Market outlook for employer-sponsored insurance

About the webinar

Join Advisory Board experts to learn how employers are managing health benefit spend in 2026 amid rising utilization, higher provider rates, and surging drug costs. We’ll explore how plan sponsors are moving beyond traditional HDHPs and toward variable copay and managed navigation models. We’ll look at how plan sponsors are reconsidering funding approaches — like level-funding, ICHRAs, and group captives — and adopting more curated network strategies to steer members to higher-value care.

Things you'll learn:

• What’s driving 2026 ESI cost pressure — utilization, provider rates, and drug spend
• How employers are updating plan design beyond HDHPs, especially variable copay and managed navigation models
• Where employers are experimenting — alternative funding (level-funding, ICHRAs, captives) and tighter network plays (high-performance networks, direct contracting)