Open Enrollment 101: What You Need to Know

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- As we approach the season in which Americans open their wallets to splurge on Christmas gifts, you can take the opportunity to do some saving.

Yes, open enrollment season is here, the time of year employees can get down to brass tacks and make some real changes to their employer-sponsored health insurance plan. Whether your family situation has changed in a way that affects your insurance needs or you simply want to pay less in premiums, you should put some serious thought into the decisions you make in the next couple of months. Here's what the experts say you should consider.

It's health plan open enrollment season, and you should consider making plan changes rather than remaining on auto-pilot.

Take off the "auto-pilot"
Perhaps this goes without saying, but the biggest asset you can bring to the process is your time. As in, actually taking the time to dig out your current benefits package and shopping around for alternative plans and, if possible, providers.

"The first thing [employees] need to be doing is not taking that benefit package and putting it in their desk and never looking at it again," says Carrie McLean, consumer insurance specialist for eHealthInsurance, an online source of health insurance. "They just go on autopilot and don't think about it, and they need to be thinking about it." This is especially important since many employers are raising cost for employees, McLean adds.

How much are they raising those costs? The National Business Group on Health says insurance costs are expected to rise by 7.2% in 2012, and according to Towers Watson, an HR consulting firm, two-thirds of all midsize and large companies will be raising their employees' health insurance premiums next year.

Consider booting the kids
One of the biggest factors in rising premiums? New federal laws mandating that children up to age 26 can be kept on as dependents on your plan. As such, these dependent plans in particular have gone up in cost, so you may want to look into getting them on separate plans to see if it's more cost-effective.

"We've gone through a year of employers feeling the effects of older adult [children] staying on the plan, and they're going to be raising those premiums," McLean says. "Just because the government says you can keep your kids on doesn't mean you have to."