Workers' cost for family coverage rose 9% to $7,471 in 2026, KFF survey finds
KFF's annual survey of employers found that what workers pay toward family coverage grew almost twice as fast as the total premium this year, with the heaviest bills at small firms.
Workers with family coverage through an employer now pay an average of $7,471 a year toward their premiums, up 9%, or $621, from 2025, according to KFF's 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey1, published October 22. The total family premium, counting the employer's share, averaged $28,303, up 5%, or $1,310, KFF said in its announcement of the results2.
The gap between those two growth rates is what reaches household budgets. Employers still pay most of the premium, but more of this year's increase landed on workers. Among firms with 200 or more workers, 44% said they raised the share of the premium that workers pay to address higher projected health costs, and 21% raised deductibles or other cost sharing for most services, KFF reported. Across firms of all sizes, 18% increased the share of premiums paid by workers.
Single coverage carried an average total premium of $9,804, also up about 5%, with workers contributing $1,672 of it, the survey found. Workers pay about 18% of the single premium and 27% of the family premium, shares KFF described as similar to last year.
Small employers stand out. Covered workers at firms with fewer than 200 employees contributed $9,687 a year toward family coverage, $2,847 more than workers at larger firms, even though total family premiums at small firms were lower ($27,288, compared with $28,592). The average single deductible was also higher at small firms: $2,624, compared with $1,772 at larger firms.
Deductibles overall held roughly steady. Among workers with a deductible for single coverage, the average was $1,955, compared with $1,886 in 2025. But 38% of covered workers are now in a plan with a single deductible of $2,000 or more, up from 34% last year, according to the survey. KFF also found that 29% of covered workers are enrolled in plans that qualify for a health savings account (HSA), a figure it said cannot be compared directly with earlier years because the survey changed how it classifies those plans.
Over a longer span, premiums have moved roughly in line with paychecks. Since 2021, family premiums rose 28% and worker contributions 26%, compared with wage growth of 26.9% and inflation of 24.4%, KFF found. In the most recent year, however, wages rose 3.7% and inflation 2.7%, both below this year's premium growth.
The survey also tracked how employers handle drug coverage. About 18% of large firms cover glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs specifically for weight loss, similar to 19% last year, and 29% of those that cover them said the effect on prescription drug spending was significant. Just under half of large firms (49%) said they receive sufficient information about manufacturer rebates, according to KFF.
KFF surveyed 1,937 randomly selected non-federal public and private employers with 10 or more workers, and Davis Research conducted the fieldwork between January and July 2026. The overall response rate was 11%. The figures describe premiums and plan designs as employers reported them, not what any one family spent on care, and they do not cover the federal workforce or firms with fewer than 10 workers.
Almost 157 million people under 65 rely on employer coverage, according to KFF, which has run the survey for 28 years. Its findings arrived nine days after the Health Care Cost Institute reported3 that rising prices, rather than greater use of care, drove most of the growth in spending for people with employer coverage from 2019 to 2023.
.jpg){kind=link}