Your whole renewal, in plain language — so you can see clearly what happened and walk into the conversation with confidence.
Health is up 24.8%. Every other benefit — life, disability, dental, and the rest — held exactly flat.
Eight benefits unchanged. One moved.
The entire increase is your health plan.
The extra $27,842 a year is your health increase, to the dollar. Pooled benefits and dental didn't move. So this isn't a plan-wide problem to solve — it's one number to make a decision about.
The carrier's math pointed to 36%. They held it to 24.8% — this year.
Your health claims came in at 96% of premium against a 79% target, so the carrier's full indicated increase was about 36%. They capped it at 24.8% for now, which means part of the pressure is carried forward. If claims stay where they are, expect more next year.
This is your people using the plan — not the carrier reaching deeper.
Almost every premium dollar flowed back to your employees as care. About half is paramedical — massage ~$17,000, with physio and chiro close behind — and another ~27% is everyday prescriptions spread across many people, not one catastrophic claim. For a workforce on its feet, much of that is real musculoskeletal care being used: a plan doing its job, not a number being inflated. It also shows your lever — paramedical like massage is the discretionary end, genuinely valued but used partly because it's there, so it's the slice you can shape with the least pain, if you choose to.
Massage leads at ~$17,000, physio and chiro close behind. Drugs are many small claims — not one large one.
Take the 24.8% health increase as delivered. Everything else is already flat.
+$27,842 / year, as quoted.
Simplest, no disruption — but you absorb the full increase, change nothing underneath it, and the capped 36% means more pressure likely follows.
the increase is tolerable and continuity matters more than savings this year.
Stay with your current carrier, but adjust health to target the drivers — paramedical limits, drug-plan management.
Lowers the increase now and softens next year's; the amount depends on the changes.
You trim coverage employees will notice — capping massage and similar is visible — in exchange for a smaller increase.
you want to bend the cost curve and can make modest, targeted reductions.
Ask the carrier to sharpen the renewal — usually a conversation your advisor leads — and if the answer isn't enough, take the plan to market and compare.
Sometimes points off the increase; sometimes confirmation the number is fair. You don't know until you ask.
Room may be thin here — the quoted increase already sits below what claims indicated, and what's conceded now can resurface next year. A full re-bid adds effort and disruption (new carrier, new cards and providers), and a low first-year quote can climb later.
you'd rather test the number than take it on faith — and you're ready to hear that it might already be fair.
Eight of your nine benefits didn't move, and the one that did is a single, manageable driver. If the increase is within budget, accepting it and moving on is a defensible choice — not a failure to act. We'd rather say that plainly than imply you have to do something.
This reads your renewal, not your business. It can't see your budget headroom, how much your people value the coverage that's driving the cost, or what your advisor knows about your carrier and your alternatives. That context belongs in the decision — and it's exactly where a good advisor earns their keep.
It comes down to what you weigh most — budget, employee experience, or avoiding disruption — and what the market would actually offer, which takes a few real quotes to find out. That's a short conversation, not another twenty-page report.