Looking for any creative ideas that anyone is doing for medical or dental insurance renewals.  Not sure the percentages of increases but we were hit with a 34% increase and several carriers refusing to quote us for the 2010 year.  We currently offer a PPO plan and an H.S.A for medical.  Any input is greatly appreciated.  

Why such a large increase?  Why are some refusing to quote you?  What justification did they give you?  Where I am, depending on how small or large the company is, the biggest factor for increases is either average age or claims rating. 

If you already have a HSA for medical, then you already have a high deductible plan.  You can see if their is a higher deductible plan you can go to, but you won't be very popular with the employees.  But then again a 34% increase isn't going to be popular either.

 

As mentioned you already have a high deductible plan, but I would look at moving to an H.R.A.  We moved from an H.S.A to an H.R.A this past year and we have had a very positive reaction.  Although we are a small company (150 employees) we had a large amount of people jump from the more expensive PPO plan to the H.R.A.  The key to this being successful on our end was great communication from our provider and insurance broker to the employees.

Something else to know, the H.R.A. is particularly expensive the first few months when employees are using the employer paid part of their bridge but we have found the past 6 months to be very inexpensive.

As we also felt the pain of potentially increased insurance last year we moved from a benefit rich PPO plan to one with less benefits; a $500 deducitble, lower co-insurance, etc.  While employees didn't like the reduced benefits, those that were interested in the PPO plan did like that there was not a rate increase, and a lot of those employees that didn't really care which plan they were in migrated to the H.R.A which saved the company money.