HEALTHCARE BENEFITS

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Total health benefit cost per employee is expected to rise 8.2% on average next year, marking the highest increase since 2003, according to a new survey of over 1,800 US employers from professional services firm Marsh.

And that’s with cost-reduction measures. If US employers take no action to lower costs, employers expect an 11% rise in the cost of current plans, the survey found.

“Think of that 11% as the underlying trend. That is how medical benefit costs are increasing, and then employers have the opportunity to try to manage that trend down to a number that they can handle, and that’s the 8.2%,” Beth Umland, director of employer research for health and benefits at Marsh, told CFO Brew.

Should these anticipated rises occur, 2027 will be the fifth consecutive year of “elevated health benefit cost growth,” Marsh said, and the 8.2% climb would be the highest increase in that five-year period.

“It’s getting close to three times CPI, so that’s going to be tough for any organization to manage, especially since healthcare costs are already expensive,” Umland said. “You add those kinds of increases on it, and it’s certainly getting CFOs’ attention.”

The use of GLP-1s “has really been a factor pushing up cost,” Umland said.—NP

      

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RISK MANAGEMENT

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Natural disasters have become more commonplace and severe amid a warming global climate, leaving organizations (and their CFOs) to find new ways of mitigating the associated risks.

That said, it’s about as surprising as sunshine in a Southern California forecast that Verisk bumped up its estimate on average annual insured natural-catastrophic losses to $171 billion, a $19 billion (or 12%) increase from its 2025 estimate. The US accounts for the majority ($117 billion, or 68%) of Verisk’s estimate.

The total figure ($117 billion) represents “the number the [insurance] industry must be prepared to withstand on average,” the insurance data and technology company noted in its 2026 Global Modeled Catastrophe Losses Report.

It is also “not determined by the outcome of one hurricane season or one year of catastrophe losses,” Jay Guin, chief research officer of Verisk’s catastrophe and risk solutions team, said in a news release. “It reflects a wide distribution of potential events across perils and regions, using current exposure data and a view of hazard grounded in the near-present climate.”

Severe thunderstorms made up the largest share of the firm’s modeled average losses, at 40%, followed by hurricanes at 27% and earthquakes at 10%.

Insured natural catastrophe losses in the first half of 2026 have been below trend, Swiss Re said.—AZ

      

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ACCOUNTING

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The AICPA is out with some more new guidance around digital assets, as market interest grows around cryptocurrencies such as stablecoins.

New additions to the AICPA’s digital-assets practice aid for accounting and auditing professionals include a chapter on accounting considerations for stablecoin issuers. The chapter addresses how to account for obligations with issued tokens and considerations related to the reserve assets that support stablecoins. And a new auditing chapter details how to handle crypto-mining revenue arrangements.

“As digital asset business models continue to evolve, practitioners are encountering increasingly complex accounting and auditing questions,” Di Krupica, AICPA senior manager of assurance and advisory innovation, specializing in digital assets, said in a press release. “These updates provide additional clarity in areas where demand for guidance has grown and help professionals align their work with current standards and emerging practices.”

The updates follow a significant overhaul of the practice aid in January 2025, which the AICPA developed in response to a FASB accounting standards update on crypto assets. Last September, the AICPA also added a chapter focused on auditing the lending and borrowing of digital assets.

Banks are warming to the idea of stablecoins.—AZ

      

market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 30%. The percentage by which the number of sales employees receiving equity grants has increased since mid-2025, according to payroll platform Deel, which analyzed 8,000 employee grants from 480 US companies. Marketers saw a 24% increase in stock awards. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results. The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control.”—Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is calling for a ban on artificial “superintelligence” (Politico)

Read: There’s only one Elon Musk—and that could be a problem for SpaceX investors. (CNN Business)

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