If you want to give excellent health benefits, knowing which health insurance carriers are reliable and provide a variety of products and providers is a smart place to start.
The top 25 health insurance providers in the US are listed below in descending order of market share size:
1. United Health
2. Kaiser Foundation
3. Anthem Inc.
4. Centene Corporation
5. Humana
6. CVS Health
7. Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC)
8. CIGNA
9. Molina Healthcare
10. Independence Health Group
11. Guidewell Mutual Holding
12. California Physicians’ Service
13. Highmark Group
14. Blue Cross Blue Shield of California
15. Blue Cross of Michigan
16. Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey
17. Caresource
18. UPMC Health System
19. Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina
20. Carefirst Inc.
21. Metropolitan
22. Health Net of California
23. Local Initiative Health Authority
24. Point32Health
25. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
To be clear, the amount of the market share neither ensures the company will maintain its position throughout the year nor does it necessarily correlate with the quality of the product or medical treatment.
Yet, market share size is a reliable indicator of a company’s ability to compete, its financial stability, and the security of its structural foundation, and insurers with bigger market shares have higher direct written premium amounts.
What percentage of premiums are paid to health insurance companies?
The CDC estimated that there were roughly 85 million COVID-19 cases in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the health sector recorded an approximately 14% rise in health benefit claims, or $92 billion, which was a significant increase from previous years.
In the United States, health insurers received over $890 billion in total net premiums, according to the 2021 NAIC Health Insurance Report1. Over 2020, American consumers’ premium expenditure increased by 8%.
The company that tops our list, United Health, wrote almost $195 billion in premiums last year. But Massachusetts’ Blue Cross Blue Shield only wrote $8.4 billion. Nonetheless, over the previous year, both of these businesses experienced growth.
Due to delayed treatment during the previous year, deteriorating health conditions, and the need for care from older and higher-risk patients, the health sector anticipates further increases in the number of medical services required.
A health plan and other perks that will support required medical treatments in the upcoming years can help firms of all sizes better entice and keep their best workers.
The benefits of health stipends and HRAs for small firms
Small and medium enterprises may find it challenging to budget for group health insurance due to increased premium costs. Employers who cannot afford a typical health benefit plan, however, have more options. One of the choices is health reimbursement agreements (HRAs).
An HRA is a health benefit that pays employees tax-free reimbursement for out-of-pocket medical expenses including prescription drugs and copays. By establishing an allowance, employers may better control their spending, and employees will have greater control over their health benefits.
Four health benefit plan choices that could be suitable for you and your employees are discussed below.
Competent tiny employer HRA
a capable small business Employers without a group health insurance coverage and with less than 50 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) may offer HRAs (QSEHRAs) as a health benefit. Employers can select a benefit that suits their budget, and employees can choose an insurance plan that meets their needs and make purchases to meet their specific medical requirements.
The flexible allowance allows for tax-free repayment of out-of-pocket expenses such as health insurance premiums. The full list of expenses provided by the federal government in IRS Publication 502 is available in our interactive expense tool if you’re wondering what expenses are qualified for reimbursement.
Personal insurance HRA
The individual coverage HRA (ICHRA), like the QSEHRA, is a health benefit that enables employees to receive tax-free reimbursement for individual health insurance premiums as well as other medical services and costs.
But as long as the ICHRA isn’t made available to employees who are covered by your group plan, it can be used as a stand-alone benefit or provided alongside a group health insurance plan and is accessible to enterprises of all sizes.
Employers can adapt the ICHRA to their needs by setting various allowance levels in accordance with the 11 employee classes. Workers merely decide whether to participate in the benefit before it kicks off and certify at the start of each month that they are still eligible for the individual health insurance benefit.
Equipped with HRA
The integrated HRA is for you if you want to keep your workplace health insurance or switch to a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) to reduce your rates.
For employers of all sizes offering a group health insurance plan that want to supplement their benefit in addition to standard insurance, there is an integrated HRA, also known as a group coverage HRA (GCHRA). It’s a tax-free reimbursement mechanism for employers who desire more control over the price of their health benefits, much like QSEHRA and ICHRA.
Integrated HRAs provide several special advantages over regular HRAs. A predetermined deductible, an unrestricted allowance amount, and a cost-sharing percentage are all options for employers to designate for employees. There are seven employee classes that you can use to tailor your integrated HRA, similar to ICHRAs.
After the benefit is created, employees can start getting reimbursed for eligible out-of-pocket expenses that their group health insurance plan doesn’t fully cover.
Health Allowance
A health stipend is an additional approach to provide your staff flexible perks. The fact that health stipends are less federally regulated than other conventional health benefits, such as HRAs, makes them useful. Stipends could therefore be simpler to administer, especially for small employers. This type of incentive is available to businesses of all sizes, though.
Stipends are fixed sums of money that employers offer their staff to spend on whatever they see fit, like a health insurance plan and other medical costs. The amount given is viewed as additional compensation that was added to your employees’ paychecks. This increases the amount that will be subject to tax at the end of the year, but it also gives your employees greater flexibility in how they can spend their stipend money.
Source: NAIC