McCarthy Stevenot Agency, Inc. is conducting the 2026–2027 Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Survey, original research on how Ohio small businesses provide, pay for, and make decisions about health insurance.
The survey is open to Ohio businesses with one to 50 people working in the business, including working owners.
We are especially interested in understanding the experiences of very small businesses, including businesses with fewer than 10 people. These employers are an important part of Ohio’s business community but are not always clearly represented in the major employer health insurance studies.
The survey should be completed by an owner or another person familiar with the company’s health insurance decisions. Please submit one response per business.
About the Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Survey
Small businesses can arrive at very different solutions to the same health insurance problem.
Some sponsor a traditional group health plan. Others use a MEWA, level-funded plan, ICHRA, QSEHRA, or another individual health insurance arrangement. Some provide no financial support because owners and employees already have coverage through spouses, Medicare, Medicaid, VA benefits, the individual Marketplace, or another source.
The survey is designed to better understand questions such as:
- How many Ohio small businesses financially support health insurance?
- How does that change as businesses grow from one or two people to 10, 20, or 50?
- How much of employee and dependent premiums do employers generally pay?
- How large are small-business health insurance renewal increases?
- What changes do employers make when costs rise?
- How do health insurance costs affect profits, wages, hiring, benefits, investment, and prices?
- Why do some businesses choose individual reimbursement rather than group coverage?
- Why do other businesses provide no health insurance support at all?
- What would cause those businesses to reconsider?
- How important is health insurance when recruiting or retaining employees?
- What health insurance challenges are Ohio small businesses facing right now?
Why This Research Is Important
The health insurance decisions facing a business with three people can be very different from those facing a company with 30 or 300.
A new business may be trying to determine whether it can establish group coverage at all. A company may have several people covered through spouses or government programs and little immediate demand for an employer plan. Another employer may suddenly need health insurance to recruit or retain an important employee.
At the same time, existing employers are dealing with renewal increases, employee affordability, participation requirements, plan changes, medical underwriting on some alternative arrangements, and decisions about how much of the cost the business can continue to absorb.
The Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Survey is intended to develop original, recurring data about those decisions and make the findings publicly available.
Our goal is to build an annual benchmark that becomes more useful as participation grows and year-over-year comparisons become possible.
Survey Timing
The 2026–2027 Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Survey will remain open through January 31, 2027.
Preliminary findings will be published in November 2026.
The full 2027 Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Report will be published in March 2027.
The survey does not ask for your name, company name, email address, or telephone number, and responses will not be used for sales follow-up. Results will be reported only in aggregate.
Help Make the Results More Useful
The value of this research depends on hearing from businesses of different sizes, industries, and regions across Ohio.
If you know another Ohio small business owner or decision-maker who may be willing to participate, please share the survey.
The more businesses represented, the more useful the findings can become for Ohio employers, business organizations, journalists, advisers, and others trying to understand the small-business health insurance market.
Share the Survey:
Organizations and Business Groups
Chambers of commerce, professional associations, trade groups, accounting firms, payroll organizations, economic-development groups, and other organizations serving Ohio small businesses are welcome to share the survey with their members and audiences.
We can provide a unique sharing link for participating organizations so we can understand where responses originated while keeping individual survey responses anonymous.
Organizations interested in helping broaden participation may use the materials below.
Survey Media Kit
Survey Description
2026–2027 Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Survey
McCarthy Stevenot Agency, Inc. is conducting original research on how Ohio businesses with one to 50 people provide, pay for, and make decisions about health insurance.
The survey will remain open through January 31, 2027. Preliminary findings will be published in November 2026, with the full 2027 Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Report following in March 2027.
Shareable Images
Click either image to open the full-size version.
Landscape Social / Web Image
1200 × 628 pixels
Square Social Image
1080 × 1080 pixels
Survey Link
https://www.mccarthystevenot.com/ohio-small-business-health-insurance-survey/
About the Research
The Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Survey is conducted by McCarthy Stevenot Agency, Inc., an independent Ohio insurance agency serving small employers.
The research is being conducted independently and is not a sales campaign. Participating organizations may help distribute the survey, but survey questions, analysis, and published findings remain under the direction of McCarthy Stevenot Agency.
As the project develops, this page will become the permanent home for:
- Preliminary findings
- The annual Ohio Small Business Health Insurance Report
- Methodology and sample information
- Charts and downloadable data
- Regional and employer-size findings when response levels support them
- Future annual editions of the survey