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Zurich study links financial resilience to better job performance
Only 61% of workers said their insurance protection meets their needs, while 51% felt confident covering a few months without income.
Employers assessing benefits are increasingly looking at broader resilience outcomes, according to Zurich Insurance Group’s Global People Resilience Study 2026. Workers with higher personal resilience were twice as likely to report good or excellent job performance as those with the lowest resilience, with the gap running 88% versus 44% across 11,175 working age adults in 16 countries.
The study found resilience is more predictive of self reported job performance than income, with resilience 2.5 times more predictive than income. It also highlighted financial resilience as the weakest of five resilience areas Zurich examined, noting that only 51% of workers felt confident they could cover a few months without income and 61% said their insurance protection met their needs.
Zurich said the findings support evaluating benefits beyond medical coverage, because financial shock absorption can depend on a mix of income protection, life insurance, supplemental health coverage, savings programs, and financial education. It also pointed to retention implications, with highly resilient employees more than four times as likely to recommend their employer and an employee Net Promoter Score 75 points higher than the least resilient group.
The report comes as employers scrutinize benefits spending more closely. Lockton’s 2026 National Benefits Survey found cost reduction is the top benefits priority for 54% of employers, up from 38% in 2025, while 81% still said employee impact is a primary consideration when evaluating plan changes.