How Capital Region companies are managing the health insurance squeeze  

A sharp increase in health care costs felt more like a slap than a wake-up call for many Louisiana business owners in 2026. The sizable but necessary expense began cutting dangerously deep into their profit margins.

As Business Report reports in its latest cover story, the current insurance year that began Jan. 1 saw the highest single rate increase since the Louisiana Department of Insurance began tracking the data in 2016.

“A small group policy (companies with less than 50 employees) typically sees about a 6.5% increase in a given year,” says Frank Opelka, deputy commissioner of the Office of Health, Life & Annuity at LDI. “This year, our filings averaged 10.2% higher in that market.”

It comes on the heels of a decade of rising premiums. In its annual employer survey on commercial coverage, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average annual premium for family coverage in the last 10 years has gone from $17,000 to $27,000. That’s bad news for Louisiana employees, who often carry a disproportionate share of the burden.

In the U.S., employees in group plans paid 30% of the premium, on average, in 2024; in Louisiana, it was 37%. And while premiums are slightly lower in Louisiana, the typical employee still pays more due to the higher pay ratio.

“It has a lot to do with the smaller size of the businesses here,” says Lara Gardner, a health care economics professor in the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. “They’re not able to afford the larger costs, so they pass on a larger share of it.”

Read the full story, which explores the full impact and how Capital Region companies are navigating the costs through a variety of strategies. Also check out a companion story, “Baton Rouge General’s Verity HealthNet transforms health care’s ‘dirty little secret’ into savings.