Average Annual Health Insurance Costs in the US

How much does it cost U.S. employers to provide health insurance to their employees?

As it happens, the answer depends on what kind of health insurance that employers make available to their employees, the number of people who are covered by the employee's insurance and also the size of the company for which they work.

Our first two charts revealing how much the average annual premiums are by health insurance plan type presents how much it costs both employees and employers for covered Single workers, at both small companies (those between 3 and 199 workers):

and large companies (those with more than 200 workers):

The next two charts present similar data for workers whose families are also covered by the various employer-provided health insurance plan types, first for those working at small companies (data is for a family of four):

and now for those working for companies with more than 200 employees:

The tables we're presenting below are drawn from the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2006 Annual Survey of Employer Health Benefits, provide the average annual costs according to these factors and also break down how much of the total cost is paid by the employer and how much is paid by the employee. We've used our dynamic table sorting technology in creating the tables, which allows you to rank the date in the tables by clicking the appropriate column heading so you can find which types of plans are the most or least costly. The first table provides data for covered single workers:

2006 Average Annual Premiums for Covered Single Workers by Plan Type

Plan Type	Firm Size (Number of Workers)	Total Annual Cost [$USD]	Employer Annual Contribution [$USD]	Employer's Percentage of Total Cost	Employee Annual Contribution [$USD]	Employee's Percentage of Total Cost
Conventional	Small (3-199)	4,222	4,222	100.0%	0	0.0%
Conventional	Large (200+)	4,020	4,020	100.0%	0	0.0%
HMO	Small (3-199)	3,899	3,427	87.9%	472	12.1%
HMO	Large (200+)	4,114	3,472	84.4%	642	15.6%
PPO	Small (3-199)	4,505	4,014	89.1%	491	10.9%
PPO	Large (200+)	4,326	3,618	83.6%	708	16.4%
POS	Small (3-199)	4,109	3,478	84.6%	631	15.4%
POS	Large (200+)	4,238	3,599	84.9%	639	14.8%
HDHP/SO	Small (3-199)	3,206	2,732	85.2%	474	14.8%
HDHP/SO	Large (200+)	3,589	2,932	81.7%	657	18.3%

The next table provides data for covered workers with families consisting of four members. Note that for many of the plans, while the employer's portion is less than four times their cost for a single worker, the employee's portion of the total premium cost for each type of plan is approximately four times that of a single worker, or even more:

2006 Average Annual Premiums for Covered Workers with Families by Plan Type

Plan Type	Firm Size (Number of Workers)	Total Annual Cost [$USD]	Employer Annual Contribution [$USD]	Employer's Percentage of Total Cost	Employee Annual Contribution [$USD]	Employee's Percentage of Total Cost
Conventional	Small (3-199)	10,800	10,800	100.0%	0	0.0%
Conventional	Large (200+)	10,829	10,829	100.0%	0	0.0%
HMO	Small (3-199)	11,137	6,945	62.4%	4,192	37.6%
HMO	Large (200+)	11,339	8,741	77.1%	2,598	22.9%
PPO	Small (3-199)	11,793	8,296	70.3%	3,497	29.7%
PPO	Large (200+)	11,752	9,124	77.6%	2,628	22.4%
POS	Small (3-199)	10,706	7,187	67.1%	3,519	32.9%
POS	Large (200+)	11,573	8,688	75.1%	2,885	24.9%
HDHP/SO	Small (3-199)	8,896	6,830	76.8%	2,006	23.2%
HDHP/SO	Large (200+)	10,013	7,604	75.9%	2,409	24.1%

Descriptions of the various types of health insurance plans are available through our post showing which types of plans were the most commonly used in the United States in 2006!

Where are we going with all this? Not necessarily where you might think, although we're aiming to get there next week!

Update (31 January 2008): Added charts showing the data in the tables!