Insurance Trends
As we approach the new year, we can start to look into the group insurance trends for the upcoming year. With 2021 almost completely done, here’s what 2022 is likely to have in store for us.
Lingering Effects of Covid-19
No matter how tired we are of hearing about it, it’s still a thing! Along with almost every single other industry, the pandemic has shaped the group insurance trends for this upcoming year. Employees along with their employers as well as advisors and insurers will have to consider many questions based around vaccine requirements in relation to work and employee termination in relation to the vaccine and the workplace. Additionally, topics like working from home, employee retention and acquisition of additional employees.
Mental Health Concerns
Furthermore, we’re going to see a continuance of mental health concerns as we saw in the previous few years. Many employees have experienced their mental health declining at more rapid speeds than before. The pandemic has definitely had an impact on this situation but was not the root cause. This was certainly a concern prior to the pandemic making its appearance in March 2020. In relation to this, there are as few things that key decision makers can implement to tend to this issue.
- investments into the social detriments of health
- Increase resources allocated to mental health care and support
- prioritize the issue of mental health
- Expand current mental health resources
Insurance Trends – An Increase in Long-Term Disability
As an additional insurance trends, claims for long-term disability will be favourable to rise in the upcoming year. We saw this as one of the main insurance trends for previous years and we will continue to experience it fir another year. There are a few key contributors for this, including employees experiencing a burnout state as well as difficulty and delays in the diagnoses process due to the on-going pandemic.
As medical locations are experiencing high volumes, many surgeries and procedures that would normally be addressed are being pushed back, creating long-term complications.
Inflation Increase
Related to insurance trends next is the rise in the level of inflation. As the average costs of various types of different services continue to rise. Services like dental and chiropractic are seeing vast increases. This can partly be attributed also to added procedures and equipment used in performing these services. As we typically see, these added costs are not absorbed by the provider but rather the customer of the service.
Insurance Trends Predict Higher Drug Prices
As we have seen in previous years, the costs of drugs. Many benefit plans are including high-cost drugs within their plans. As these costs rise to unseen levels, employer costs of benefits rise, as we began to see in the insurance trends for the previous year. Employers wil be looking for more plan sustainability in the near future.
Insurance Trends for Benefit Prioritization
As the job market is becoming more and more competitive, we are seeing many employers aiming to offer the best benefits in the market. As one way to put it, benefit “budgets” are continuing to increase. These attractive benefit packages are being matched with many other new and unique perks of working at any given job.
Insurance Trends
As we begin to approach the beginning of the third year with the lingering pandemic, we are seeing many recent trends continuing on. As we saw some interesting insurance trends beginning a few years ago, many of those are becoming accelerated into 2022. As the world changes, employers and employees need to adapt to these changes as efficiently as possible.
December 27, 2021