The Average Health Insurance Cost

Health insurance, which costs an average of $14,125 for family coverage in employer-sponsored health plans in 2010, seems expensive until you see a hospital bill. Still, the cost of premiums has grown significantly over the years. In 1999, the average cost of a family health insurance premium was about $5,791. The average cost of a single insurance premium, which covers only the worker and no family members, was $5,049. In most cases, workers split the cost of these benefits with their employers.

Plan Types

• Sure, you have insurance, but you still have to pay to see the doctor.

  The cost of health insurance varies between the forms of insurance offered. High deductible plans, where the worker paid some or all the costs before the insurance kicked in, had the lowest cost at $12,384 for family coverage and $4,470 for single coverage. HMO plans averaged $14,125 annually for family coverage in 2010 and $5,130 for single coverage.

Employer Share

• Employees are paying a bigger and bigger portion of the pie.

  Employers often pay the bulk of a health insurance premium. In 2002, 24 percent of employers did not ask employees with single coverage to pay anything toward health insurance premiums. That number fell to about 16 percent in 2010. Less than 5 percent of employers ask nothing of workers with families in 2010. In 2002, 9 percent of employers paid the entire portion of family coverage. On average, workers in small firms with fewer than 200 people paid 36 percent of their own premiums. In larger firms, workers paid an average of 27 percent.

Deductibles and Cost Sharing

• With a high deductible, it may feel like you have no insurance at all.

  Many plans have a minimum amount of money that a patient must spend out of his own pocket before insurance starts to pay the costs. For patients in HMO plans, 72 percent of whom have no deductible, the average deductible is $601. For people in high deductible plans, the average is $1,903.

Copayments for Doctor Visits

• Cash only, please.

  The amount that patients must contribute for a doctor visit has risen over the years. In 2004, 3 percent of patients paid a $30 copay. That number rose to 15 percent in 2010. Similarly, in 2004, 19 percent of patients paid $5. In 2010, that figure dropped to 7 percent.

Individual Insurance

• It's the out-of-pocket costs that hurt.

  According to the 2010 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, people who bought their own health insurance paid premium costs and higher out-of-pocket expenses. In a survey, the foundation found that individual coverage cost about $3,606 for single coverage and $7,102 for family coverage. According to the survey, respondents reported spending an average of $1,690 on health expenses out of their own pockets in the past year, including $924 for people with individual coverage, and $2,688 for people with family coverage. Eleven percent say they have spent $5,000 or more on top of their premiums