Your Group Health Insurance Premium Went Up. Have You Asked Why

Your company’s health insurance premium has increased again. You ask the insurer why, and the answer is medical inflation, claims experience, or rising healthcare costs.

Fair enough. But how much of that increase actually comes from your employees’ claims?

Many employers don’t realise they can ask. Whether the insurer provides a breakdown depends on the insurer, the policy structure and the size of your group. But asking the right questions can reveal more than you might expect.

Can Employers Request Claims Data in Singapore?

You can always ask. What you receive depends on how your plan is priced and reported.

• Larger, experience-rated groups: your own claims experience drives the renewal, so insurers can usually share it in some form.
• Smaller, pooled schemes: many Group Hospitalisation and Surgical (GHS) plans for small companies are priced on pooled experience across many employers. Your own claims may not directly set your price, and detailed reporting may not exist for your scheme.
• International private medical insurance (IPMI) plans: reporting varies significantly depending on the insurer, the group size and the underwriting structure.

Some markets are starting to formalise this. In the UK, AXA Health began publishing claims reports for SME clients with 65 or more employees in January 2026. Singapore has no equivalent standard yet, so what you receive still depends on what you ask for, and how.

What Information Can Insurers Share?

Depending on your insurer and group size, you may be able to request:

• The usage summary: how many claims were made, how many members claimed, and the total paid versus the premium collected.
• The loss ratio: the relationship between claims costs and premium, calculated using the insurer’s methodology. It is an important factor in experience-rated renewals, although smaller groups may be priced on pooled claims experience rather than their own history.
• The category view: claims split by type, such as outpatient, hospitalisation, maternity or dental. This tells you where the money actually went.
• The pricing breakdown: how much of your premium comes from base rates, medical loadings or rate adjustments. This is not claims data, but it often explains more of your renewal than the claims do.

What you will not get is a list of who claimed for what. Individual medical information stays confidential, and in small groups insurers aggregate carefully so no one can be identified.

Why Smaller Companies Receive Less Information

For years, small and mid-sized companies heard the same answer: claims data is only available for groups above a certain size. There were three reasons behind it.

• The privacy rule: in a group of eight people, even an “anonymous” breakdown can point to one person. One large hospital claim is hard to hide. Insurers prefer to share nothing rather than risk exposing a member.
• The credibility rule: actuaries consider small-group claims data statistically unreliable. One bad year in a ten-person group says little about the next year, which is why many small groups are priced on pooled rates rather than their own experience.
• The reporting limitation: historically, detailed claims reporting was designed primarily for larger corporate schemes. Smaller employers often received standard renewal terms without a detailed explanation of the underlying pricing assumptions. This made meaningful discussions about renewal increases more difficult.

What Happened When We Questioned a Medical Loading

A real situation from our recent work, with details changed to protect the client.

A small group’s renewal arrived carrying a significant premium loading tied to one member’s medical history. We asked the insurer to identify the portion of the premium attributable to the medical loadings, in dollars.

The answer was approximately $16,500. That opened a more specific discussion about the pricing, and the insurer subsequently agreed to remove certain fees it had applied to those loadings, reducing the annual premium by approximately $5,500.

Note what actually happened there. The client never received a claims experience report. The group was too small for one. What they received was pricing transparency: the exact cost of one underwriting decision. That was enough to change the outcome.

The same precision works on other questions. We have asked insurers for claim-by-claim status when settlements felt slow, and for the exact rate movement between two quotes, confirmed in writing. In each case the information existed, and it was shared when the request was specific and tied to a decision the client had to make.

Five Questions to Ask Before Accepting a Renewal

1. Is our plan priced on our own claims experience or on pooled rates?
2. What were our total claims against premium this policy year, if available?
3. How much of the premium comes from loadings or adjustments, in dollars?
4. How much did the base rates move since last year?
5. If a detailed report is not available, what can you share instead?

Keep in mind the data cuts both ways. A clean claims year strengthens your position, and a heavy year explains your increase. Ask anyway. You cannot manage what you cannot see, and the insurer already has the data.

Plan design is part of the same conversation. Increasing the deductible can reduce the premium, but employers should weigh the additional costs employees may face before making that change.

What If Your Insurer Refuses?

If your insurer declines to provide a detailed claims report, ask what information it can share instead. An aggregate claims figure, the basis of the renewal adjustment, or a breakdown of specific premium loadings may still help you understand what changed.

Not every request will produce a detailed report. But a refusal to provide claims data does not necessarily mean the pricing discussion is over.

💡 Pro Tip: If your insurer cannot provide a detailed claims report, ask for the specific pricing adjustment behind your renewal increase. Sometimes that number is more useful than the claims history itself.

✅ Action Step: Before accepting your next group health insurance renewal, ask your advisor to explain what is driving the increase. Is it claims experience, medical inflation, changes in membership, underwriting adjustments, or changes to the deductible? Understanding these factors can help you identify where there may be room to negotiate.

For Internationally Mobile Teams

Transparency matters beyond renewal pricing. Employers managing staff across multiple countries need to understand how claims experience, policy structure and underwriting arrangements affect their international private medical insurance (IPMI) programme. A move between countries may require changes to the existing policy or an entirely new insurance arrangement. Understanding these conditions before employees relocate can help prevent unexpected gaps in coverage.

How IPG Can Help

Before accepting your next group health insurance renewal, ask one question: what is actually driving the increase?

IPG is a boutique insurance agency in Singapore working with Sompo, Allianz and Chubb. We review the available claims experience and pricing information as part of our renewal process, and where additional detail could help, we request clarification from the insurer. Sometimes the claims experience explains the increase. Sometimes the answer is in the pricing structure. And sometimes there are alternatives worth considering. The important thing is knowing the difference before making a decision.

Have a group health insurance renewal coming up? Talk to IPG before accepting the new terms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Written by Carolina Marte, Managing Director of IPG, drawing on her experience advising employers and internationally mobile professionals on health insurance across Asia.