Benefitfocus’ 2025 State of Employee Benefits™ Report: How today’s trends signal a caregiving opportunity employers can’t ignore
Chronic conditions increase and those seeking health care decrease
At Voya Financial, we believe that the health and financial well-being of employees are deeply connected. Our latest 2025 State of Employee Benefits™ Report, produced by Benefitfocus, a Voya company, highlights trends that not only affect today’s workforce, but also signal a growing caregiving opportunity that employers may wish to prepare for.
Compounding these trends, the report also found that most employees don’t fully understand the employee benefits available to help them with their health and financial wellness. As a result, they could be less likely to get preventive care, manage chronic conditions effectively or make informed decisions about their health and finances.
More people diagnosed with chronic conditions
Chronic conditions not only impact health, but also engagement, productivity, and financial stability. One in 12 Americans are in medical debt, and those with chronic conditions, like cancer, have higher than average levels of debt.1 Health care and financial concerns are intertwined, and employers now have unique opportunities to help provide more support.
Our data reveals that chronic conditions are on the rise. From 2022 to 2024, the average number of chronic condition claims per person, overall, rose 17% and mental health claims alone jumped 31%.2
As a result, more people are managing chronic health conditions, which contributes to higher costs for individuals and employers. The report looked at claims associated with chronic conditions in the following categories: cardiovascular, female reproductive, mental health and musculoskeletal. In every category, the average number of claims per person increased over the period from 2022 to 2024.
Preventative health care visits declining
One in four U.S. adults say that in the past 12 months they have skipped or postponed getting the health care they needed because of the cost.3 Our research found that over the past three years — 2022-2024 — the percentage of employees who received at least one preventative care screening has stayed steady, only increasing very slightly from 76% in 2022 to 77% in 2023 and 2024. Yet despite the perception that preventative care is expensive, according to Healthcare.gov, “Most health plans must cover a set of preventative services at no cost” to the insured, if provided in the health plan’s network.4 This contradiction underscores the Benefitfocus report findings that most employees don’t fully understand the employee benefits available to help them with their wellness.
Although it seems counterintuitive, preventive care — including cancer screenings, vaccines and dental cleanings — actually can lower overall health care costs, both for individuals and employers.
Even a quarter of employee population skipping preventative care can have significant negative consequences on health, both in the short and long term, including undetected health issues to worsened chronic conditions.
Actions for employers to consider
To counteract these trends, employers can help support benefits engagement beyond open enrollment by using tools that drive optimal choices and year-round use. This may include:
- Personalized, unbiased decision support tools tailored to employee health and financial needs
- Targeted communications that demystify complex benefits topics
- Digital health care point solutions — designed to solve a single, focused problem — to help employees manage or avoid chronic conditions
- Care navigation tools that can help employees act at the right time
If the increased diagnoses of chronic conditions continue its upward trajectory — particularly for mental health — the likelihood that individuals will either need care or become a caregiver increases. With availability of caregiving professionals decreasing and the cost of services increasing, more family members are stepping in as unpaid caregivers, increasing physical and mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and physical pain, along with financial strain and social isolation.
Already, seven in 10 family caregivers are employed, and caregivers spend an average of 27 hours per week providing care5 — on top of their jobs. What will the future look like?
At Voya, we recognize that employee well-being is not just a benefits issue — it’s a business imperative. As caregiving challenges continue to grow, employers who step forward with meaningful solutions have an opportunity to not only help strengthen their workforce but also demonstrate a genuine commitment to their employees’ health, families and financial security. That is the future we are working toward through Voya Cares and our benefits leadership.
- Rakshit, Shameek,et. al. “The burden of medical debt in the United States.” Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. Feb. 12, 2024.
- 2025 State of Employee Benefits Report. Benefitfocus. June 23, 2025.
- Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs, KFF, Lunna Lopes et. Al, March 1, 2024.
- “Health benefits & coverage.” Heathcare.gov. Accessed Aug. 22, 2025.
- “Caregiving in the U.S. 2025.” AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving. July 2025.
The information provided does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information and content herein is provided for general informational purposes only and may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. Benefitfocus does not act in a fiduciary capacity in providing products or services; any such fiduciary capacity is explicitly disclaimed.
The State of Employee Benefits 2025 was compiled from enrollment transactions aggregated across 316 large employers (1,000+ full time employees) within the Benefitfocus customer base, representing more than 1.8 million employees in total. The data was evaluated on an anonymous basis. Enrollment records include both active and passive enrollments made by a variety of industry roles (employee, carrier representative, broker, benefits administrator, etc) from the fall of 2022 through fall of 2024 for plan year effective dates of January 1. These measurements are not meant to be a nationally representative sample, but to represent the aggregate activity for large employers on the Benefitfocus platform.
For data related to medical and prescription drug claims, Benefitfocus drew from 87 employers in our Health Insights Platform with a total population of approximately 800,000 employees and their dependents. Effects were estimated using a random sample of approximately 10,000 of the aforementioned individuals and where that sample size was insufficient, certain aggregate results were drawn from the population itself. The underlying claims demographics and claims were sanitized per HIPAA Safe Harbor guidelines and were filtered to exclude generations older than Baby Boomers to comply with the age 90 cutoff mentioned in section (3) of “Guidance on De-identification of Protected Information. November 26, 2012” which cites the Code of Federal Regulations Title 45 §164.514(b)(2)(C). Claims data was analyzed 9/1/2022 - 9/30/2024.
Benefitfocus is a Voya Financial business.