Average annual premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance grew just 3% this year for family coverage, but employees’ share of those costs surged 14%, according to a survey released Thursday.

The 12th annual Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust “Employer Health Benefits” survey found that employee contributions for single coverage grew 15% compared with the 5% increase in annual employer premiums.

As a result, employees paid an average of $3,997 toward the $13,770 cost of family coverage and $899 toward the $5,059 cost of single coverage this year. By comparison, employees last year paid an average $3,515 toward the $13,275 cost of family coverage and $779 toward the $4,824 cost of single coverage.

Since 1999, the share of health care premiums paid by employees has increased 159%, while the cost of employer-sponsored health care benefits has grown 138%, according to the study.

Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Washington-based Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, attributed the recent surge in employee health care coverage contributions largely to the recession, saying that many employers—Kaiser included—are asking employees to take on a greater share of the health care cost burden so their firms can continue to afford to offer the coverage and perhaps avoid layoffs.

“I think it is a recession survival tactic,” he said during a Thursday news conference in Washington.

“The continued economic downturn is leading to more burden for employees in terms of what they have to pay for their health insurance,” Gary Claxton, vp and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project at KFF, said during the news conference.

Because significant cost-sharing still is permitted under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Mr. Claxton said he expects the trend of greater health benefit cost-sharing with employees will continue in the next few years.

The survey, however, was unable to gauge the effects of PPACA on employer-sponsored health benefit costs because much of it was conducted before the reform measure became law earlier this year, he said.

While employee contributions to the cost of coverage grew significantly, the scope of that coverage eroded somewhat, Mr. Altman noted.

In particular, the percentage of employees enrolled in plans with deductibles of $1,000 or more grew to 27% this year from 22% last year, while the percentage with deductibles of $2,000 or more for single coverage grew to 10% this year from 7% last year.

“Insurance in this country is gradually changing, becoming less comprehensive, so that what workers get today is less comprehensive than what their parents got,” Mr. Altman said.

In a first during the 2010 survey, respondents were asked whether they review performance indicators on health plans’ clinical and service quality. While 34% of employers with 200 or more employees said they reviewed such performance indicators, only 5% of small employers did so.

Megan McHugh, director of research at HRET, described the numbers as “troubling.”

“Employers are not holding health plans accountable for the quality of care” their employees are receiving, Ms. McHugh said. “Firms might simply be choosing health plans based on price.”

Among other significant survey findings:

The survey was conducted between January and May and included responses from 3,143 randomly selected nonfederal public and private employers with three or more workers. The full report and summary of findings are available at www.kff.org/insurance/8085/index.cfm. Selected findings also were published Thursday as a Web First article in the journal Health Affairs at www.healthaffairs.org.