Business
Soaring Healthcare Costs Lead to Higher Enrollment in Alternate Medical Plans According to Alight's Annual Enrollment Analysis
CHICAGO, December 18, 2025--Alight, Inc. (NYSE: ALIT), a leading cloud-based human capital and technology-enabled services provider, today released findings from its analysis of 9.5 million users of the Alight Worklife® platform during the 2025 annual enrollment period.
About this update from Alight, Inc.
[{"type":"image","alt":"","displaySize":"","headline":null,"caption":"","credit":null,"className":"","disableSlideshowImg":false,"size":{"original":{"width":480,"height":275,"url":"https://media.zenfs.com/en/business-wire.com/dcdebd059c56b37839ff165c23e1288b"},"resized":{"url":"https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/crG164KcTO9A3URlu9rg0w--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU1MDtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/business-wire.com/dcdebd059c56b37839ff165c23e1288b","width":480,"height":275}},"lazy":false},{"type":"text","content":"Data from 9.5 million participants finds alternate medical plan enrollments doubled in 2026 from 2025, growing fastest among lower-income employees","length":147,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"CHICAGO, December 18, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alight, Inc. (NYSE: ALIT), a leading cloud-based human capital and technology-enabled services provider, today released findings from its analysis of 9.5 million users of the Alight Worklife® platform during the 2025 annual enrollment period.","length":287,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":""Open enrollment trends this year show incredible opportunity for employers to implement benefits strategies that help serve employees of all income levels," said Karen Frost, Vice President, Health Strategy at Alight. "By implementing AI-powered tools for personalized guidance, organizations can deliver stronger health strategies and support overall employee wellbeing while balancing rising medical costs."","length":430,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"Alight’s analysis of enrollment data reflects a change in employee behavior. This includes the effect of healthcare costs on annual enrollment decisions, the continued increase in employees using AI throughout the enrollment process and the widening gap between salary group and medical enrollment. Key trends and insights from this year’s annual enrollment include:","length":366,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"list","items":[{"val":[{"type":"text","content":"Higher medical and dental costs: Overall, medical and dental costs are increasing, with employers passing some of the increased medical costs along to employees. For single employees, the medical median cost is rising 9.8% in 2026 after increasing 5% in 2025. The median cost for families jumped even higher, rising to 16.8% in 2026, a nearly 12-percentage point increase from 2...