Based on its survey of 2,013 private and public employers, Kaiser/HRET found that the percentage of all businesses offering health benefits has fallen from 69 percent to 60 percent over the past five years. In that same time period, there have been double-digit increases in health insurance premiums until 2005, when the increase dipped to 9.2 percent.
It is no wonder then, that in a 2005 NEWS survey of over 300 HVAC contractors, insurance costs ranked No. 2 in the list of business concerns, only trailing profitability. The survey results, published in the Aug. 1, 2005 edition, showed that 18.2 percent of respondents listed insurance costs as their No. 1 concern. Having good insurance benefits is a two-edged sword: they are costly, yet necessary to find and retain good workers.