Investing November 26, 2001

Canadians Growing Wary of Stock Market

November 26, 2001 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The appeal of the American stock market has apparently been lost on Canadians.

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According to a recent MoneySense/Quicken Personal Finance Omnibus Survey, many Canadians would choose not to invest any money in the stock market – even if they had CDN$10,000 at their disposal.

This is in dramatic contrast to a similar survey conducted last year, when only 5% of respondents would have avoided the market. This year, 44% of respondents said they would.

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The survey found that Canadians are placing a strong emphasis on saving for their futures. In fact, nearly 90% of respondents indicated they were saving for the future in some form. Overall, 40% of respondents said their highest priority was saving for retirement.

Slightly more than a quarter of Canadians, 26%, reported a contribution of between one and 5% of their income to a retirement savings plan. However, almost one third of Canadians, 31% are still not allocating any of their income towards retirement savings

Benefits November 21, 2001

Employers Continue To Absorb Rising Healthcare Costs

November 21, 2001(PLANSPONSOR.com) - Average health plan premiums are expected to climb in 2002 - by over 15% for sponsors of fully insured plans, and by 11% for those with self-funded plans, a new survey by UBS Warburg finds.

Reported by

Charles Epstein

And while that trend is expected to continue into 2002, with 93% of the sample expecting further premium increases, most employers still say they will not be passing those costs onto employees:

almost 73% said that they would not be raising premiums,
only 15% plan to increase premiums for workers, and
the remainder, 12% were unsure

Based on the survey results, UBS Warburg projects that workers share of premiums will reach 21.4% for 2002 from 17.5% this year. In the past, employees? contributions have been as high as 28%.

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Market Shuffle

Results also suggest that the trend towards the three-tiered co-payment system for prescription drugs will continue, with three-tier member penetration expected to rise to 64% next year, compared to 55% in 2001. Some 22% of the sample plans to move more employees to this system.

Preferred provider organization penetration increased its market share from 36.8% in 1999, to 42.5% in 2000 and 46.9% for 2001.

On the other hand, survey results show that health maintenance organization or point-of-service plan penetration fell from 49.1% in 2000, to 46.3% in 2001.

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