How to Reduce Your Benefits Bill Without Reducing Value for Employees
Your benefits renewal is coming up, and the numbers don’t make for comfortable reading.
Costs are up again. Budgets aren’t. And somewhere between HR, finance and SLT, the same question is being asked:
“Do we really need all of this?”
The pressure isn’t just about cost. It’s about justifying rising spend, proving value, and making changes without damaging employee trust.
With UK private medical insurance costs forecast to rise by around 15%, and sickness absence at its highest level in over a decade, many employers feel stuck between cutting support and absorbing higher costs.
But reducing your benefits bill doesn’t have to mean reducing value. In most cases, the biggest savings come from removing waste, not support.
Finding Clarity in Your Benefits Spend
Reducing benefits costs is rarely about cutting support. It’s about understanding what genuinely delivers value and making informed decisions from there.
1. Review underused benefits (before you remove anything)
Most benefit packages contain a mix of genuinely valuable support and benefits that once made sense but no longer land in the same way. The challenge is that many employers don’t have a clear view of which is which.
We often hear assumptions like:
- “People probably value this”
- “It’s always been part of the package”
- “It’s not that expensive”
But assumptions are costly. Low-engagement benefits quietly drain budget, especially when they’re left untouched for years. That’s why we always recommend starting with insight. A short, well-designed employee survey can quickly reveal:
- which benefits employees genuinely value,
- which are underused or misunderstood,
- and which employees wouldn’t miss if they disappeared.
To make this process simpler, we offer a free Employee Benefits Survey Template to help you gain a clear insight into what your employees value.
Clear insight makes it easier to improve communication around valued benefits and address those that no longer resonate.
2. Negotiate provider costs, not just the price
Renewals are one of the biggest sources of unnecessary spend in employee benefits. Too often, a percentage increase arrives, it’s challenged briefly, and the policy simply rolls on.
What’s missing from many of these conversations is independence. At Bravo Benefits, we are fully independent. We aren’t tied to insurer panels, preferred providers or volume targets. That allows us to step back and ask better questions about what’s driving cost, not just how much it’s going up.
In practice, savings often come from:
- refining plan design without undermining employee experience,
- reviewing eligibility rules that no longer fit the workforce,
- properly benchmarking across the whole market.
The aim isn’t change for the sake of it. It’s protecting what employees value, while removing elements that quietly inflate cost.
Talk to us
If you would like to find out more about our solutions, get in touch.
3. Use salary exchange to improve efficiency without reducing value
Salary exchange is one of the most effective and often overlooked ways to reduce benefits costs.
When implemented properly, it can reduce employer National Insurance costs while maintaining, or even improving, employee value.
We support employers with salary exchange across pensions and other suitable benefits, ensuring schemes are compliant, aligned with payroll, and clearly communicated to employees.
Many employers choose to reinvest the savings generated to offset rising premiums elsewhere or strengthen benefits employees already value. Quiet efficiencies but meaningful impact.
Making Confident Decisions about Your Benefits
Reducing your benefits bill is not about doing less for your people. It’s about making more thoughtful decisions about where support really makes a difference.
With the right insight, employers can simplify benefits, control costs, and strengthen support, so renewal decisions are made with confidence, not pressure.
If you’d value a sounding board as your renewal approaches, a conversation with Bravo Benefits can help you step back, sense-check what’s working, and identify practical changes that protect value while keeping costs under control.
