Employee benefit offerings are largely doing their job of attracting and retaining the best talent. Most employees expressed satisfaction with their overall benefits packages and the majority say their benefits package makes them more inclined to remain with their current employer, according to LIMRA’s 2025 benefits and employee attitude tracker (BEAT) study.
Seven in 10 workers indicated they are at least somewhat satisfied with their benefits and 43% are highly satisfied, the report found. Nineteen percent say they are dissatisfied with their benefits package.
About 60% of employees said their benefits package makes them more inclined to stay with their current employer, and 41% said it makes them much more inclined to stay put. About 20% of employees feel less inclined to stay with their current employer, especially if they are dissatisfied with their benefits packages, the study found.
LIMRA’s research has long shown that there is a link between benefits satisfaction and employee understanding of their benefits options. More than 70% of employees who understand both their insurance and retirement benefits extremely well are very satisfied with their benefits. Conversely, those with much lower satisfaction are more likely to be those who do not understand their insurance or retirement benefits at all, said the report.
To increase understanding, LIMRA recommends that employers offer total compensation statements that provide a total monetary value of employer-paid benefits. Such statements lead to a higher likelihood of employees understanding their benefits, said the report.
“Total compensation statements give a clear picture of how much employers invest in their employees,” said Kimberly Landry, associate research director of LIMRA Workplace Benefits Research. “Our data finds only 42% of employees say they receive these statements, creating a gap in how employees both understand and experience their benefits.”
In-person educational resources are another strategy that can be effective in improving employee benefits understanding. Email is the most commonly used educational vehicle, but only 48% of employees found email educational efforts to be helpful.
In-person meetings, whether one-on-one or in groups, as well as phone meetings are among the most valuable educational resources, study respondents said. This suggests personalized guidance and the ability to ask questions are highly valued.
Employee satisfaction tends to increase with more options, the study found. One-quarter of employees were satisfied with their benefits package that included one to three benefits, while 63% of those with 10 or more benefits available said they were satisfied.
Meeting unmet needs is another area where employees can increase benefits satisfaction. About one-third of employees wish they had a pension plan, while 27% wanted critical illness insurance and emergency savings benefits, 26% wanted cancer insurance and 23% wish they had hospital indemnity insurance, according to the report.
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