Health care cost increases in 2026 could be only slightly lower than in 2025, says WTW

Diving brief:

• Rising health care costs are expected to rise 9.6% in the United States in 2026, just a hair shy of the 9.7% seen this year, according to WTW’s 2026 Global Medical Trends report, released Tuesday. However, the increase remains “significantly higher” than the 7.6% observed in 2024.
• Globally, the average cost of healthcare benefits is expected to increase 10.3%, up from 10% in 2025 and 9.5% in 2024, according to WTW.
• “Despite variations in healthcare provision in different countries and regions around the world, rising medical costs are a consistent trend for everyone,” Linda Pham, global head of health and risk for integrated and global solutions for WTW, said in a press release. “A silver lining for employers is that investments in technology, including AI, currently result in higher costs, but after this phase, new technologies promise to reduce long-term health care cost trends.”

Dive overview:

According to WTW, more than half of surveyed health insurers who said they expected increases believe high costs will persist for more than three years, due to medical costs, regional pressure on pharmacy and outpatient services, and global structural factors.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents cited new medical technologies as the main reason for medical inflation, followed by the decline of public health systems (52%) and advances in pharmaceuticals (49%).

On the disease front, cancer tops the list of medical cost drivers globally, with 57% of 346 health insurers surveyed naming it as the most expensive diagnosis. Three-quarters of insurers have also seen an increase in cancer diagnoses among those under 40.

“The challenge of managing healthcare inflation for multinational employers requires strategic management,” said Courtney Stubblefield, managing director of health and benefits at WTW. “This may include investing in educating employees on the use of health benefits, raising awareness of prevention programs for common illnesses like cancer, optimizing mental health coverage and introducing flexibility into benefits.”

On average, family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States were $26,993 this year, more than the cost of a new Toyota Corolla hybrid, as KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said last month. Of that, workers contribute about $6,850 per year, and employers cover the rest, according to KFF’s 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey.

Meanwhile, a July Mercer report found that more than half of large employers, those with 500 or more employees, said they would likely — or very likely — make changes to their plans that would result in more costs for employees, such as increasing deductibles or maximum out-of-pocket amounts.