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State Health Compare

Average annual employer sponsored insurance premium

Measure Overview

Annual employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) premiums have steadily increased over the past decade. Tracking the cost of average annual ESI premiums can help state policymakers and health plan administrators evaluate affordability of and access to health care coverage.

State Health Compare provides annual state-level measures of ESI premiums from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey – Insurance Component (MEPS-IC).* This measure shows the average annual premium for private sector workers who receive health insurance through an employer. Data can be stratified by plan type (either single plans or family plans).

*As SHADAC and other organizations have documented, the COVID-19 pandemic was the cause of several substantial disruptions to data collection efforts for the 2020 MEPS-IC, which may have potential impacts on 2020 single-year estimates of annual average ESI premiums. Researchers should approach using 2020 data with caution, and SHADAC will continue to monitor any future changes to federal data releases directly or indirectly related to the pandemic.

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Brief cover page

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In the latest brief from a long-running series, SHADAC researchers use estimates from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component (MEPS-IC), produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), to look at national and state-level ESI access, enrollment, and cost data in 2024 as compared to the prior year.