Kansas companies expect 13 percent health insurance increases
Witchita Business Journal
December 9, 2002
Large companies in a four-state region that includes Kansas expect their health insurance costs to increase 13 percent next year.
Mercer Human Resource Consulting surveyed 119 companies with 500 or more employees in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri as part of a national health benefits survey of nearly 2,900 employers.
Nationwide, the Mercer survey says, employers paid 14.7 percent more to insure their employees in 2002: from an average of $4,924 per employee to $5,646. In 2003, they expect their costs to increase another 14 percent.
In the four-state Great Plains Region that includes Kansas, employers said their per-employee health benefit increases in 2002 rose 8.5 percent: from an average of $5,053 to $5,484.