These data files are created each year to support creation of the Group Health Plans Reports. The datasets includes all employer-sponsored private-sector welfare plans that are required to file a Form 5500 Annual Return/Report and indicate that the plan offered health benefit to the covered participants.
The Form 5500 Annual Return/Report is the primary source of information about the operations, funding and investments of about 800,000 retirement and welfare benefit plans. The unedited data from all of the filings for each year, including the data in the various schedules are available.
EBSA annually produces auxiliary data focused on characteristics of employer-sponsored insurance. This data, when linked to the March Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (March CPS), generates estimates of the number of individuals with different types of insurance coverage. The data in the auxiliary file is primarily imputed from other datasets.