But Fronstin found a size-based split in use of self-insurance: The percentage has increased to 68.5%, from 67.5%, for employees of employers with 50 or more employees, and it has fallen to 10.8%, from 12.5%, for employees of employers with fewer than 50 employees.

An employer with a self-insured or self-funded health plan has the plan itself assume most or all of the claims risk. The employer can hire an ordinary retail health insurer, or an independent third-party administrator, to run the plan, and an employer can buy stop-loss coverage, or health plan insurance, to cover claims that exceed pre-set limits.

States have the legal authority to impose coverage requirements, or mandates, on small employers' self-insured plans but not on large employers' self-insured plans.

Analysts at EBRI looked for evidence that small employers were more likely to self-insure in states with large numbers of mandates, but it found no clear correlation between the number of mandates a state imposes and the percentage of employers that self-insure, Fronstin said.

EBRI analysts would like to look harder at the possibility that a correlation exists by, for example, using data that shows how costly a state's mandates are, as well as how many mandates the state imposes, or data showing how much state health insurance laws and regulations other than benefits mandates cost, Fronstin said.

This article was originally posted at BenefitsPro.com, a sister site of Credit Union Times.