Aon Hewitt is pleased to present the results of its 2016 survey
of medical trend rates from around the world. The survey was
conducted among Aon Hewitt offices that broker, administer,
or otherwise advise on medical plans that are established and
managed by employers in each of the 90 countries covered
in this report. The survey responses reflect the medical trend
expectations of the Aon professionals, clients, and carriers
represented in the portfolio of Aon medical plan business in
each country. The trend rates presented in this report do not
include any allowances for potential employer countermeasures
such as cost-containment plan amendments or the impact of
any attendant employer negotiations with carriers.
Aon Hewitt has conducted this survey in order to assist
multinational companies in:
• Provide practical assistance with completion of paperwork
• Budgeting premium costs for medical plan renewals
• Understanding the factors that are driving medical
cost increases
• Devising wellness and cost-containment initiatives to
respond to the challenges
The trend rate figures shown in this report represent the
percentage increases in medical plan (insured and self-insured)
unit costs that are anticipated to be technically required in order
to address projected price inflation, technology advances in the
medical field, plan utilization patterns, and cost shifting from
social programs.
This survey covers three separate themes:
• Estimated medical trend rates for 2016
• Risk factors that are expected to drive medical cost inflation in
the future
• Wellness and health promotion initiatives being undertaken
by employers in order to deal with spiraling medical cost
trends
As a reference, we have also included the general inflation rates
for 2016 published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
which have been adopted as a proxy for the expected domestic
retail inflation level in each country for 2016.
The trend rate figures and risk factors in this report relate
to employer-sponsored plans and their participants. The
information presented is not necessarily representative of each
country’s health care costs as a whole, nor of the health care
situation of each country’s population overall.
A methodological improvement has been introduced in this
report issue - a weighting process has been used in deriving
regional and global average trend rates. The weights were
based on country average private healthcare insurance
expenditure per person. Last year’s survey results have been
recalculated according to the above methodologies.
Aon Hewitt intends to issue annual survey updates in the
future. We expect that as the global demand for medical plan
benefits extends to more countries, the number of participating
countries in our published reports will increase. In this report
we are covering 90 countries, or 6 more than the 84 countries
covered in our survey last year.
We hope you will find this report useful. We welcome any