SPOTLIGHT: Open enrollment
Highlights from the 2025 SHRM Employee Benefits Survey:
Health care benefits:
Some health care benefits are "nearly universal," including general health plan coverage (97%), dental insurance (99%), and vision insurance (96%).
70% of respondents "offer a fully insured health plan," wherein the organization pays a "fixed premium amount to an insurer, which then pays medical claims."
27% of organizations offer a self-insured plan, where the organization operates the health plan and "typically pays medical claims themselves, often through a third-party administrator."
Emergency health care expenses were a noted area of "growing benefits." According to the survey, 53% of employers are now offering critical illness insurance, while 40% are offering hospital indemnity insurance, up 4% over 2024.
Retirement benefits:
93% of respondents offer traditional 401(k) retirement plans, with the average employer match coming in at 6.3% in 2025.
76% of respondents are offering a Roth option in 2025, up from 73% in 2024, and up from just 64% in 2021. The average employer match for Roth contributions is 6.08% for 2025.
Family care benefits:
Only 67% of employers "listed family care benefits as “very important” or “extremely important” in 2025," down from a high of 76% back in 2021.
54% of employers are offering dependent care FSAs, down 4% from 2024 and down 11% from 2021.
Read more via SHRM
Heading into open enrollment, employees are increasingly looking at decisions around benefits as "essential to their financial and emotional well-being," according to a new survey by Voya Financial.
Highlights from the survey:
Mental and financial health are intertwined: 63% of Americans “strongly agree” or “agree” that their financial stability affects their mental health, up from 57% who said the same in 2023.
Employees plan to devote more time to reviewing benefit offerings: 77% of workers plan to spend more time reviewing benefits during annual enrollment to “maximize their benefit dollars,” up from 69% last year.
Many workers are looking for recommendations: Nearly half of employees (49%) say personalized benefit recommendations would boost their confidence in making benefits choices. 39% of employees say they prefer interactive calculators, while 38% favor one-on-one HR support.
Just over half of employees feel prepared for retirement: Only 55% say they feel prepared for retirement. Workers who have met with an investment or financial advisor are “nearly twice as likely to report feeling “very” or “somewhat” prepared for retirement compared to those without such support.”
Benefits are not just transactional — they’re transformational for workforce morale and productivity.”
Read more via Voya Financial
Read about benefit-related trends covered in recent Need to Know Briefing Spotlight sections:
Spotlight on Employer Mortgage Benefits
Spotlight on Pet Benefits
Most workers are still looking for a human touch when it comes to making decisions around benefits, according to a new survey by New York Life.
Human touch still wins: 62% of workers strongly prefer human support when navigating sensitive life events, while 54% favor human touch for billing or claims issues.
Most aren't comfortable with AI-only support: Fewer than one in ten employees are comfortable with AI-only support. Most employees want “only human support” or a human/digital hybrid.
Enrollment confusion remains an issue: Just 43% of workers say they know how to enroll in employer-sponsored benefits, suggesting a persistent knowledge gap.
Top benefit priorities: 401(k) matches (70%), supplemental health insurance (46%), flexible work (44%), mental health (41%), and life/disability coverage (32%).
Despite the proliferation of AI and digital benefits tools, when it comes to life’s most personal and sensitive moments, people want to feel supported by another human being."
Read more via New York Life
While 97% of large U.S. employers now offer mental health benefits and 67% include substance use disorder treatment, fewer than half monitor whether those benefits actually deliver value, according to a new Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) survey.
Only 22% of employers track whether employees actively use behavioral health benefits.
Telehealth (73%) and counseling/therapy (62%) are among the most commonly covered mental health services.
Coverage for ongoing treatment (33%) and culturally competent care (26%) is far less common.
Nearly all large employers (97%) offer mental health coverage, while only 67% cover substance use treatment.
Fewer than half of employers collect data on network adequacy (provider ratios, travel distance, wait times) or out-of-network utilization.
Read more via ADVISOR Magazine, Fast Company, Fierce Healthcare
