$20K: The average yearly premium for family with job-based insurance

On average, annual family premiums for employer health plans totaled about $20,000 this year, according to new data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Here are five things to know from KFF's 2018 Employer Health Benefits Survey:

1. Average annual family premiums for employer-based plans climbed 5 percent to $19,616 this year. According to KFF's analysis of 4,070 randomly selected private firms with three or more employees, workers had to pay, on average, $5,547 toward the cost of family coverage, with employers covering the remainder.

2. Average premiums for a year of single coverage grew 3 percent to $6,896 in 2018. Single workers, on average, paid $1,186 of that, according to KFF.

3. Deductibles are also increasing among employer-based plans. In 2018, 26 percent of all insured workers had plans with an average deductible of at least $2,000. That's up from 22 percent from last year.

4. The premium increases are comparable with a 2.6 percent uptick in workers' wages and a 2.5 percent increase in inflation this year. Health insurance cost increases will continue to outpace wages and inflation over time, KFF says. Average family premiums have increased 55 percent since 2008, twice as fast as workers' wages (26 percent) and three times inflation (17 percent).

5. KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said said in a news release, "Health costs don't rise in a vacuum. As long as out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, drugs, surprise bills and more continue to outpace wage growth, people will be frustrated by their medical bills and see health costs as huge pocketbook and political issues."

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