The threshold for next year has been set at 9.96% of an employee’s household income, up from 9.02% this year. The higher threshold will give employers more wiggle room when setting their workers’ health insurance premium cost-sharing level to avoid running afoul of the ACA. In addition, penalties for failing to provide coverage that meets the affordability threshold will rise 15% in 2026.

Under the ACA, “applicable large employers” — those with 50 or more full-time or full-time equivalent employees — are required to offer at least one health plan to their workers that is considered affordable based on a percentage of the lowest-paid employee’s household income.

If an employer’s plan fails this test, it will be deemed non-compliant with the law, resulting in penalties for the employer.

The new threshold will apply to all health plans whenever they incept in 2026. The affordability test applies only to the portion of premiums for self-only coverage, not family coverage. If an employer offers multiple health plans, the affordability test applies only to the lowest-cost option.

Calculating

Employers can rely on one or more safe harbors when determining if coverage is affordable:

• The employee’s most recent W-2 wages.
• The employee’s rate of pay, which is the hourly wage rate multiplied by 130 hours per month.
• The federal poverty level.

Penalties

Failure to provide affordable coverage can result in a penalty of $5,010 per affected employee in 2026, up 15% from $4,350 in 2025.

Another penalty, known as the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment, will also increase. This penalty applies to employers that fail to offer minimum essential coverage to at least 95% of full-time employees and their dependents, and when at least one full-time employee purchases exchange coverage and receives a premium tax credit.

This penalty, which applies to the total number of full-time employees (minus the first 30), will rise to $3,340 per employee in 2026, also up 15%.

The above penalties are both indexed to inflation.

The takeaway

As 2026 approaches, it is important to review health plan costs and premium-sharing to ensure your lowest-cost option complies with the ACA affordability requirement.

We can help assess affordability and confirm your plans meet the standard, so your firm stays compliant.

But how much data an employer can get — and what they can do with it — often depends on how their plan is funded. Employers who purchase group health insurance have the least amount of access to data, but if they work with their broker, they can sometimes gather important insight into what spending is driving their plan’s costs. Self-insured employers have the most access since they are the insurer and contract with administrators that handle their claims.

Fully insured vs. self-insured plans

Employers in fully insured plans can take steps to improve access to information, including:

• Requesting quarterly reports from their insurer or broker showing trends in claims by category (e.g., ER visits, specialty drugs).
• Asking for benchmarking data that compares their plan’s usage and cost patterns to similar companies.
• Negotiating for more transparency during renewal discussions. Some carriers offer access to online dashboards or population health tools that provide at least a general overview.

Self-insured employers and those using level-funding (a hybrid arrangement between fully insured and self-insured) have more access to granular data, which they own. They typically contract with a third-party administrator to handle the plan’s expenditure and collect important data that can shed light on cost drivers.

What you can do with data

With access to the right claims information, employers can:

• Identify high-cost claimants (scrubbed of identifying information) and track chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and musculoskeletal issues.
• Break down spending by demographics to tailor benefits to age, gender and family status.
• Monitor utilization patterns, such as unnecessary emergency room visits or low preventive care adherence.
• Use predictive modeling to forecast future claims and adjust the plan design accordingly.

Why this data matters

Access to claims and utilization data allows employers to align their plan benefits with employee needs while controlling unnecessary costs. Here’s how employers can benefit:

Initiating targeted communication: If employees overuse the ER or underuse preventive services, employers can launch education campaigns to steer behavior.

Plan optimization: Data can show whether adding a mental health benefit or removing a redundant offering would deliver better value.

Vendor performance: Employers can evaluate if programs like telehealth, disease management or wellness initiatives are delivering a return on investment.

Smarter renewals: Employers can use their data to negotiate more effectively with vendors or consider alternative funding arrangements.

Options for smaller employers

If you’re a smaller firm and don’t have access to deep analytics, you still have options:

Ask us to request insurer data and perform analysis on your behalf and adjust your plan design if necessary.

Use carrier-provided tools, if available, such as reporting dashboards, health risk assessments or plan modeling software.

Review claims data at least quarterly to identify cost trends, any under- or overutilization or cost anomalies.

To address spiraling costs, they will also focus on educating their staff about the importance of prevention and immunizations and guiding them to use specialized services that focus on managing chronic conditions, says the “2025 Trends to Watch” report by the Business Group on Health (BGH).

Companies will also demand more data from their health plans and other health care vendors and look to float requests for proposals if they aren’t seeing results.

Here’s a look at the main strategies employers told the BGH they were likely to pursue this year.

Pharmacy spend

According to the report, if employers want to control their overall health care costs, they will have to address growing pharmacy expenditures, which now account for more than 25% of their health care budgets.

That percentage is forecast to increase with the advent of GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, as well as specialized costly medications that can bust a health plan’s budget.

One-third of employers surveyed said they planned to revisit and reassess their pharmacy benefit manager relations, potentially holding new contract bids to get better pricing from current vendors or from new ones that offer competitive pricing and more transparency in their contracts.

GLP-1s loom large. Some employers are only willing to cover these drugs for diabetes and other Federal Drug Administration-approved indications like heart disease. Few will cover them for weight loss unless the patient is obese and with diabetes. Even then, they may require step therapy before prescribing them, which includes:

• Trying other established and proven anti-obesity medications.
• Engaging in lifestyle management programs.

Chronic conditions

Besides rising pharmaceutical costs, chronic and serious conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and autoimmune diseases are major contributors to high health care costs.

The report recommends a two-pronged approach to helping employees with chronic conditions: taking advantage of specialized integrated care networks, and wellness programs.

Specialty care — Many workers with chronic conditions are often not aware of the specialty care available to them through their health plan and as a result, don’t take advantage of these valuable services. The problem is that both employees and employers are often not aware of these specialty solutions that can improve staff health through care that provides valuable clinical support.

Employers surveyed by BGH said they would be focused on holding health plans, specialty insurance products and navigation partners accountable for helping their employees access this care.

“The first and most critical step is to address the lack of awareness of these new network-based solutions among employers as well as employees,” the report states.

Wellness plans — Chronic conditions are also prompting employers to revisit and evaluate their current wellness initiatives to ensure they are helping their employees manage these conditions and make lifestyle changes that can improve their illness.

Employers may start requiring vendors to agree to outcomes-based contracts that set expectations for results. “These agreements should require that vendors demonstrate improvement in health outcomes and deliver promised returns,” the report states.

The most popular wellness programs focus on helping employees lose weight and lead a healthier lifestyle through more exercise and healthy eating and habits.

To be successful, weight-management programs should use best practices and integrate treatments like anti-obesity medications and mental health services in their care models, the report says.

Getting control of plan costs

Employers will look to hold their health plans’ and benefits vendors’ feet to the fire for producing better health results at lower prices.

The key to this is employers having access to data from their health plans and other vendors that provides insights into cost and outcomes. This will be an evolving trend and some plans will be better than others in providing the desired information.

“Transparency of cost, quality and outcomes data is critical to both employer and employee decision-making; vendors will need to show how they enable access to this information in 2025,” BGH says in its report.

Additionally, employers that have sway with their insurers will push their health plans to get control on unit prices they pay for services, and press them to accept value-based contracts that reward for positive outcomes and quality of care.

Businesses that can afford it may contract directly with centers of excellence that provide very high quality or low-cost care, oftentimes for a particular service.

The takeaway

We know that the high cost of health care is weighing heavily and we are here to help you keep your health plan costs under control. It requires an integrated approach of pushing wellness and chronic condition management among your staff and evaluating your current vendors’ results.

The threshold for next year has been set at 9.02% of an employee’s household income, up from 8.39% this year. The higher threshold will give employers a little more wiggle room when setting their workers’ premium cost-sharing level for their lowest-cost plans in 2025, to avoid running afoul of the ACA.

Under the ACA, “applicable large employers” — that is, those with 50 or more full-time or full-time equivalent employees (FTEs)— are required to offer at least one health plan to their workers that is considered “affordable” based on a percentage of the lowest-paid employee’s household income.

If an employer’s plan fails this test, it will be deemed as non-compliant with the law, resulting in hefty penalties for the employer.

The new threshold will apply to all health plans whenever they incept in 2025. The affordability test applies only to the portion of premiums for self-only coverage, and not for family coverage.

Also, if an employer offers multiple health plans, the affordability test applies only to the lowest-cost option that provides also minimum value (another ACA plan metric).

Calculating

Employers can rely on one or more safe harbors when determining if coverage is affordable:

• The employee’s most recent W-2 wages, as reported in Box 1.
• The employee’s rate of pay, which is the hourly wage rate multiplied by 130 hours per month (at the start of 2022).
• The federal poverty level.

Employers with a large low-wage workforce might decide to utilize the federal poverty level ($15,060 for 2024) safe harbor to automatically meet the ACA affordability standard, which requires offering a medical plan option in 2025 that costs your full-time employees no more than $113.20 per month.

If an employee’s coverage is not affordable under at least one of the safe harbors and at least one FTE receives a premium tax credit for coverage they purchase on an ACA exchange, the employer may have to pay a penalty, known as the “employer shared responsibility payment.”

The shared responsibility payment for 2025 will be $4,350 per employee that receives a premium subsidy on an exchange, down from $4,460 this year.

The takeaway

As 2025 nears, you should review your health plan costs and premium-sharing to ensure that your lowest-cost plan complies with the affordability requirement.

We can help you assess affordability to ensure you don’t run afoul of the law. It will be particularly crucial in 2025, considering the significant change in the threshold.

The poll of 26 health benefits decision-makers at large firms, carried out by The Commonwealth Fund and the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI), found that despite rising premium and health care costs, they felt obligated to offer health insurance instead of shunting employees to exchanges.

Employers since 2019 have been allowed to fund individual coverage health reimbursement accounts (ICHRAs) with pre-tax dollars for their employees to satisfy the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate. Workers are required to use their ICHRA funds to purchase a plan on healthcare.gov or a state-run health insurance exchange.

However, large employers feel they can do a better job at providing their workers with coverage, according to the report.

“Most interviewees expressed a strong skepticism that their firms would drop health benefits or direct their workers toward marketplace exchanges,” said Jake Spiegel, research associate of health and wealth benefits research at EBRI. “Broadly, companies continue to view their health benefits as a recruitment and retention tool and cutting these benefits would hamper their efforts to cultivate a strong workforce.”

The health benefits decision-makers at large firms told researchers that jettisoning their group health insurance benefits would make it more difficult to attract and retain talent. They said there were other benefits to providing group health coverage to their workers, including:

• They felt they could offer their workers a better deal than what was available to them on public exchanges. “We liked to have control. We can do a better job with design than the exchanges.” — Health care company benefits executive
• They felt they simplified health insurance for their employees, who would possibly feel overwhelmed by all the choices on public exchanges. “We don’t want [workers] out shopping on their own, [exchange plans] aren’t easy to understand.” — Benefits executive at a financial services company
• They viewed their companies as paternalist, meaning they have a responsibility to also help their workers make better health insurance decisions. “It would make workers feel like you were cutting and running.” — Benefits executive at a manufacturing firm
• They didn’t want to be the first to jump out and completely disrupt their group health benefits offerings. “A big part was trepidation. Nobody wanted to be first.” — Benefits executive at an insurance company

Some of the interviewees said that funding ICHRAs and sending their workers to ACA exchanges would rob the company of the opportunity to help workers manage expensive health conditions.

For example, under IRS rules, employers may cover some drugs and services on a pre-deductible basis for workers who are enrolled in high-deductible health plans with attached health savings accounts.

But likely the biggest reason for not taking the ICHRA leap is the effect on employee satisfaction. Executives told the researchers that their workers expect them to provide a “suitable menu of health benefits options” and that they trust that their employer has shopped around for the best deal that doesn’t reduce quality.

Additionally, they felt that their workers would not be happy about being shunted to an exchange and having to take it on themselves to sift through the myriad of plans available to them at different cost and benefit structures.

“[Employees] don’t really take the time or energy to really understand, and they don’t want to. They trust us to make the decision for them,” one benefits executive told the researchers.

The takeaway

While this survey was only of large employers, market indications are that most mid-sized and smaller firms have also been sticking to providing their employees with health insurance coverage.

Offering a comprehensive group health plan is still the best way to retain and attract talent while satisfying the employer mandate under the ACA. Even for employers not subject to the mandate, to be competitive in the job market, offering health insurance is still a priority.

Finally, treading into ICHRA territory requires foresight and planning and companies have to prepare for possible blowback if the employees don’t like the exchange experience or can’t get the same coverage at the same out-of-pocket cost to them as they did before.

Doing it incorrectly, such as not funding the accounts with enough money, could open your organization up to fines.

Mid-year is the time that health insurers start setting their pricing for the upcoming year, and they are currently locked in what one trade publication calls “bloody” contract negotiations with doctors and medical networks to secure the highest prices they can for their services.

Hospitals and medical services facilities such as labs and imaging centers, like other employers, have to contend with the volatile job market and the spiking cost of supplies and machinery.

But the effects on health plans are still unclear as insurers can reduce the impact of higher costs by paring down networks, scaling back some benefits. This may be the case for smaller insurers that have less clout than their larger counterparts, but experts say that inflation will have a greater effect on rates than in recent years.

Add to the equation recent interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, which will increase health systems’ borrowing costs and even impede funding for new capital projects.

When they negotiate network rates with insurers, providers take into account all of their own costs when tabulating their offers.

Using spiking inflation as leverage

The trade publication Modern Healthcare noted in a recent report that escalating costs have already influenced contract negotiations between medical providers and insurers.

According to Modern Healthcare, providers that are currently in negotiations “can use inflation as leverage, given that physician groups’ and hospitals’ daily operations are tied to the rising cost of gas, food and other goods.”

It predicts also that providers will argue that more people will forgo or delay care as inflation eats into their expendable income, which in turn will increase the cost of care in the long run as those untreated issues develop into serious ailments.

Medical providers and insurers usually negotiate new contracts every three years, so those hospitals and doctors that renegotiated last year or in 2020 will have to absorb their higher costs. Inflation is already built into these contracts, which didn’t anticipate the higher levels we’ve witnessed in 2021 and 2022.

That leaves them in a bind since insurers won’t be willing to renegotiate contracts that include provisions offsetting higher-than-expected inflation.

It’s due to these pre-negotiated contracts that employers didn’t see a surge in their premiums coming into 2022. But that may change as new contracts come into effect.

While the industry was not terribly affected by inflation in 2021, recent data suggests it’s starting to hit health care providers.

Hospitals’ average labor expense per adjusted discharge in March 2022 rose 15% from the same month in 2021 and 32% from 2020, according to the Kaufman Hall “National Hospital Flash Report.”

Meanwhile, providers are paying more for supplies and equipment, as well. Non-labor expense per adjusted discharge rose nearly 26% compared with February 2020.

How will my premiums be affected?

The big question of how much of these increased costs hospitals and other providers will be able to pass along to health insurers and patients remains. For certain, inflationary pressures will be a topic of discussion during contract negotiations for 2023.

While rates for group health plans are still being set, many carriers have already filed 2023 rates for plans they sell on Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Average rate hike filings for 2023 have been hovering around 7.5% in mid-2022.

The expected rate increases are on par with much of the last few years when insurance premium inflation has hovered between 3% and 4%. Despite the expected increase, employers do not plan to cut back on benefits for their employees, according to the Mercer “National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans 2020.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has injected a large dose of uncertainty into the marketplace. Overall, health care expenditures have plummeted since the pandemic started, which at first seems counterintuitive. But many hospitals postponed elective and non-emergency surgeries and procedures, while fewer individuals were seeking care either out of fear of going in for it or because they could not get appointments.

For example, the first three months after the pandemic had gotten a foothold in the U.S., according to the Willis Towers Watson “2020 Health Care Financial Benchmarks Survey,” monthly paid claims per employee dropped as follows:

• April: 21%
• May: 29%
• June: 14%

“So far, the additional medical costs associated with the testing and treatment of COVID-19 have been more than offset by significant reductions in utilization across many service categories,” the insurance industry research firm recently wrote in its report.

Additionally, the Mercer report predicts that a significant portion of the deferred care will never be realized. And, for those people who have deferred care, when they eventually decide to come for the care will also depend on the course of the pandemic, hospital capacity and whether people feel safe to go in for the treatment.

“Different assumptions about cost for COVID-related care, including a possible vaccine, and whether people will continue to avoid care or catch up on delayed care, are driving wide variations in cost projections for next year,” Tracy Watts, a senior consultant with Mercer, said.

Employer reactions

Despite the expected cost increases, Mercer found that few employers plan to make any changes to their benefits this year, as they seek to keep things stable for their staff. The survey found that:

• 57% will make no changes at all to reduce cost in their 2021 medical plans (up from 47% in the prior year’s survey).
• 18% will take cost-saving measures that shift more health care expenses to their employees, including raising deductibles and copays.

Employers are also adding benefits, some of them prompted by the pandemic and shifts in how health care is accessed. For example:

• 27% are adding or improving their telemedicine services (telemedicine for episodic care, artificial-intelligence-based symptoms triage, ‘text a doctor’ apps, and virtual office visits with a patient’s own primary care doctor).
• 22% are adding or improving their voluntary benefits (critical illness insurance or a hospital indemnity plan).20% are boosting their mental health services coverage.
• 12% are offering targeted health services, like for diabetes and other chronic conditions.
• 9% are offering more support for complex cases.
• 4% are offering services to limit surprise billing.

The takeaway

Mercer noted the following trends going into 2021:

Keeping the status quo – A majority of employers surveyed are avoiding making any changes to their health plans, including increasing employee cost-sharing, even if premiums increase. Instead, they are focused on providing a stable source of health insurance for their staff and supporting their workers as they deal with stress and effects of the pandemic.

Digital migration – More employers are offering digital health resources like telemedicine, telehealth apps, and virtual office visits, for their convenience, safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

Costs uncertain – Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, cost projections are uncertain at best. The avoidance of medical care could translate into a higher utilization in 2021 and hospitals may start charging more to recoup lost revenues from 2020. Or people may have forgone a lot of that care forever. It’s too early to tell.

Here are some of the main changes that you should consider ahead of the new year:

Out-of-pocket limits – The out-of-pocket limit amounts for 2021 are:

• $8,550 for self-only coverage.
• $17,100 for family coverage.

For HSA-compatible high-deductible health plans, the out-of-pocket limits for HDHPs with attached health savings accounts for 2021 are:

• $$7,000 for self-only coverage
• $14,000 for family coverage.

New preventative care recommendations

ACA-compliant health plans are required to cover preventative care services with no out-of-pocket costs, and new ones that become effective in 2020 and 2021 include:

• Perinatal depression prevention.
• HIV prevention pill for healthy people at risk.
• Updated recommendation for prevention of BRCA 1 and 2-related cancer.
• Updated recommendation for breast cancer: medication use to reduce risk.
• Updated recommendation for hepatitis screening.
• Updated recommendation for screening for unhealthy drug use in adults.

Flexible spending accounts

This year, the IRS issued a notice that increased the maximum allowable amount of unused funds at year end in FSAs that can be carried over to the next year.

The notice increases the maximum $500 carryover amount for 2020 or later years to an amount equal to 20% of the maximum health FSA salary reduction contribution for that plan year. That means the health FSA maximum carryover from a plan year starting in calendar year 2020 to a new plan year starting in calendar year 2021 is $550.

Additionally, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) allows employers to remove restrictions that funds in FSAs, health reimbursement accounts and HSAs cannot be used for over-the-counter medications.  This is not a requirement that employers relax this rule for their FSA plans, but it allows them to choose to do so.

Summary of benefits and coverage

There are new Summary of Benefits and Coverage (SBC) materials and supporting documents that must be used for all plans that incept on or after Jan. 1, 2021.

Please remember that any changes to benefits in your group plan must be reflected in the SBC plan document and summary plan description.

The takeaway

2021 is fast approaching and with all the chaos of 2020, it would be wise to get a head start on understanding changes in store for the plans you offer. This would benefit both you and your employees.

The study, by eHealth Inc., also found that many insurers have increased utilization of telemedicine and that many of them are extending benefits related to coronavirus testing and treatment.

Here are the main points of the study:

Waiving COVID-19 testing costs ― 97% of insurer respondents say they are waiving out-of-pocket costs for coronavirus testing.

Waiving treatment costs ― 58% of the insurers say they’re waiving out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment. Among insurers who say they have done this, 80% say they have waived all out-of-pocket costs, while 20% say they have waived only a portion of members’ out-of-pocket expenses.

Premium assistance ― 60% of carriers are letting enrollees financially affected by the coronavirus defer premium payments.

Few anticipate raising 2021 premiums due to coronavirus – 83% say they do not anticipate raising rates for 2021 in response to the crisis, while 17% anticipate raising rates no more than 5%. Eighty-seven percent of respondents offering Affordable Care Act plans say it is unlikely they will leave the ACA market due to the coronavirus.

More telemedicine services ― 96% of insurers say they are seeing increased demand for telemedicine services that include virtual doctor visits. Eighty-five percent think the crisis will drive increased demand for telemedicine benefits into the future.

Elective or non-emergency services spike – 80% of insurers expect a spike in these claims after the crisis is over. Seventy-three percent of those who anticipate this believe it will come within the next six to 12 months.

More use of mental health benefits – 33% of insurers surveyed say they have seen an increase in utilization of mental health benefits by members since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

Rate hikes, but more involvement

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has predicted that the country could spend $4 trillion on all forms of health care this year, which is 5.2% higher than in 2019.

Willis Towers Watson’s “COVID-19 Benefits Survey” estimates that due to COVID-19 testing and treatment, health insurance premiums could increase as much as 7% on top of the 5% increase employers previously projected for 2021.

At the same time, the survey found that despite facing unprecedented challenges and rapidly shifting business priorities due to COVID-19, many organizations are taking steps to protect the health and wellbeing of their employees. In particular, it found that:

• Employers are focusing on promoting virtual medical care by raising awareness and reducing point-of-care costs.
• Over 80% of employers have or are planning to offer expand access to virtual mental health services.
• About two in five employers are planning to revise their 2021 health care strategy.
• Nearly two-thirds of companies will prioritize access to mental health solutions in their 2021 health care program.
• Employers are looking to communicate more on existing benefits.
• Employers plan to enhance mental health services and stress management.
• Companies are addressing benefits for employees on leave and furlough.

Social distancing and stay-at-home orders have put the hurt on hundreds of thousands of businesses across the country, which has forced them to reduce employees’ hours, furlough them or lay them off.

Besides all those employees seeing their pay drastically curtailed or disappear altogether, it also affects their employee benefits, with health coverage topping the list.

With so many people concerned they may lose coverage and business owners equally worried about their employees, some insurers are stepping up by extending coverage for affected group plan participants.

The survey by insurance research organization LIMRA found that 42% of group health plans are automatically continuing coverage for all employees for a specified period of time, and another 22% are extending eligibility on a case-by-case basis to employees whose status has changed.

About 35% of insurance companies have adjusted reinstatement rules to make it easier for those affected by COVID-19 to regain coverage, and a similar number are extending the timeframe in which employees may elect to pay or continue coverage if separated from their employer.

Nearly all carriers in the survey said they are offering premium grace periods of 60 days on average to workers unable to pay their premiums due to COVID-19, while others plan to reassess or extend those timelines if needed.

These moves are important, considering that about 70% of all workers in the U.S. receive health coverage from their jobs, according to LIMRA.

The typical scenario

When an employee is laid off or furloughed, their hours are essentially reduced to zero, which can result in a loss of eligibility to participate in their employer’s group health plan.

Group health insurers will have written documents that outline the rules for particular plans. These rules include a definition of eligible employees, including how long an employee can be absent from work before the employee will lose eligibility for insurance coverage.

Health plan documents do not usually differentiate between an employee who is terminated and one who is laid off and one who is furloughed.

To be eligible under the typical plan’s rules, an employee must work a minimum number of hours per week (usually at least 30). If an employee is under protected leave – such as Family Medical Leave Act protection – benefits continue during leave.

In other words, an employee who is not meeting the hours requirement or is not actively at work (work from home is considered actively at work) based on being terminated, furloughed  or laid off – even temporarily – will generally have their benefits terminated. They should then receive an offer of COBRA or state continuation, unless state law does not require it due to an employer’s size.

However, if an employee continues to remain eligible for the business’s group health plan during an unpaid absence, the employer will need to determine how to handle their insurance premium payments.

The takeaway

If you are concerned about benefits continuation for laid-off, furloughed or terminated employees, you can call us to see if your health plan has made any special arrangements during the COVID-19 outbreak.

We can check to see if there is any way to continue coverage for any affected employees, and for how long and at what cost to you.