Employers’ health spending slows down after one year of GLP-1 coverage

As employers consider whether to add GLP-1 drugs for weight loss to their health plans, one central question is whether these medications can help reduce long-term costs.

The hope is that when employees lose weight with the help of these drugs, they’ll experience fewer complications from chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, resulting in downstream cost savings for employers covering their health plans.

A recent analysis from Aon provides some promising data points to support this hypothesis. While medical costs went up for GLP-1 users during the first year they were on them, those costs grew more slowly than they did for non-users in the years after patients started on the medication.

Impact on medical costs, conditions. Aon drew on commercial medical and pharmacy claims data to study 192,000 GLP-1 users from July 2022 to March 2025.

During the first year that these patients were on GLP-1 medications, the cost of their medical and pharmacy claims increased. This finding isn’t surprising, given the drugs can cost upwards of $1,000 per month. Patients on Wegovy and Zepbound—two popular GLP-1 drugs—saw medical costs rise by 23% during the first 12 months they were on the drugs, compared to 10% for those who weren’t taking them.

“In addition to just the cost of the medication itself, there is increased interaction with physicians and testing and so forth,” said Laura Rissover, healthcare analytics and consulting leader with Aon. Due to these factors, she said her colleagues expected to see a cost increase in the first year of treatment.

After 12 months, though, medical costs for Wegovy and Zepbound users grew by just 2%, compared to 6% for non-users.

A major reason costs grew more slowly for patients on GLP-1s during the second year they were taking them was due to “decreased rates for very expensive intensive conditions such as major cardiovascular events,” Rissover explained. Hospitalizations due to major adverse cardiovascular events (such as strokes or heart attacks) dropped by 37% over two years after patients started GLP-1s.

Doing the math. These findings may help inform how HR teams view GLP-1 coverage going forward, said Farheen Dam, Aon’s head of health for North America. “If you have the ability from a financial perspective…to take a longer-term view on the efficacy of this category of drugs, then there is a positive impact,” she said.

Not all employers have the luxury of taking the long view when it comes to GLP-1s, though, Dam noted. This is particularly true during a year when health premiums are expected to increase by more than 9%, prompting HR leaders to explore strategies such as increasing the share of costs that workers incur for coverage.

At the same time, a push by the Trump administration to lower GLP-1 drug costs, as well as the arrival of new cheaper versions to market, may soon make costs more palatable for employers.

The decision to cover GLP-1s for weight loss will ultimately come down to a company’s margins and HR budget, Dam said. “It’s very much a one by one employer decision, with all of their unique business and people challenges.”