“Competitive” should be a number you can take to a CFO, not an adjective.
Every employer asks whether their plan is competitive, and most get a national average back. A national average blends a thirty-life design firm with a twenty-thousand-life hospital system, which means it describes neither. The comparison that matters is against employers who look like you: your size band, your region, your industry, your funding model.
Premium is the least interesting number on the page.
Our benchmarking survey covers nearly a thousand employers. The useful output is not where your premium sits — it is where the money lands on an employee, because that is what determines whether staff value the plan or quietly resent it.
Compare your premium with the Michigan average →
Contribution Strategy
What share of single and family coverage you fund, by tier. Two employers with identical premiums can present completely different offers depending on how the family tier is subsidized, and the family tier is where employees make their decision. We benchmark the dollar amount an employee pays per paycheck at each tier, not only the percentage, since a generous share of an expensive plan can still cost more than a peer’s offer. Employee-plus-spouse and employee-plus-children tiers are compared separately.
Out-Of-Pocket Exposure
Deductible, coinsurance and the maximum an employee can actually be asked to pay in a bad year. Smaller employers tend to carry markedly higher deductibles than large ones, so a small-group plan benchmarked against a national figure will read as generous when it is not.
Plan Design Against Peers
Medical and ancillary coverage scored against employers matched on size, industry and region, with the gaps named rather than scored away. A score with nothing underneath it is a sales document. Ancillary lines are compared on their terms, not just on whether they are offered, so a dental plan with a low annual maximum is not counted the same as a richer one.
A benchmark without a trend line tells you where you are, not where you are going.
We draw three lines on every account, because they disagree and the disagreement is the insight.
The National Line
Medical trend is running roughly 9 to 10 percent before plan changes and about 6.5 to 7.6 percent after them. The gap between those two figures is cost shifted to employees, not cost removed from the system. Those figures describe what employers experience on average, not what your carrier will ask for. They are the reference for judging whether a renewal is being driven by trend or by something specific to your group.
The Local Line
Michigan small group filings were approved at 11.1 percent for 2026, with 9.6 percent filed for 2027. Above fifty lives nothing is filed with the state at all, so a filed average is context rather than a forecast for a mid-market group.
Your Own Line
Your renewal history, repriced on a held census so headcount changes do not masquerade as savings. It takes several consecutive renewals to draw it, which is why we ask for the last three. Held-census repricing applies each year’s rates to the same people and tiers, separating the true rate change from hires, departures and tier moves. A year that looked flat can turn out to be a rate increase hidden by a smaller headcount.
Data with the working shown.
A Peer Comparison
Your plan against employers matched on the dimensions that move rates, with the cohort described so you can judge whether the comparison is fair. We list the size range, industry mix, region and funding model behind each comparison, and we exclude cohorts too thin to mean anything rather than stretch them. If the peer group for your size and industry is small, we say so and widen it in a stated direction.
Population Insight
Claims and pharmacy analytics, gaps-in-care tracking and risk signals pulled into one executive view, so a benchmark arrives with the data behind it rather than as a headline. Carriers release limited claims data to small fully insured groups, so this view is strongest for level-funded and self-funded plans, where the plan owns its claims reporting. Where the data exists, it shows whether cost is driven by a few large claims, by pharmacy or by avoidable care.
Something to Say in the Meeting
One page your CFO can read in two minutes: where the plan sits, what it would cost to move, and what moving would buy. It ends with a recommendation, whether that is holding the plan, adjusting contributions or changing design, and it states the trade-off in employee terms as well as budget terms. The detail sits behind it for anyone on the finance team who wants to check the working.
What employers ask about benchmarking.
Is “competitive” a number or an opinion?
It should be a number. Premium alone will not tell you — two plans at the same premium can put very different amounts of cost on employees, so the comparison has to include contributions and out-of-pocket exposure or it stays an adjective.
Who should we be compared against?
Companies hiring from the same labor market in the same size band, not a national average across every industry. A benchmark that does not look like you cannot tell you whether you would win a candidate. Industry matters because a professional services firm and a distribution warehouse in the same county compete for different candidates. Where you recruit against a specific sector, we weight the peer group toward it.
How often is it worth doing?
Often enough to see a trend line. One reading tells you where you are; a series tells you which direction you are moving relative to your peers, and that is the part that changes decisions. A benchmark is also worth rerunning after an event that changes your peer group, such as crossing into a new size band, adding a state or acquiring another company, because the comparison you had no longer fits.
Benefits Benchmarking in Bloomfield Hills So You Know Where You Stand
Most employers do not know if their benefits are competitive. They guess, or they hear about it when a good employee leaves for a better plan. Benefits benchmarking in Bloomfield Hills replaces the guess with a clear comparison.
We are CFH Insurance Consultants, an independent benefits firm in business since 2007. No carrier owns us. We help employers in Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, Troy, Novi and across Michigan see how their plans compare.
Benefits Benchmarking
Benchmarking means comparing your plan with plans at similar employers. The group you compare against is called a peer group. A good peer group matches your size, industry and region.
We look at the parts of your plan that matter most to employees and to your budget:
- Deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket limits
- How much of the premium you pay, and how much employees pay
- Which extra benefits you offer, like dental, vision, life and disability
- How your plan choices compare with what peers offer
Our benefits benchmarking in Bloomfield Hills draws on our survey of nearly 1,000 employers. We show you where your plan is richer than your peers, where it falls behind and what it would cost to close a gap.
How do I know if our employee benefits are competitive?
Start with the right peers. A 30-person office should not compare itself with a large manufacturer. Then compare the same things side by side, like deductibles and employee cost per paycheck.
Look at your own signals too. Do candidates turn down offers over benefits? Do employees ask why their plan costs more than a spouse’s? Those questions often point to the gap a benchmark will confirm.
How much should an employer pay toward health insurance?
There is no one right number. It depends on your budget, your industry and what your competitors offer for talent. A benchmark shows you what similar employers pay. Then you decide where you want to sit.
Some employers match their peers. Others pay more to attract hard-to-find workers. Some pay less and put money into other benefits. Any of these can work if it is a choice and not an accident.
Common questions
How often should we benchmark our benefits?
Once a year works well. The best time is a few months before renewal, so the results can shape your decisions. Timing it ahead of renewal gives the benchmark a job: it frames the contribution and design decisions before the carrier’s numbers arrive, rather than justifying them afterward. We pair it with a review of your renewal so both conversations happen once.
Is benchmarking only for large companies?
No. Small employers compete for the same workers. Knowing where you stand helps at any size. For a small group, the useful comparison is against employers of similar size in Michigan, not large employers whose self-funded plans are priced differently. Deductibles and employee cost per paycheck are the figures a candidate can compare directly.
Will benchmarking tell us to spend more?
Not always. Sometimes it shows you are paying for benefits your peers do not offer and your people do not use. It can just as easily show a plan richer than peers in places employees do not notice, which frees money for places they do, such as the family tier or a lower deductible. The recommendation follows the evidence, and holding steady is a valid outcome.
Talk to us about benefits benchmarking in Bloomfield Hills
Book a 30-minute call or send us your renewal. We will tell you what a benchmark would show for your group. Our office is at 41000 Woodward Avenue, Suite 350 East, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304. Call 248.370.8853.
Send us your renewal.
We’ll tell you whether it looks competitive, where we see opportunity, and the five questions we’d put to your carrier. No cost, and no obligation to move anything.
The renewal letter
Your current plan summary
Contribution split by tier
Enrolled counts by tier
Four documents — two more if your group is 50 or more. Nothing else; every extra one is a reason to postpone.
An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.
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