BenefitsLedger for journalists
Updated plan year 2024 complete; 2025 filings added monthly
Everything on this page is free to quote with attribution and a link. The numbers are read from the same dataset as the rest of the site, so they match what any reader will find on the page they link to, and they update when the record is rebuilt each month.
What BenefitsLedger is
One paragraph that can be lifted verbatim. Every figure in it is computed from the record at build time.
BenefitsLedger (benefitsledger.com) is the free public record of what U.S. employer health plans cost and who gets paid. It is built from the U.S. Department of Labor's Form 5500 and Schedule A datasets for plan year 2024, with 2023 for year-over-year comparison, and covers 58,547 employer health plans with 100 or more participants, 80,258,348 plan participants, 12,126 brokers and 1,452 insurance carriers. Those filings report $37B in insurance premiums and $6.9B in broker commissions and fees. The median broker commission on a fully insured medical plan is 3.8% of premium. Data as of October 24, 2026.
The ten numbers
The most quotable national figures from 2024 filings, each with its one-sentence claim, how it was computed, and the page that shows it.
- 1 · Insurance premiums$37B
U.S. employer health plans with 100 or more participants reported $37B in insurance premiums for plan year 2024.
Method. Earned premium summed across every Schedule A contract filed by 58,547 employers (medical, dental, vision, life, disability and stop-loss); self-funded medical claims are not premium and are not included.
Largest premiums ranking → - 2 · Broker commissions and fees$6.9B
Those same filings report $6.9B paid to brokers, agents and consultants in commissions and fees.
Method. Schedule A line 2 totals (commissions plus fees) summed across every contract, after excluding contracts flagged as implausible on the methodology page.
All 12,126 brokers → - 3 · Median commission rate3.8%
The median broker commission on a fully insured employer medical plan that pays commissions is 3.8% of premium; the middle half of plans fall between 2.7% and 5.0%.
Method. Rate = (commissions + fees) ÷ earned premium on contracts coded as health coverage, employers with at least $100,000 of such premium; 4,574 plans in the sample.
Commission benchmarks → - 4 · Highest-paid broker firm$528M
Marsh McLennan Agency was paid more than any other broker firm in 2024: $528M in commissions and fees from 5,659 employer health plans.
Method. Schedule A Part I compensation summed across every contract that names the broker, with the offices of the large national firms grouped under one name (as-filed spellings are listed on the firm's page).
Marsh McLennan Agency record → - 5 · Largest single broker payment$19M
The plan sponsor that paid brokers the most was Acec Life/Health Insurance Trust Benefit Consortium (The Woodlands, Texas), at $19,239,985 across all its insurance contracts.
Method. Broker commissions and fees added across every Schedule A contract the sponsor filed; multi-employer trusts and consortiums file as one sponsor and can top this list.
Highest broker pay ranking → - 6 · Plans that paid a broker93.4%
93.4% of employer health plans (54,681 of 58,547) reported paying some broker compensation; among fully insured medical plans with a computable rate, 933 of 5,507 (16.9%) paid no commission at all.
Method. An employer counts as paying a broker when any Schedule A contract reports commissions or fees above zero; the zero-commission count uses only rated fully insured medical plans.
Commission benchmarks → - 7 · Premium per covered person$7,274
The median fully insured medical contract cost $7,274 per covered person for the year.
Method. Medical premium ÷ people covered at year end, contracts covering 50 or more people; 6,311 contracts in the sample.
Commission benchmarks → - 8 · Highest-rate stateGeorgia 7.0%
Georgia has the highest median broker commission rate of any state, 7.0% of medical premium, against 1.5% in Illinois at the bottom.
Method. State is the sponsor's mailing state on the filing; only states with at least 30 rated plans are compared (60 in Georgia).
Georgia hub → - 9 · Small plans pay more4.2% vs 2.0%
Employers with 100-199 participants pay a median 4.2% commission rate, about 2.1 times the 2.0% paid by employers with 1,000-4,999 participants.
Method. Size bands follow participant counts at the start of the plan year; only bands with at least 100 rated plans are compared.
Benchmarks by size → - 10 · Latest Form 5500 filing337 days late
The latest filer in the record, Don Sanderson Ford, Inc. (Glendale, Arizona), filed its 2024 Form 5500 337 days after the extended deadline, on September 17, 2026.
Method. Days between the extended deadline (seven months after plan year end assuming the two-and-a-half-month Form 5558 extension for every filer) and the date the DOL received the filing; DFVCP filings and amendments are excluded.
Latest filers ranking →
Source: U.S. Department of Labor, EBSA Form 5500 and Schedule A datasets, plan years 2024 and 2023, "Latest" files; employer health plans (welfare code 4A) with 100 or more participants; built October 24, 2026. Names as filed. Full methodology.
How to cite
Free to quote, chart and republish with attribution to BenefitsLedger and a link to the page the figure came from.
Any figure, table or page on the site may be quoted, charted or reproduced in reporting, research and commentary, commercial or not, on two conditions: name BenefitsLedger as the source and link to the page it came from. The underlying Form 5500 filings are public records of the U.S. Department of Labor; our computations on them are released under CC BY 4.0. Please quote the plan year and the data-as-of date alongside a number, because the record is rebuilt monthly and late or amended filings can move a total.
BenefitsLedger, "Press kit: the public record of employer health plans," analysis of U.S. Department of Labor Form 5500 and Schedule A data, plan year 2024, https://benefitsledger.com (data as of October 24, 2026).
BenefitsLedger, "<page title>," https://benefitsledger.com/<path>, Form 5500 plan year 2024, accessed <date>.
In running text, "according to BenefitsLedger, a public record built from Department of Labor Form 5500 filings" is enough. Please do not describe the figures as estimates or survey results; they are sums and medians of what employers filed.
Method in brief
Plan years 2024 and 2023; rebuilt monthly; current build October 24, 2026.
Every ERISA-covered employer health plan with 100 or more participants files a Form 5500 with the Department of Labor each year. Its Schedule A lists each insurance contract, the carrier, the premium earned, and every broker or agent paid on it. We download the Department's bulk files, keep health plans whose plan year began in 2024, keep the latest filing when a plan filed more than once, group an employer's plans under its EIN, and compute every page the same way for every employer. Nothing is estimated and nothing is self-reported to us. The full method, every guard against bad data and the change log are on the methodology page.
- Schedule A reports what carriers paid. Commissions and fees are what the insurance carrier reported paying on each contract. Consulting fees an employer pays directly, and carrier bonuses or overrides paid outside a contract, do not appear. Self-funded employers pay medical claims themselves, so for them "premium" holds only stop-loss and ancillary contracts, and their broker pay is understated.
- Plans with 100 or more participants only. Insured plans under 100 participants are exempt from filing, so most small employers are absent, as are most governmental and church plans, which are exempt from ERISA. The record is not a census of every employer.
- Broker offices are merged. The DOL name field is cut at 35 characters and a national brokerage files under dozens of office names, so the offices of the large national firms are grouped under one name; the as-filed spellings are listed on each firm's page. Everything else is grouped exactly as filed, including individual agents.
- Filings lag. A plan year ending in December 2024 was due in mid-2025 and the Department refreshes its files monthly, so the record describes the most recent complete plan year, not today.
Downloads
Share images are generated from the data at request time and carry the current figures. Right-click to save; 1200 × 630 PNG.
- BenefitsLedger home cardwordmark on navy, 1200 × 630 PNG · /opengraph-image
- Press kit cardheadline totals, 1200 × 630 PNG · /press/opengraph-image
- Broker commission benchmarks cardmedian rate and middle half, 1200 × 630 PNG · /benchmarks/broker-commissions/opengraph-image
- Employer health plans that paid brokers the mosttop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/highest-broker-pay/opengraph-image
- Highest broker commission rates on employer medical planstop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/highest-commission-rates/opengraph-image
- Largest self-funded employer health planstop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/largest-self-funded-plans/opengraph-image
- Largest fully insured employer health planstop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/largest-fully-insured-plans/opengraph-image
- Biggest year-over-year increases in broker paytop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/biggest-commission-increases/opengraph-image
- Biggest year-over-year decreases in broker paytop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/biggest-commission-decreases/opengraph-image
- Employer health plans filed latest after the deadlinetop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/latest-form-5500-filings/opengraph-image
- Employer health plans with the largest insurance premiumstop three, 1200 × 630 PNG · /rankings/largest-premiums/opengraph-image
Every employer, broker, carrier and state page also has its own share image at the page's URL followed by /opengraph-image. The wordmark is the word BenefitsLedger in Newsreader with a green dot; please do not alter it or pair it with the seal of any government agency.
Boilerplate
About BenefitsLedger and WellthCare, in the words we use ourselves.
BenefitsLedger (benefitsledger.com) is the free public record of what U.S. employer health plans cost and who gets paid. Every ERISA-covered employer health plan with 100 or more participants must file a Form 5500 with the U.S. Department of Labor each year, and its Schedule A names each insurance carrier, the premium, and every broker or agent paid on the contract. The Department publishes all of it, but as bulk files that almost nobody opens. BenefitsLedger opens them: for 58,547 employers, 12,126 brokers and 1,452 carriers there is a plain page that says what the filing says, with the medians that make a number mean something. The site is free, has no login, and sells nothing. Every figure is computed the same way for every employer from the Department's datasets for plan years 2024 and 2023; nothing is estimated and nothing is self-reported. The record is rebuilt monthly as late and amended filings arrive, and the build date appears on every page. The method, every guard against bad data and the limits of the filings themselves are published at benefitsledger.com/methodology. BenefitsLedger is not affiliated with the Department of Labor, EBSA, the IRS or any insurance carrier, and it is not a law firm, insurance broker, ERISA counsel or financial advisor.
BenefitsLedger is published with the support of WellthCare, a benefits advisory firm. When a reader asks for a written review of their own plan through the form on an employer page, a WellthCare benefits specialist prepares it, and WellthCare may offer its services afterward. That is the whole business model, and it is the only place on the site where it appears. The support does not change any number: the data pipeline has no idea which employer is a prospect, and the medians, rankings and records are generated identically for all 58,547 employers.
Contact
Press and research requests, corrections, and interview requests.
Email hello@benefitsledger.com and say you are press; put the employer name and EIN in the subject line if the question is about one record. For a correction, tell us what the filing actually shows; because pages are generated from the Department's data, most corrections are amended filings that the next monthly rebuild picks up, and if the error is ours we fix the pipeline and note it in the change log. More about who runs the site and who pays for it is on the about page.