Employers looking for evidence that benefits can influence more than employee wellbeing have another measure to consider.

Workers with the highest levels of personal resilience were twice as likely to report good or excellent job performance as those with the lowest levels, according to Zurich Insurance Group’s Global People Resilience Study 2026. The difference was 88% against 44% across 11,175 working-age adults in 16 countries.

The study does not establish that resilience causes better performance, and its performance measure is self-reported. Still, the relationship held across occupations and job levels, with resilience 2.5 times more predictive of reported performance than income.

Financial resilience was the weakest of the five areas Zurich examined despite being one of the strongest contributors to overall resilience. Only 51% of workers felt confident they could cover a few months without income, while 61% believed their insurance protection met their needs.

That gap strengthens the case for looking beyond medical coverage when assessing whether benefits leave workers able to absorb a financial shock. Income protection, life insurance, supplemental health coverage, savings programs and financial education can address different parts of that exposure.

The business case also extends to retention. Highly resilient employees were more than four times as likely to recommend their employer, with an employee Net Promoter Score 75 points higher than the least resilient group.

Those findings come as employers scrutinize benefits spending more closely. Lockton’s 2026 National Benefits Survey found cost reduction is now the top benefits priority for 54% of employers, up from 38% in 2025, though 81% still said employee impact was a primary consideration when evaluating plan changes.

“For employers, there is a clear opportunity to invest… companies with resilient employees will be better prepared to navigate the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow,” said Alison Martin, CEO Life, health and bank distribution at Zurich Insurance Group.

Affordability complicates that argument. More than three-quarters of US workers experienced higher medical premiums in 2026, according to LIMRA’s Benefits and Employee Attitude Tracker study. Half changed their financial or benefits behavior in response, including 16% who reduced spending on other benefits and 12% who cut retirement contributions.

Only 45% said they could cover an unexpected $2,000 medical bill, while a majority of households would struggle to meet living expenses within several months if they lost a breadwinner’s income.

That creates a clear benefits tension: workers may need greater financial protection just as rising health costs leave them with less room to pay for it. The challenge is therefore not simply adding more coverage, but identifying the largest protection gaps, deciding how benefits should be funded and showing enough value to justify the spend.

Zurich’s framework measures resilience across psychological, physical, social, financial and digital domains. It also distinguishes resilience from wellbeing: wellbeing reflects how people are functioning today, while resilience measures how prepared they are to cope when circumstances change.

“Adaptability is becoming one of the most valuable workforce capabilities. 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.