The 2017 ALEX Benefits Communication Survey Has Landed!

Big news!

This Wednesday we released the results of the 2017 ALEX Benefits Communication Survey, which surveyed 2,043 US adults who are employed full-time, are eligible for company-provided benefits, and do not have health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, about their companies’ benefits communication. (The nationwide online survey was conducted from February 24 to March 17, 2017 by Harris Poll on behalf of Jellyvision.)

Here are some of the most eye-catching findings:

• More than 1 in 5 employees (21%) often regret their benefits decisions. (Yikes!)
• Employees want help. 55% of employees whose companies offer health insurance say they would like help from their employer when choosing a health plan.
• Benefits decisions are stressful. 49% of employees say making health insurance decisions is always very stressful.
• People prefer electronic benefits communication. 60% of employees prefer to receive information about company benefits electronically.
• Some employees just don’t engage with some communications. 20% of employees say they don’t always keep up with benefits correspondence (e.g., they don’t attend company benefits meetings, never read their company benefit summary plan description or file/throw paper benefit materials away unread)

The survey also revealed a number of employee knowledge gaps around health care costs, HDHPs, and the possible repeal of the Affordable Health. (For example: Four in 10 employees (41%) can’t identify all of the elements that add up to the full cost of their health care, such as employee and employer contributions and cost of care. Half of employees (50%) say they are not knowledgeable about HDHPs. And 61% of employees said they didn’t think a repeal would affect them personally.)

There’s a lot more juicy information where this came from, too. (Seriously: this sucker is 73 pages of awesome.) To read the complete results download the 2017 ALEX Benefits Communication Survey.