Private Insurance

Employer sponsored health insurance

Workers Now Pay $7,471 on Average Annually for Family Health Coverage, Up 9% or $621 from 2025

Workers are paying on average $7,471 annually toward the premiums for employer-sponsored family health benefits in 2026, which is up 9%, or $621, from 2025. Including the employers’ share, total annual premiums for family coverage now average $28,303, up 5% from 2025. This benchmark annual survey also captures trends in deductibles, offer rates, and employer practices, and employers' experiences with GLP-1 and IVF coverage and understanding costs and utilization.

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What Are the Recent Trends in Employer-Based Health Coverage?

Employer-sponsored health insurance is the largest source of health coverage for people under 65. This analysis examines who among people under 65 have employer coverage and which workers are offered and eligible for coverage at their jobs, using the Annual Economic and Social (March) Supplements of the Current Population Survey.

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  • Outpatient Visits Are Growing More Complex: Implications for Health Costs

    Issue Brief

    This analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker uses claims data from private, large employer-based plan to examine trends in complexity coding across outpatient practice settings from 2004 to 2021. It finds a trend toward higher complexity codes that contributes to higher outpatient spending.

  • Medicare Advantage Insurers Report Much Higher Gross Margins Per Enrollee Than Insurers in Other Markets

    News Release

    A new analysis of health insurers’ 2021 financial data shows that insurers continue to report much higher gross margins per enrollee in the Medicare Advantage market than in other health insurance markets. The analysis examines insurers’ financial data in the Medicare Advantage, Medicaid managed care, individual (non-group), and fully insured group (employer) markets. In 2021, Medicare Advantage insurers reported gross margins averaging $1,730 per enrollee, at least double the margins reported by insurers in the…

  • Preventive Services Use Among People with Private Insurance Coverage

    Issue Brief

    This analysis of claims data estimates that six in ten people with private health insurance - or about 100 million people - used at least one preventive service covered without any out-of-pocket costs through a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in a typical year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (2018). The provision that requires most private health plans to cover many preventive services without any cost-sharing for their enrollees is being challenged in…

  • How Have Costs Associated With Obesity Changed Over Time?

    Issue Brief

    This analysis finds that, among people with large employer health plans, those with an obesity diagnosis on average have higher total and out-of-pocket spending than those without an obesity diagnosis. It also examines the cost of common surgical and pharmacological treatments for obesity. 

  • How Do Facility Fees Contribute To Rising Emergency Department Costs?

    Issue Brief

    With the high costs of emergency department visits of significant importance to consumers and policymakers, this analysis examines claims data from privately insured individuals with large employer health plans, to examine the role that facility fees play in rising cost of emergency care.

  • Premiums and Worker Contributions Among Workers Covered by Employer-Sponsored Coverage, 1999-2026

    Interactive

    Since 1999, the Employer Health Benefits Survey has documented trends in employer-sponsored health insurance. Every year, private and non-federal public employers with 10 or more employees complete the survey. Among other topics, the survey asks firms for the premium (or full per-person cost) of their health coverage, as well as worker contributions (amount of the premium that workers pay). The graphing tool below looks at changes in premiums and worker contributions over time for covered…

  • How Much is Health Spending Expected to Grow?

    Feature

    This chart collection explores how much health spending is expected to grow in the coming years, with a look at growth in prescription drug spending, out-of-pocket spending, and related trends.