Buffalo, NY August 19th, 2014 – 32 percent of mid-­‐sized employers nationally say healthcare costs rose from 3 to 4 percent due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as reported in Lawley Benefits Group’s recently released 2014 Mid-­‐Market Benefits Benchmarking Survey results. Across the Western New York region, 64 percent of participating employers in Buffalo, NY and Rochester, NY expect an equal price increase of 3 to 4 percent from ACA.

Although the majority of employers participating in the survey responded that healthcare costs are increasing due to ACA, only 69 percent of Western New York companies have completed a formal analysis to assess the impact.

“Companies are seeing additional taxes and fees associated with the Affordable Care Act, even though enforceable penalties for companies that don’t offer healthcare have been delayed until 2015. This will result in increased healthcare costs,” explained Brian Murphy, Partner for Lawley Benefits Group. “It is important for companies to define and implement strategies now like reviewing funding methodologies, instituting wellness programs and exploring private exchanges to manage future challenges.”

The survey also revealed other significant changes to the healthcare landscape in response to ACA
including: plan design change, consumer driven health plans and wellness programs.

Plan Design Change
As healthcare costs continue to rise, the survey trend shows that participating employers will cope with the rising healthcare expense through reducing their benefit plan design change value and increasing employee payroll contribution:
• 61 percent of WNY companies are considering plan design changes
• 25 percent of WNY companies will charge dependent tiers more in contribution amounts
• 16 percent of WNY companies will hire more part-time employees
• 34 percent of WNY companies will go self-funded

“Employers continue to seek ways to offset continued high levels of medical inflation in addition to greater costs resulting from ACA taxes and fees, like looking at increasing plan design options,” stated Murphy. “One way to help mitigate this is offering a private exchange for a more clearly defined contribute schedule for both employers and employees.”

Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHP)
CDHPs have entered the market and continue to take on a larger role as companies develop plans to meet the minimum value standard. CDHP is a tiered healthcare plan allowing members to pay routine healthcare costs with a health savings account or similar payment product versus a fixed health insurance benefit.

• By 2008, 15 percent of employers nationally offered a CDHP. As of July 2014, this number climbed to 31 percent.
• In WNY, 37 percent of participating employers are currently offering CDHPs and 10 percent are looking into offering a CDHP in the future.

Wellness
Participating employers have identified wellness programs as an increasingly popular proactive solution as ACA creates incentives that encourage employers to make workplaces healthier. In Western New York, over 14 percent of participating employers offer some type of wellness program. The most popular offerings include Employee Assistance Programs, flu shots and blood pressure screening.

Although ACA is a major driver for wellness programs, many employers are creating wellness opportunities to proactively assist their workforce in becoming healthier employees. In Western New York, 65 percent of employers offer wellness programs to improve the health of their employees as well as to increase employee morale and productivity.

“We understand new ACA regulatory requirements alter how employers attempt to incent employees and dependent health behavior. We applaud the proactive employers who institute wellness strategies not just because they have, but by recognizing the overall health of their staff is the right thing to do,” explained Julie Ciura, Wellness & Health Management Team Leader at Lawley Benefits Group.

SOURCE: 2014 Lawley Benefits Group Mid-­‐Market Benefits Benchmarking Survey

About Lawley Insurance’s Mid-Market Benchmarking Survey
Lawley Benefit Group, the employee benefits branch of Lawley Insurance, offered its inaugural mid-­‐market benefits survey. For independence and transparency, Lawley Insurance employed a third-party actuarial consulting firm to collect data and summarize results. The annual survey provides customized benchmarking data for mid-­‐market size companies’ benefit plans (50 – 1,000 employees) on both a regional and national level. It is the largest benefits survey of its kind in the U.S. with over 100 mid-­‐market Buffalo, NY and Rochester, NY area companies participated and almost 5,000 companies nationally.

About Lawley Insurance
Lawley Insurance is a privately-owned independent regional insurance firm specializing in property, casualty and personal insurance, employee benefits and risk management consulting and ranked among the 100 Largest Insurance Brokers in the U.S., according to Business Insurance magazine.

For more than 60 years, Lawley’s team of over 370 associates have developed customized property, casualty, surety and benefits insurance programs for businesses and municipalities of all sizes and individualized protection for individuals. Lawley is consistently recognized as a Best Places to Work from Buffalo Business First.

Headquartered in Buffalo, NY, Lawley has branch offices across New York State in Amherst, Batavia, Elmsford, Fredonia, Melville and Rochester along with Florham Park, New Jersey. To find out more, visit lawleyinsurance.com.

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