It’s the same pattern every renewal. Claims spike, so leaders immediately look to find a solution to impact that pattern. An employee survey reveals a gap in satisfaction with the benefits offered, so HR kicks off an RFP to add additional programs that employees will value. An important step in this process, which is less intuitive but no less important, is evaluating what’s in place and whether it should be kept. That point solution that got added two renewals ago that nobody’s checked on since? It’s quietly bleeding budget while the plan gets another new line item instead.
Employee access to workplace wellbeing programs has climbed steadily; 85% of employees now report access to at least one point solution program, up from 78% just three years earlier, yet utilization has held flat around 35%, according to Alight’s 2025 Employee Mindset Study. Employers are adding more and employees aren’t using it. In a competitive environment where every dollar gets scrutinized, that’s money leaking out of the plan.
See also: Your HR tech stack is being rebuilt around you. Do you have a voice in it?
The hidden bleed of benefits debt
Point solution stacks often build the way an entertainment streaming stack does. You sign up for one platform to catch a single show, another for a different series, and the subscriptions outlast the shows themselves, billing months after the finale aired.
How does this show up in benefit spend? It’s those programs added to solve problems that no longer exist. Think of a stand-alone smoking cessation platform added in 2019 that is still on the books after the population that needed it aged out of the workforce. In some cases, organizations adopt too many solutions tackling the same problem. Either one program emerges as the true winner or neither is being used, because employees don’t understand which solution best fits their needs.
None of this shows up on a P&L line labeled waste. It just sits there, renewed on autopilot, drawing the budget down a little more each cycle.
Why the stack keeps growing
Open enrollment structurally rewards addition. There’s rarely a formal moment where anyone asks whether to keep or remove something. Leaders add a fertility benefit because a competitor just announced one, or a caregiving stipend because it came up in an exit interview, but what’s harder to find in benefits data is coverage or perks coming off the same way they went on.
Though subtraction does happen. SHRM’s 2025 Employee Benefits Survey found formal wellness program offerings fell to 39% of employers, down sharply from 53% in 2021. While this could be due to true evaluation of program ROI, it reads more like a reaction to cost pressure than a standing discipline. Programs get cut when the budget finally forces the question, not because it was part of the standard annual process of program evaluation.
The portfolio instinct is already emerging
Rising healthcare costs are causing many employers to take a step back and evaluate their entire vendor stack. Business Group on Health’s 2026 Employer Healthcare Strategy Survey found 41% of employers are changing PBMs or running a formal RFP this benefits cycle, with 51% doing the same for other health and wellbeing vendor relationships. Half of the market re-testing vendor relationships indicates a trend around holding partners accountable; however, it shouldn’t take the highest medical trend in decades for this to occur. It should be embedded in the annual review process, whether or not costs moved at all.
Run open enrollment like a portfolio review
So, what’s the answer? Treat the benefits stack the way you’d treat an investment portfolio. Nobody holds every fund forever regardless of performance. A portfolio review starts with a plain question for every holding: Is this still earning its place? All benefits that you invest in deserve the same level of scrutiny.
Start with utilization data by vendor line, tracked on a running basis rather than pulled together at renewal. Set a threshold in advance, such as two consecutive years under a defined engagement rate, for example, that triggers a mandatory review instead of an automatic renewal. Ask whether the workforce problem a vendor was hired to solve still exists in the same form, because a benefit built for a five-year-old priority doesn’t automatically age well.
Reallocation matters as much as removal. Savings from a retired point solution should follow the data on where employees actually need support now, not land as a flat line-item reduction on a spreadsheet. If claims data points to a shift toward caregiving needs, or a newer mental health benefit is drawing real engagement while a legacy wellness platform draws none, that’s where the freed-up dollars belong.
A standing discipline, not a cleanup project
Vendor fatigue and benefits debt build back up the moment the review stops. Treat the audit as a permanent part of the calendar, the same way a portfolio gets rebalanced on a schedule rather than only when something breaks. Run this analysis every cycle, and the stack stays honest. Skip a year, and the debt is already back by the next renewal.
The post Benefits debt: The liability employers create before open enrollment appeared first on HR Executive.
This article was originally published on HR Executive. Click below to read the complete article.