Mercer Marsh Benefits global insurer report
The latest report from Mercer Marsh Benefits identifies health trends in 2023 and will help insurers navigate cost trends and encourages innovative solutions in employer-provided healthcare solutions
The report states: “Although Covid-19 continues to influence employer-provided health plans, both directly and indirectly, medical trend across the globe has largely stabilized to approximate pre-pandemic rates. Meanwhile, market innovation continues to offer new opportunities for employers to consider as benefits plans are modernised.”
Mercer Marsh Benefits (MMB) surveyed 226 insurers across 56 countries to explore the key trends shaping employer-provided health benefits to produce the Health Trends 2023 report.
Trends influencing employer-provided healthcare
Trend one: Per-person medical cost increases are back to pre-pandemic levels
What does this mean? Plan sponsors must factor forecasted cost increases into budgets and determine how to balance empathy with economics.
Trend two: Covid-19 continues to impact claims experience.
What does this mean? Insurers say people are experiencing the effects of disrupted care alongside ongoing Covid claims.
Trend three: Plan modernization has begun.
What does this mean? Digital health support is rapidly evolving, but there has been limited progress on health sustainability.
Trend four: Mental health gaps persist
What does this mean? Despite progress, plans continue to exclude mental health care or provide only minimal coverage. Employers are left to fill the gap in other ways.
Trend five: Plan management requires greater rigor.
What does this mean? Benefits managers must develop more robust strategies and prepare for more complex underwriting and plan design decisions.
Covid-19 is still shaping health insurer policies globally with variations at the regional level
“Both global trends and local variations will affect plan sponsors, which will also need to monitor the future impact of high inflation on medical trends,” concluded the report. “Balancing economics and empathy will be at the heart of annual benefits reviews and renewals. Here, it will be important to recognize the interconnectedness of different factors impacting both employee health and costs. Delayed diagnoses – of cancer and other conditions, such as endocrine and metabolic disease – as a result of Covid-19 will have long-term implications, particularly as later-stage diagnosis increases treatment costs. New requirements for vaccination status to be included in census data, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and Asia, will require a different approach to information-gathering from sponsors and advisors. To date, general inflation has not impacted medical trends to the same extent as energy and food prices. However, if inflation remains high, it will inevitably have an effect on medical trend values. Plan sponsors should prepare for this while expecting to retain a high-quality healthcare offering that will attract and retain staff. A more positive outcome of Covid-19 has been increased use of digital tools to support and monitor healthcare remotely, and these now look to be permanently embedded in insurers’ offerings. Employers will need to explore how digital services dovetail with other aspects of coverage in the insurer’s offering and consider the quality and value digital tools provide for employees. There is still a disparity between coverage for physical and mental health conditions globally. Plan sponsors should question insurers on the extent of services such as psychological and psychiatric counseling to ensure they offer sufficient depth to be of genuine benefit.”