Unlocking value: Addressing benefits, AI, investment and workforce challenges
Grounded in research and practical frameworks, the playbook will explore the key cost challenges shaping organizations’ decisions: cost volatility, the outsized impact of high-cost claimants, the implications of GLP-1s on cost, rising CFO concerns, data insufficiency in self-funded plans, and what you can do about it.
Your people costs are a volatility challenge
Healthcare is no longer a once-a-year benefits renewal — it is a CFO-grade risk exposure that can disrupt forecasts, force trade-offs, and reduce capacity to invest in wages, growth, and workforce transformation.
Mercer’s National Survey of Employer Sponsored Health Plans shows employer-sponsored health coverage averaging $17,496 per employee in 2025, up 6.0%, outpacing wage growth. When benefit costs rise faster than pay, it becomes harder to ensure healthcare affordability for all employees. Employers can try to close the affordability gap by adjusting contribution strategies, redesigning plans, or even changing the mix of plans offered — each with downstream implications for budgets and employee experience.
Finance leaders are reacting accordingly. In Mercer’s CFO Perspective on Health Survey, 72% of CFOs at employers with 500+ employees identify healthcare cost as a top five concern in terms of operating expenses — and a third say it’s in the top three. The message is clear: Healthcare has moved from an HR-led cost discussion to a material financial risk that affects operating margins and forecasting confidence.
Healthcare feeling unmanageable? You are not alone.
Many organizations can budget for “6% trend.” What they can’t budget for is a “bad year” caused by a small number of extreme events.
High-cost claimants
A handful of catastrophic or complex cases can swing total plan performance, turning healthcare from a manageable inflation line into earnings noise.
Volatility is not distributed evenly across your population — it is concentrated in a small number of members and a small number of high-severity conditions and events.
GLP‑1s are a fast-moving cost accelerant
Emerging cost accelerants, especially pharmaceuticals. 47% of CFOs cited GLP-1 drugs as very concerning or significantly concerning because adoption can expand quickly, shift spend mid-year and materially change pharmacy cost with uncertain near-term offsets. GLP‑1s can improve long‑term health, but their rapidly rising costs may outpace your budget and planning.
Claims volatility is expected to increase — forcing a new operating rhythm
Half of CFOs have been told by the benefits department to expect greater claims volatility, up from 43% in 2024 to 50% in 2026. This anticipation of increased claims volatility is pushing healthcare management toward a more active finance operating model: frequent reforecasting, tighter monitoring, and scenario modeling — not a once-a-year budgeting exercise.