KFF has published its 2024 Employer Health Benefits Survey, the annual benchmark that HR and benefits teams use to test their own health plan designs against the national market. The survey appeared through KFF's news feed on October 9, 2024. For employers, the release matters because it sets the reference points for next year's renewal negotiations, plan design choices and open enrollment messaging.

The survey is one of the most widely cited benefits datasets in the United States. KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation, has conducted the employer health benefits survey for more than two decades. Benefits leaders, consultants and policymakers treat its findings as the standard measure of what employers offer and what workers pay. The 2024 edition arrives after several years in which employers have faced sustained cost pressure and hard questions about which benefits to keep, trim or restructure.

What should HR teams do with the results?

The survey's core value is comparison. Employers can measure their premium contributions, plan types and cost-sharing structures against firms of similar size and industry. That comparison shapes several concrete people-process decisions:

• How the employer splits premium costs with employees for the coming plan year
• Whether deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums remain competitive for recruitment
• Which plan types to offer, and whether to add or retire options
• How to frame cost changes in open enrollment communication

The 2024 report also arrives at a moment when HR departments are weighing wellness programs, mental health coverage and virtual care options alongside traditional medical plans. Employers that benchmark against the survey can separate genuine market shifts from vendor sales talk.

Why does this benchmark carry weight?

KFF's survey methodology draws on a random sample of private and public employers, from small firms to large corporations. That breadth is why consultants quote it in renewal meetings and why benefits executives reference it in board presentations. The report has historically covered premiums, worker contributions, employer contributions, plan enrollment and eligibility trends.

Because the survey captures what employers actually did in the current year, it functions as a lagging indicator. HR teams should read it not as a forecast but as evidence of where the market already moved. Any gap between an employer's own figures and the survey averages signals either a deliberate strategy or a competitive exposure.

What questions should benefits leaders ask now?

For HR executives, the release of the survey is a prompt to interrogate internal data. Three capability questions stand out:

• Can your team produce your own per-worker premium and contribution figures quickly enough to compare against the survey?
• Do your plan design choices reflect an intentional position on the cost-sharing spectrum the survey describes, or historical accident?
• Is your open enrollment communication prepared to explain your position relative to national patterns?

Employers that cannot answer these questions with current data will negotiate renewals from a weaker position. The survey's publication gives benefits teams a fixed annual deadline to complete that internal review before renewal season concludes.

What comes next?

KFF typically publishes follow-up analysis and briefs drawn from the survey data in the weeks after the main release. Employers should watch for those deeper cuts, compare their own 2024 enrollment results against the national figures, and use the gap analysis to set bargaining positions for the 2025 plan year.