Aon Hewitt is pleased to present the results of its 2017 survey of average medical trend rates from countries 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 91 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:
• 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 in each country covered.
This survey covers several separate themes:
• Estimated medical trend rates for 2017
• Risk factors that are expected to drive medical cost inflation in the future
• Cost elements that could be mitigated through medical plan adjustments
• Wellness and health promotion initiatives being undertaken by employers in order to deal with spiraling medical cost trends
• Employer practices around medical plan design, funding and administration
• Qualitative responses to provide greater context to medical plans globally
As a reference, we have also included the general inflation rates for 2017 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 2017.
The trend rate figures, risk factors and cost elements in this report relate to employer-sponsored plans and their participants. The information presented is not demonstrating an overview of each country’s health care costs as a whole, nor of the health care situation of each country’s population overall.
The global and regional medical trend rate averages reflect the following technical procedures:
• A weighting process based on country average private healthcare insurance expenditure per person
• A geometric averaging mechanism
• Due to the hyperinflation environment prevailing in Venezuela, we have left this country out of the regional and global medical trend rate averaging mechanism for 2017. We have also restated the 2016 Latin America regional average as well as the 2016 global average leaving out Venezuela in order to enhance comparability of the corresponding figures from year to year
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 be increasing over time. In this report we are covering 91 countries.
We hope you will find this report useful.