Benefits Benchmarking Calculator How your health plan compares to the KFF 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey and AHRQ MEPS-IC state data

Methodology & sources

• KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey 2026 — the 28th annual EHBS, fielded January–July 2026 with 1,937 employer interviews and released October 22, 2026. It represents non-federal public and private employers with ten or more workers (the survey universe since 2025). Premiums, worker contributions, deductibles, plan-type enrollment and HSA-qualified plan detail come from the official section table workbooks. 2026 EHBS →
• AHRQ MEPS-IC 2025 — the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Insurance Component, Table Series II (Private-Sector Data by Firm Size and State), covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Premiums and contributions are annual dollars per enrolled employee at private-sector establishments that offer health insurance. 2025 Table Series II (PDF) →
• The two surveys are separate benchmarks and are never blended. MEPS-IC averages run lower than KFF's because of methodology: MEPS-IC is an establishment-level survey of all private-sector establishments, weights premiums per enrolled employee, and reports employee-plus-one as its own tier, while KFF surveys firms, weights differently, and folds employee-plus-one into family/other tiers. Every bar and row on this page is labeled with its source; none is an average of the two.
• How “above”, “in line” and “below” are scored. “In line” means within a per-measure band of the scored KFF benchmark: premiums within ±5%; employee contributions, deductibles and employer HSA contributions within ±15%; worker share of premium within ±3 percentage points. Outside the band a dollar figure is “modestly” above or below up to 3× the band (5–15% for premiums, 15–45% for the others) and “well” above or below beyond that. Each card is scored against KFF's cut for your firm size and plan type, falling back to your firm size (all plans), then your plan type (all firms), then the national average where a cut is not published; the card names the cut used. Employer HSA contributions are scored on their card but not counted in the summary, and MEPS-IC state figures are a separate state check that is never scored.
• Renewal timing. Benchmarks reflect plans in effect in 2026 (MEPS-IC: 2025). If you're entering 2027 renewal rates, expect to run several percent above benchmark on medical trend alone. No benchmark here is trend-adjusted.
• Worker share of premium is shown exactly as published. KFF calculates the average percentage of premium paid by workers as a weighted average of firm-level percentages, so it does not equal average contribution ÷ average premium and must never be multiplied against a premium average. This tool never recomputes it; gaps against your own share are reported in percentage points.
• Deductible benchmarks cover only workers with a deductible. KFF's average general annual deductible is calculated among covered workers who have one (88% of covered workers in 2026); MEPS-IC deductibles are conditional on being enrolled in a plan that had a deductible (89.1% of private-sector enrollees in 2025). Neither is an average across all covered workers. Small-firm cells split by plan type rest on small samples and are noisy — the small-firm HMO cell in particular.
• HDHP/SO plan type discontinued in 2026. Through 2025 KFF reported “HDHP/SO” plans — HSA-qualified HDHPs plus high-deductible plans paired with an HRA. From the 2026 survey, HSA-qualified plans are their own plan type and HRA-paired high-deductible plans are counted under HMO, PPO, POS or conventional. This tool follows KFF: choose “HSA-qualified HDHP” only for an HSA plan, and pick the network type for an HRA-paired plan. On the plan-mix trend the HDHP/SO line is HSA-qualified only from 2026, and that step is marked on the chart (HDHP/HRAs were 4% of covered workers in 2025).
• Employer HSA contributions are conditional averages. They cover only workers enrolled in an HSA-qualified plan, and they include employers that contribute $0 (39% of those workers for single coverage in 2026). They are not per-covered-worker figures and are never added into a total-cost number here. KFF stopped reporting employer HRA contributions with the 2026 survey, so HRA deposits are not benchmarked — no estimate or prior-year figure is substituted.
• Firm-size definition break. KFF's small-firm category is 3–199 workers through the 2024 survey and 10–199 workers from 2025 on; large firms are 200+ throughout. The trend chart marks that step, and the small-firm line is not strictly continuous across it. Firms with fewer than ten workers are outside KFF's survey universe (since 2025), so no KFF benchmark exists for them.
• Trend caveats. KFF's own notes report no statistically significant small-vs-large difference in 2019 single premiums; the 2019–2020 drop in family contributions is a real COVID-boundary artifact in the series; the 2020 dip in HMO enrollment is in the published data (KFF states it is unsure why); and plan-type shares can sum to 99–101% because each share is rounded independently, with conventional plans usually published only as “<1%” (left unplotted rather than guessed). Small-firm single premiums running at or above large-firm premiums in recent years is real published data.
• Regions follow the standard Census Bureau four-region grouping (Northeast, Midwest, South, West), which is the grouping KFF publishes. Your state selection sets both your KFF region and your MEPS-IC state benchmark.
• Not published: KFF does not publish deductibles by industry, worker contribution dollars by industry (only percentages), HMO or POS premiums by industry, or HSA account contributions by region or industry. Those bars are simply omitted rather than estimated.
• Everything you type stays in your browser — comparisons run client-side and nothing is submitted or stored. This tool is informational only and is not insurance, legal, or tax advice.