How do Walmart's 2025 employee health insurance premiums compare to 2024 rates for the same plan tiers?

1. What the documents are and where to find the numbers

Walmart has an internal 2025 premium schedule titled “2025 Benefits rates: your cost for coverage” and a matching 2024 file “2024 Benefits rates”; these are the primary sources for precise premium dollar amounts by tier (Associate only, Associate + Spouse/Partner, Associate + Children, Associate + Family) for each plan option ^{[1] [2]}. The 2025 Summary of Benefits & Coverage and PPO-specific SBCs also accompany the rate sheet and are labeled for the 2025 coverage period, meaning the cleanest comparison is to pull the 2024 rate sheet and match each plan and tier to the corresponding 2025 line item ^{[6] [7]}.

2. What the files say about plan design changes (context for comparisons)

Walmart’s 2025 COBRA and benefits guides state that “in most areas, you won’t see any major changes to your plans in 2025,” and where regional HMOs changed (example: some Geisinger HMO options in parts of Pennsylvania), affected members were to be moved into the Premier Plan — a reminder to compare like‑for‑like plan options when measuring premium shifts ^[4]. The 2025 Associate Benefits Book and SBC pages reiterate that details about plan costs and eligibility are in the 2025 materials, indicating the company intended the 2025 rate sheets to be the definitive source for premiums ^{[5] [8]}.

3. How to perform an apples‑to‑apples premium comparison

To compare 2024 vs 2025 premiums for the same plan tier, match the exact plan name and tier across the two rate PDFs (for example, “PPO — Associate + Family”). Use the 2024 Rates-2024.pdf as the baseline and the Rates-2025.pdf for the new dollar amounts; watch for any footnoted regional exceptions or reassignments ^{[2] [1] [4]}. If a 2024 HMO option was discontinued and members were auto‑moved to a different plan in 2025, comparing those two is not apples‑to‑apples — instead compare the 2024 plan to the 2025 plan the member will actually be enrolled in ^[4].

4. What the available reporting does and does not provide

Available Walmart materials include the 2024 and 2025 rate tables and SBCs but the search results provided here do not include screenshots or quoted line‑item premium amounts in the snippets — they only confirm the existence and intended use of the rate documents ^{[1] [2] [6]}. Therefore, I cannot quote specific dollar increases or percentage changes from these sources because the exact line numbers and values are not reproduced in the indexed snippets you provided (not found in current reporting). To get exact comparisons, open Rates-2024.pdf and Rates-2025.pdf and calculate the per‑tier differences.

5. What to watch for when you calculate differences

When you extract figures from the two PDFs, check for: (a) identical plan names and benefit designs before comparing premiums; (b) regional plan availability notes (some HMOs removed in parts of Pennsylvania) that can change which plan is comparable; and (c) footnotes on disability or truck‑driver LTD premiums that are income‑based and not standard flat rates ^{[4] [1]}. The SBC and benefit book also note that premium tax credits and Marketplace eligibility depend on employer offer and plan value, which may indirectly affect employees’ net cost choices but not the employer premium line items themselves ^{[3] [7]}.

6. Practical next steps for an exact year‑over‑year answer

Open the two internal PDFs you already have: Rates-2024.pdf and Rates-2025.pdf. For each plan (PPO, Premier, HMO variants) and each tier (Associate only, +Spouse, +Children, +Family), subtract the 2024 premium from the 2025 premium to get absolute and percentage changes. If you want, provide one or two specific plan/tier names and I will compute and contextualize the change — but I need the exact line‑item dollar amounts from those PDFs, which the current indexed snippets do not display (not found in current reporting).

Sources: Walmart Rates-2025 and Rates-2024 rate files (Rates-2025.pdf, Rates-2024.pdf), 2025 Associate Benefits Book, COBRA Decision Guide, and 2025 SBC/PPO materials ^{[1] [2] [5] [4] [6] [7]}.