2026 Benefits Benchmarks: Key Insights for Enterprise Employers

How are large employers designing benefits programs in 2026?

The answer matters because benefits decisions shape long‑term costs, employee experience, and compliance — especially at enterprise scale. As organizations grow, even small program changes can have an outsized impact, making market context a key part of benefits planning.

To help VC‑ and PE‑backed companies with 500 or more employees understand how they compare to peers — and inform planning for 2027 — Sequoia’s 2026 Benefits Benchmarking Report: Enterprise Edition examines how large employers are approaching healthcare, leave, retirement, and wellbeing programs.

Below, we highlight key insights from the report that show where enterprise benefits strategies are holding steady, where they’re adjusting, and how many organizations are fine tuning programs in response to sustained cost pressure.

If you’re interested in getting your company’s benefits programs benchmarked against the full data set, connect with a Sequoia advisor for a complimentary consultation.

2026 Healthcare Benchmarks

Cost containment remains the dominant focus in workforce benefits. Rather than pursuing large scale plan redesigns, employers are concentrating efforts on the fastest growing cost drivers, including weight-management medications and specialty pharmacy.

Here’s how that shows up in the data:

Health plan priorities: In 2026, 82% of employers cited cost reduction as a focus, up from 73% the year before. Attention to affordability also increased, rising from 26% to 32%. This reflects a market still mindful of employee cost pressure, with tighter budget oversight shaping health plan decisions.

Affordability Strategies: Employers are taking more steps to address affordability, but most are doing so selectively and without committing to broad or permanent cost increases. Those reporting no affordability actions fell from 58% to 49%. Among those taking action, lowering employee contributions is the most common approach (24%).

Cost-reduction strategies: Efforts to manage costs extend beyond employee contribution changes. Employers planning to add voluntary benefits increased from 22% to 31%, and those considering pharmacy carve outs rose from 19% to 24%. At the same time, fewer employers are sunsetting low use programs, declining from 31% to 28%. Overall, employers are spreading cost pressure across plan design, vendor structure, and program mix, rather than relying on a single approach.

Pharmacy clinical management practices: Employers are expanding utilization management (including prior authorization, step therapy, or quantity limits that guide appropriate use) to control pharmacy spend. Adoption more than doubled year over year, rising from 24% to 56%. Clinical management of GLP 1 drugs also expanded, increasing from 20% to 36%.

Self-funding: Adoption is accelerating. Compared to last year, medical and pharmacy self funding increased from 36% to 53%, while dental rose from 45% to 52%. This highlights employers’ growing comfort with more financial risk in core health plans.

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2026 Leave Program Benchmarks

Leave strategies are becoming more streamlined. Instead of introducing new leave types, most employers are refining existing policies to meet compliance demands and reduce administrative burden[D

While approaches vary by organization, the broader direction is consistent. Employers are moving toward benefits that are easier to manage and explain, and more intentional in how they deliver value.

Here’s how that shows up in the data:

Policy drivers in the next 12 months: Leave strategy is increasingly shaped by compliance and cost considerations. Regulatory and compliance requirements rose from 44% to 54%, while budget considerations increased from 34% to 41%. This points to a leave agenda focused on manageability and policy discipline, rather than expansion.

Challenges: Leave administration is the most often cited challenge, noted by 68% of employers. While intermittent leave challenges declined from last year to 47%, the overall operational burden remains high. Balancing business needs is cited by 47%, while coordinating short-term disability (STD), long-term disability (LTD), and company leave is a challenge for 43%.

Program priorities: Redesigning or simplifying existing leave policies ranks highest at 39%, while 33% of employers expect to make no major changes. Few employers are expanding scope — only 10% plan to add new leave benefits, and 7% expect to broaden eligibility.

Parental leave policy structure: To manage costs, most employers deliver paid parental leave through STD with an employer top up rather than funding it entirely outside disability coverage. This approach is used by 74[DH3.1]% of employers. Among employers offering paid parental leave, 87% replace 100% of salary.

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2026 Retirement Program Benchmarks

Retirement benefits continue to mature steadily. Employer matching, automatic features, and incremental plan design refinements are becoming more common, signaling long term investment rather than rapid change.

Here’s how that shows up in the data:

Plan design features: Roth 401(k) access is nearly universal at 98%, and about half of employers offer additional after tax contributions. The clearest area of change is self directed brokerage access, which increased 7% to 41%. This suggests employers are expanding flexibility for more engaged savers without altering core plan design.

Automatic enrollment: To boost participation, companies continue to adopt automatic enrollment, which is used in 73% of plans[DH4.1]. Default contribution rates are also holding steady: 51% set defaults at 5% or higher, and the share using defaults above 6% increased 7% to 30%.

Matching contributions: Match prevalence remains high at 82%. The most notable change is how matches are delivered. True up provisions increased 7% to 65%. This reflects a focus on predictability for employees, rather than simply increasing match generosity.

Match effective rates: The center of the market is a 3% to 4% effective match, with both levels cited by 34% of employers. However, plans offering a 5% or higher effective match increased 11% to 24%, indicating a widening distribution.

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2026 Wellbeing Benefits Benchmarks

Employers are expanding wellbeing programs more selectively. They’re maintaining offerings that show clear value while placing greater emphasis on utilization, structure, and measurable outcomes.

Here’s how that shows up in the data:

Program adjustments: Wellbeing is still a core part of benefits strategies. In 2026, 69% of employers report no change to their programs, while 28% are adding initiatives and only 3% are reducing scope. Rather than broad pullbacks, employers are investing in progams where employee value is the clearest.

ROI metrics: Employers are sharpening how they measure wellbeing programs. Utilization leads the way at 92%, but employee feedback is gaining ground, increasing from 83% to 90%. This reflects a growing focus on how these programs actually shape the employee experience.

Wellbeing benefits categories: Wellbeing offerings are broadening as employers pair mental health support with benefits employees can use regularly. Emotional support is the most common category at 88%, while physical wellbeing programs increased from 74% to 81%.

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Benchmark Your Benefits Against the Enterprise Market

The insights highlighted here represent just a part of what’s included in Sequoia’s 2026 Benefits Benchmarking Report, Enterprise Edition. The full report provides deeper enterprise level benchmarks across healthcare, leave, retirement, and wellbeing, including:

• Plan offerings and requirements
• Family forming benefits
• Disability programs
• Self funding and stop loss coverage
• Leave policy structures and durations
• Retirement participation, vesting, and matching
• Wellbeing program offerings and priorities

For benefits leaders making high stakes decisions, benchmarking provides the context needed to pressure test programs, validate tradeoffs, and plan what comes next with confidence. Connect with a Sequoia advisor for a complimentary benefits benchmarking consultation based on our latest data.

Dylan Hughes — Dylan has more than 7 years of experience delivering market insights on compensation and benefits with a primary focus on benchmarking. He leads the market insights program at Sequoia, which provides the latest analytics, market trends, and benchmarking data.