Insurers expect cost of health care claims to rise 10.5%

INDIANAPOLIS -- Costs for employer-provided health plans are expected to rise more than 10% within the next 12 months, a jump workers may feel in their paychecks or through changes to their insurance coverage.

An aging population, rising costs and growing patient demand for services are among the reasons for the higher costs cited in an Aon Consulting report released Tuesday.

The expected increase doesn't necessarily mean the premiums employees pay will grow at the same clip. Actual increases for each insurer or plan can vary by such factors as plan design, geography or the general health of the people covered.

Aon Consulting, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Aon, surveyed about 60 health insurers around the country earlier this year. The study found that, on average, insurers expect to pay out 10.5% more in claims costs in the next year — slightly less than the 10.6% increase forecast last year.

Some employers might swallow the higher costs because workers this year already have had to contend with salary freezes, reductions and layoffs, said Tom Lerche, Aon Consulting's health care practice leader.

"There's one school of thought that says, 'Our employees have borne enough, let's minimize or not pass any costs along to the employee,"' he said.

However, others may ask workers to pay more through increased deductibles or co-payments. They could make changes to the plans they offer, such as eliminating a traditional plan and offering a consumer-directed, high-deductible plan instead.

Lerche said most employers will consider it "an absolute business imperative" to lower any cost increases to mid- to low-single digit percentages.

Companies also could deal with rising health care costs by limiting pay increases, said Joseph Antos, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He was not involved with the Aon study.

"Employer contributions are not gifts, they're part of total compensation," he said. "And if you end up having a more expensive health benefit that your employer pays most of, that means that your wages aren't going to up as fast as they would have."