is only March!

mushroomHR

After our initial increase shock, we tweaked our plan to significantly raise our deductibles and copays. We ended up with a 7% increase and some very unhappy employees. Unfortunately we couldn't absorb the increase the health care provider wanted. I'm dreading renewal in 2005 already.

Beave

Our health insurance rates rose an average of 15% effective January 1, 2004.

AnneLa

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-05-04 AT 12:36PM (CST)[/font][br][br]5% in RI - boy am I smiling! I'm sure that next year wew ill expereince a much higher premium.

mcmel

We were increasing premiums roughly 13% every six months for the last year and a half. As of March 1st we've changed plans, which was a nightmare, but it should be well worth it. Premiums are now locked for a year, whew!

MJP

Our renewal rates are effective March 15, 2004. In December, our agent said that the increase would be around 30%. She negotiated down to 17%. Meanwhile, we went shopping and found another company willing to insure us at a lower rate. Guess what, our current insurance carrier lower their rates again and we ended up with a decrease in premiums. It pays to shop.

cebudragonlady

HMO went from a flat rate to an age-based system.
Younger workers actually got decreases (!) in their premiums, while older workers over 50 - like me, got hit with 25% increases .

Chari

SMace

I'm surprised that you can do that. Would that not be considered age discrimination?

cebudragonlady

Our HMO set the new rates. Their theory must be that older wokers are sicker and cost more to treat - never mind that I am healthy .

Chari

SMace

Chari,
I still cannot believe they can do that. The logic is flawed. Are they charging the 30 year old with the co-morbidities of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol more? No, but they are charging the 50 year old that exercises 3 times a week and has no health conditions more. It's ludicrous. Here is some information if you want to find out if this is legal. You should contact either the nearest area office of the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor listed in the telephone directory or the Division of Technical Assistance and Inquires of the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20210.

cebudragonlady

Mace~
Thanks, I will write up a letter tomorrow morning and send it out to the Washington DC address you indicated. Yes, it is illogical . My spouse, who is nine years younger than me - would get a lower rate although he has lots of ailments, - and I being healthy , only get to suffer from higher premiums for myself !

Chari

E Wart

Ours is a self funded plan and renews in April as well. Our Broker's predition is no increase in claims (which I personally don't think is possible but didn't have as many large claims this year as we have had in the past.) We increased our stop loss from $65,000 to $70,000 and are going with a Aggregating specific (corridor) and are increasing our out of pocket maximums slightly. With this done, we are actually coming out with predition of a decrease in costs so are able to keep employee's premium (which is 25% of the projected costs) the same. I am holding my breath that the broker is correct.

E Wart

dharzer

We are a manufacturing company in Maryland. We had a PPN program and were hit with a 72% increase-the insurance company said they were no longer going to offer this plan to groups under 50. Our broker stated we need to look at HMO plans as our group was getting older (average age 41) and we will be priced out of the PPO market in the future. He came back with quotes from the same insurer with 15-25% increases. Needless to say, I had another broker also working on quotes with me. After much discussion (headaches, etc.), we have decided to go with a partially self funded plan with basically the same level of coverage. This came in at a 7% decrease overall. We will not have to increase the employee contribution (this went up 27% last year).

Sandy

We are a company with about 50 total employees. In 2002 we received a 21% increase in our Medical Insurance, in 2003 we receive a 25% increase. We decided to switch plans to another carrier in 2003 which gave us a 19% increase.

Our renewal is also April 1 and our renewal rate came in at 18.7%. With some plan design changes we were able to reduce it to a 14% increase. Our current carrier is also an age banded plan as was mentioned in a previous reply.