Employers that are really unhappy with their health plan experience will soon be taking the ultimate step: they will no longer buy group coverage for their employees.

That’s one of the more dramatic findings of a recent J.D. Power study of employer health plans that sought to identify just how satisfied or dissatisfied companies are with their plans.

Another interesting finding? Most employers aren’t all that happy with their plans, but will probably continue to offer coverage anyway.

For the survey, J.D. Power established a satisfaction scale of zero to 1,000 points. The overall ratings showed that, on average, employers rated their plans at about 700 – a “C” grade in academia — passing, but not outstanding.

The study queried 5,857 fully-insured and self-insured employers, and broke out satisfaction scores for those who intended to offer coverage in five years and those who said they wouldn’t be doing so.

Six key satisfaction factors were considered:

employee plan service experience;
account servicing;
program offerings;
benefit design;
problem resolution;
cost.

Nearly one-fifth (15 percent) of employers said they "definitely will not" or "probably will not" continue sponsoring coverage in five years.

"Health plans need to understand the importance of satisfaction in order to limit the erosion of their business from employer-sponsored coverage to alternative channels where employees have more choices," said Richard Millard, senior director of the healthcare practice at J.D. Power. "Those health plans that focus on closing the satisfaction gap across key performance factors are more likely to retain employer-sponsored group contracts."

While cost turned out to be an important factor in separating those who will continue to offer coverage and those who won’t, program offerings also played a significant role.

“In the program offerings factor, the gap in satisfaction scores between fully-insured employers that intend to offer coverage in the future and those that intend to drop coverage is 104 points — 705 among employers that intend to offer coverage, compared with 601 among those that intend to drop coverage,” J.D. Power reported.

The gap among the employers over cost was 106 points, but that factor showed improvement since the last survey. “Satisfaction with cost is improving as more consumer-driven, high-deductible plans are offered to employees, which 82 percent of employers indicate are controlling costs,” J.D. Power said.

The health plan that garnered the highest satisfaction rating among fully-insured employers was Health Care Service Corp. (741 points), with Cigna leading the way among self-funded employers (696).

Other plan providers that placed near the top included Aetna, Kaiser, United Healthcare and WellPoint.

Instant Insights /

J.D. Power: Dissatisfied employers will stop offering coverage

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