Insurance: Employee Health-Care Costs Cause Concern

img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>As health-care costs continue to skyrocket, motor carriers said they are exploring a multitude of ways to mitigate costs that are impinging on profitability.

“The bottom line is we have been seeing double-digit in-creases for years. Any time you have a cost that is going up it puts pressure on profits,” said Herb Schmidt, president of Contract Freighters Inc., ad-ding, “There aren’t adequate margins in this business for us to absorb those costs.”

Steven Schloss, managing di-rector of insurance brokerage Marsh USA, said that last year the transportation industry annually spent an average of $6,435 per employee in health-care costs, or about 15% of the average annual salary. Trucking companies employing 500 or more workers can expect that figure to increase 13% this year, after jumping 10.1% in 2003, he said.