Annual Benefits Went Up (Again)

Across the U.S. everyone is getting notifications to renew benefits for 2021 and here is a quick rundown of how mine has panned out. For my benefit selection I elected to maintain the exact same coverage as 2020:

Benefit	Increase (decrease)
Medical Insurance	+5.18%
Dental Insurance	+3.01%
Long Term Disability	+3.74%
Life Insurance	+3.95%
Spouse Life Insurance	+3.69%
Overall	+4.45%

I am far from being an actuary with understanding risk pools, distributions, risk profiles, etc… to make a determination if this is good or bad but its just another thing to plan for. Two friends of mine tell me their medical insurance increased 10% and 14%, I guess I’m lucky in that regards. Overall the rise in benefit costs will decrease my weekly paycheck by $5.54 or annually $288.

From a Presidential election perspective, I see neither candidate impacting my insurance benefits however there is a Biden proposal that may impact my 401K contribution benefit. Biden’s proposal is to remove the pre-tax 401K benefit and instead provide a flat tax credit when you file your annual tax return. This may or may not be a wash but from a weekly perspective this will impact my take home pay. Accounting for the pretax loss my weekly paycheck will decrease an additional $31.35 weekly or $1630 annually. Whether or not this happens does not matter but I will plan for it accordingly to be conservative. This brings my total weekly take home paycheck reduction to $36.89.