By Michael Welber, Florida Keys Keynoter, Marathon Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Dec. 4--'A couple of years ago, we were hit hard with a 29 percent increase but last year wasn't too bad,' said Jackie Grasley, human resources director for Marine Bank of the Florida Keys. 'It only went up 15 percent.'
Grasley's comments refer to the cost of employer-provided medical plans and illustrate the dramatic increases that have hit companies throughout the country.
While the overall cost of living has been increasing at an annual rate just above 3 percent, health insurance costs have risen at five times that.
Now a national consulting company with offices in Miami, Aon Consulting, has reported the rates that employers in South Florida will pay for health care will increase faster than the national average.
Aon predicted, according to a recent press release, that while health insurance costs to employers will increase by 13.5 percent annually, those in South Florida will jump by 15 to 15.5 percent next year.
This is the sixth year in a row the company has predicted double-digit increases for all types of medical coverage.
The news is not good for Keys employers -- if they can even afford to pay some or all of their employees' health insurance costs.
Spottswood Companies, which owns a number of hotels in both Key West and Marathon, pays 80 percent of the premiums for all of its employees. It's a generous policy that includes health, prescription, dental and life insurance.
Every year, according to payroll human resources benefit coordinator Theresa Kendall, company President Robert Spottswood goes shopping for different options on insurance.
'We've seen the prices skyrocket,' she said. 'We'll continue to look at what's available. For example, we have had to raise the deductibles from $250 to $500.'
Marine Bank pays 100 percent of all its employees' insurance costs. The company also constantly shops for better financial arrangements.
One approach that helps enormously is that Marine buys insurance through what's known as a professional employee organization, or PEO. The one Marine belongs to has 80,000 members, giving the PEO considerable clout when purchasing insurance.
That benefit accrues to Marine Bank, keeping its health insurance costs much lower
Even so the costs have increased every year and the carrier, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, has raised co-pays for doctor visits as well as the overall deductibles.
The Monroe County government is, in some ways, in a better position because it self-insures. The plan is a generous one covering all board employees, the Sheriff's Office, and the offices of the clerk of the courts, tax collector, property appraiser and supervisor of elections, providing them with medical insurance, a prescription card, and life insurance for no charge. The county also subsidizes some of the dependent coverage.
However, the county must watch its costs very carefully.
'We keep a very close watch on our claims with monthly reports so we can see at the end of the year where we're going to be and make any adjustments,' said Maria Fernandez, group insurance administrator for Monroe County. 'We did make some changes last year by increasing the co-pay and pharmaceutical co-pays and that enabled us to not make increases in dependent coverage this year.'
Fernandez said the county gets a regular report from the Kaiser Foundation, a nonprofit policy firm that tracks such things. Those reports indicated that continuing big increases are coming, especially in prescription drugs.
'Prescriptions have become really, really expensive,' she added.
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