Only half of workers could cover a few months without income, Zurich study finds
Workers who say they could handle a financial or personal setback also rate their own job performance far higher, and they're much more likely to recommend their employer, according to the Global People Resilience Study 2026 from Zurich Insurance Group.
Among the 11,175 working-age adults Zurich surveyed across 16 countries, 88 percent of the most resilient reported good or excellent performance at work. For the least resilient, it was 44 percent.
The performance measure is self-reported, and the study doesn't prove resilience causes better work. But the link held across occupations and job levels. Resilience was also 2.5 times more predictive of reported performance than income was.
The retention data is harder to wave off. Highly resilient employees were more than four times as likely to recommend their employer, and their employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) was 75 points higher than the least resilient group's.
Financial resilience scored lowest
Zurich scored resilience in five areas: psychological, physical, social, financial and digital. Financial came in last, even though it was one of the biggest contributors to the overall score. Only 51 percent of workers were confident they could get through a few months without income, and 61 percent thought their insurance protection met their needs.
Zurich separates resilience from wellbeing, which is a useful distinction for anyone evaluating a wellbeing program. Wellbeing is how someone is doing now. Resilience is how they would cope with a layoff, a serious illness or a death in the family.
"Resilience provides a forward-looking indicator of how prepared people are to navigate future uncertainty," said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in England.
US employees are cutting back to cover premiums
US numbers show why financial resilience is slipping. More than three-quarters of US workers saw medical premiums go up in 2026, according to LIMRA's Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker study. Half changed their spending or benefits choices because of it. Sixteen percent cut back on other benefits, and 12 percent lowered their retirement contributions.
Just 45 percent said they could pay an unexpected $2,000 medical bill. Most households would have trouble covering living expenses within several months if they lost a breadwinner's income, LIMRA found.
So the employees with the least cushion are dropping the coverage meant to protect them, because rising health premiums leave less in each paycheck for anything else.
Cost cutting is now the top benefits priority
That puts benefits teams in a bind heading into renewals. Lockton's 2026 National Benefits Survey found 54 percent of employers now rank cost reduction as their top benefits priority, up from 38 percent in 2025. Still, 81 percent said the effect on employees was a primary consideration when weighing plan changes.
Income protection, life insurance, supplemental health, emergency savings and financial education tend to be judged on claims and participation when they come up for review. Zurich's data adds performance and eNPS to that discussion, and those are numbers a CFO also watches.
Co-workers matter too. Principal Financial Group research found employees are 22 percent more loyal when they see colleagues use coverage such as accident or critical illness insurance, even if they never file a claim themselves. HRD covered that research this week in a piece on benefits as a retention tool and year-round engagement.
Low awareness undercuts the spend
None of this works if employees don't know what they have. Aon figures cited by Gallagher show employers spend up to $20,000 per employee a year on health plans and less than $10 per employee explaining them, a gap HRD looked at in its reporting on the benefits education shortfall earlier this month.
Participation in wellbeing programs is low as well. Nearly one in four employers told Gallagher that fewer than 20 percent of eligible employees use them, one reason benefits employees never touch are drawing more attention from finance teams.
Zurich's findings don't point to buying another product. They point to figuring out where employees are most exposed and who should pay to close that gap. Then there's the harder part, making sure people know the coverage exists before the week they need it.
