California Individual And Group Health Insurance Plans

Union Bank Press Release -Mar. 3: San Francisco - More than half of California's small business owners do not provide their employees with health care coverage while almost one in three cite growth opportunities as the biggest advantage of doing business in the state, according to the 2006 Union Bank of California Small Business Survey released today. For the first time in the survey's six-year history, a majority of California's employers (52 percent) indicated they do not offer health-care coverage to employees. For those employers who do offer a health care plan, 25 percent said that rising costs have caused them to shift larger portions of the heath care burden to their employees and to reduce overall health benefits. For the third year in a row, 30 percent of respondents selected "Opportunities for Growth" as the top advantage for doing business in California, many indicating they have specific plans to do so. About 36 percent expect their staffing level to be higher than in 2005. Forty-two percent of the companies plan to invest in land, buildings and equipment this year. About 43 percent plan to increase the volume of inventories. The survey respondents also rated family ties (20 percent) and climate (17 percent) as advantages to staying in state."We've found that the experiences of small business owners generally mirror those of mid-sized companies and of large multinationals in that the rising cost of providing health care to their employees is becoming prohibitively expensive," said Phil Flynn, chief operating officer, Union Bank of California. "Overall though, California's small business owners paint an optimistic picture for 2006 about business conditions, the economy and their ability to handle persistent issues with the high cost of benefits."Small business owners identified the cost of workers' compensation as the No. 1 challenge of running a business in California the third consecutive year it was ranked the top challenge. Although 51.2 percent cited workers' compensation as their biggest worry this year, that number is down from 66 percent in 2005.The California economy (34 percent), state and local regulations (32 percent), health care costs (31 percent) and increased taxes (31 percent) rounded out the top five challenges small business owners said they face. The availability of skilled labor has risen to the sixth spot (27 percent), an increase of eight percentage points since 2004."Small businesses are an extremely important source of new jobs in California, and I am heartened that they are set to increase their staffing level this year," said Keitaro Matsuda, senior economist, Union Bank of California. "As those companies begin to hire additional workers, however, they are likely to find it more difficult to locate the best-suited individuals for the positions available, because the California labor market is becoming increasingly tight."The percentage of employers offering retirement plans, such as a 401(k), continued to decrease over the past several years. Seventy-five percent of small business owners polled confirmed that they do not offer a retirement plan - a six percentage-point increase from the 2004 survey results. In regards to workers' compensation insurance, 29 percent of small business owners stated that their 2005 insurance premium (per employee) increased down 17 percentage points from last year’s survey. More than half (56 percent) indicated that their premiums remained the same while 15 percent stated that their premiums decreased which is up by seven percentage points from the previous year. The Small Business Survey was conducted through individual interviews of nearly 2,000 small business owners from Jan. 9, 2006 to Jan. 24, 2006 throughout California. Based in San Francisco, UnionBanCal Corporation (NYSE:UB) is a bank holding company with assets of $49.4 billion at December 31, 2005. Its primary subsidiary, Union Bank of California, N.A., had 315 banking offices in California, three in Washington, and one in Oregon at December 31, 2005. The company's Web