Key Takeaways
- Benefits costs keep rising, which can make renewing your plan stressful.
- Your employee benefits broker can help you make educated plan decisions.
- Ask your broker these questions ahead of renewal to uncover opportunities for savings.
You spent the last few months monitoring your benefits plan and spending. Finally, you have a solid understanding of it all.
But then comes everyone’s favorite time of the year: employee benefits plan renewal season!
Sarcasm aside, renewals can be stressful. It feels like the cost of everything is going up, and you’re left wondering whether employees are actually getting value from the benefits you’ve invested so much in.
The good news? Renewal season isn’t just about bracing for another rate increase. It’s also an opportunity to take a step back, evaluate what’s working, and make strategic changes that support your employees and your business.
Before you rubber-stamp your renewal and call it a day, talk through options with your employee benefits broker.
These five questions can help guide the conversation and uncover opportunities you might otherwise miss.
1. What’s really driving the cost of your benefits to increase?
It’s not just inflation, though it is a factor. Rising healthcare costs continue to outpace wage growth for many groups of people. In 2025, average family health insurance premiums increased by 6% from the previous year, and these costs show no signs of cooling off any time soon.
While national averages provide a helpful benchmark, many employers are experiencing a different reality. Double-digit renewal increases have become increasingly common, leading to difficult conversations about budgets and benefits. We understand and are sensitive to the challenges businesses are facing as they work to balance costs and employee needs.
Factors such as how employees are using their benefits (especially large claims), prescription and specialty medication spending, the average age of your workforce, and plan design can all impact costs. To get a clear picture of the unique factors affecting your plan, ask your benefits broker to investigate.
Brokers like LewerBenefits can analyze your claims data, plan usage, and contribution levels to see where you’re spending the most, and use that information to adjust your plan design, so it continues to fit your needs and your budget.
2. Are you offering benefits employees still want and use?
Employee expectations continue to evolve. If you don’t keep up, you could risk offering—and paying for—benefits they don’t use.
According to SHRM’s 2025 Annual Benefits Survey, health coverage, retirement benefits, dental insurance, vision coverage, and prescription drug benefits remain among the most valued offerings for employees and job seekers.
At the same time, employees are increasingly interested in:
- Flexible work arrangements
- Family care support
- Paid leave benefits
- Professional development opportunities
- Well-being resources
Of course, every workforce is different. Factors such as age, family status, industry, and career stage can influence benefit preferences.
Your employee benefits broker can help you stay up to date on what your employees want. Brokers help with employee surveys, claims and utilization analysis, and competitive benchmarking. These tools help you get the lowdown on what your team values and identify opportunities for strengthening recruitment, retention, and engagement efforts.
3. Are your pharmacy benefits cost-effective?
Pharmacy benefits are among the fastest-growing components of healthcare spending. Per the United Healthcare 2026 Health Trends Report, employers spend $1 out of every $4 of their healthcare budget on pharmacy benefits. Specialty medications such as GLP-1s, therapeutics, and cancer drugs are major drivers of cost increases.
Don’t sift through pharmacy claims on your own to try and make sense of why your costs are rising. You have better things to do with your time! Let your benefits broker tackle this time-consuming task for you.
4. Does your funding model still make sense?
More employers are taking a closer look at self-funded and level-funded plans because they can offer something fully insured plans often don’t: enhanced visibility into your benefits spending and more control over how your plan is managed.
A different funding model can change your approach to benefits. However, it can also impact your cash flow, risk exposure, cost predictability, and access to claims data.
Changing your funding model isn’t a decision to make lightly; you should always approach it with an abundance of reliable information and caution. Work very closely with your broker for the best results.
If you’ve stayed in one funding model from the start, plan renewals are a great time to ask whether it still makes sense for your business and workforce. LewerBenefits can walk you through what a self-funded, level-funded, or fully insured approach could mean for your business, offering clear guidance and proactive support every step of the way.
5. How do you build a sustainable benefits strategy?
Renewal conversations often start with, “How do we keep our cost increases as low as possible?” While that’s definitely a valid concern, it’s not one that can realistically guide your long-term benefits strategy.
Factors such as inflation, rising prescription costs, chronic condition management, and behavioral health needs will continue to drive rate increases each year.
Knowing this, it’s important to be proactive in your approach to employee benefits. Tap into the expertise of your benefits advisor. They can help you make data-driven decisions about your plan that both satisfy your current workforce and enhance your employee recruitment, retention, and engagement efforts, all while protecting your bottom line.
As healthcare costs continue to rise, many employers are also exploring non-traditional benefit strategies. Approaches such as Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs), alternative funding models, and other innovative plan designs are growing in popularity because they can provide greater flexibility and cost control. While these solutions aren’t right for every organization, renewal season is a great time to discuss whether they could play a role in your long-term benefits strategy.
Take a deep breath, then contact LewerBenefits
With the right strategy, renewal season can become a lot less stressful.
Instead of reacting only to rising costs, you can use the renewal process as an opportunity to make informed decisions about your benefits, your budget, and the employee experience you want to create.
That’s where LewerBenefits comes in. We’ll help you understand what’s driving your costs, identify opportunities for improvement, and build a plan that supports both your employees and your business.
Ready to start the conversation? Contact us today for a proposal.
