What do small business employees want from health insurance? What keeps them loyal and motivated to stay with the business? How should a small business design their health insurance offerings to match what employees value?

Metlife recently surveyed small businesses and employees about these questions, and reported survey findings in the 2013 Study of Employee Benefits Trends. Key findings from their small business health insurance survey included:

• Cost-sharing wears on employees. Of those surveyed, 34% of employees strongly agreed that having to pay a larger share of their benefits premium costs would make them feel less loyal to their employer.

• And yet cost sharing has increased. Since the recession, benefits cost-sharing has increased in response tighter budgets and the increasing costs of health care and group health insurance. Today, 50% of surveyed employers report that cost-sharing is a very important benefits strategy for their company compared with 33% in Metlife's 2012 Study.

• Employees depend financially on health benefits. According to the survey, 38% said that benefits were an important reason for remaining with the company.

• Employees value the ability to customize their health benefits. According to the survey, 61% of employees said that being able to customize benefits would increase their loyalty.

• And, the younger generations of employees said they would pay more for this flexibility. For example, 55% of Generation Y employees said they would bear more of the cost of benefits in order to have choice in benefits. This decreased with age; 51% of Generation X, 49% of Young Boomers, and 47% of  Older Boomers responded in this way.

MetLife 2013 Survey PDF:

Source: ZaneBenefits.com