42.7% Don't Know This Benefit Exists: What Our Survey Found
Jasmin Wanner, Founder · August 12, 2026 · 5 min read
We surveyed 124 insured working professionals in the New York City metro area between April 4 and April 19, 2026, asking a simple question: do you know your health plan might pay you back for your gym membership, and have you ever claimed it?
The answers describe a benefit that technically exists and functionally does not.
Finding one: most people do not know
42.7% of respondents did not know their health plan might include a fitness reimbursement at all. Not that they were unsure of the amount, or fuzzy on the process — they did not know the category of benefit existed.
This is the first failure, and it is upstream of everything else. A benefit you have never heard of has a claim rate of zero regardless of how easy filing might be.
Finding two: knowing is not enough
75.0% of respondents had never filed a claim.
Put those two numbers side by side and something important falls out. If 42.7% were unaware but 75.0% have never filed, then roughly a third of respondents knew the benefit existed and still did not claim it. Awareness alone does not produce a filed claim.
The two barriers, in respondents' own terms
When asked what stopped them, respondents split almost evenly between the two failures:
- 46.2% named lack of awareness as their barrier
- 44.1% named administrative friction
That near-even split is the whole thesis in one line. These are sequential problems, not competing explanations. First you have to learn the benefit exists. Then you have to get through the filing process. Each stage sheds people.
What the friction actually looks like
Administrative friction sounds abstract until you itemize a real program. To claim the Oxford Sweat Equity benefit, a member must log 50 gym visits in a six-month period, retain proof of payment, obtain a brochure describing the facility's cardiovascular equipment, get a gym representative to physically sign a form, and mail the completed packet to Salt Lake City within 120 days of the period ending. An incomplete packet is rejected in full.
None of those steps is hard. All of them together, for $200, six months after you started tracking, is enough for most people to not finish.
What it costs the average person
90.2% believe they left money behind
Among respondents who had never successfully claimed, 90.2% believed they had left more than $0 unclaimed. They were not wrong about the benefit existing. They were stuck on the paperwork.
What that is worth depends entirely on the plan. Someone on an Oxford plan who claims nothing forgoes up to $400 a year. Someone eligible for the NYC Management Benefits Fund forgoes up to $1,000. The survey measured behaviour, not dollars, so the honest way to size your own number is to read it off your own program rather than off an average.
Why this is a product and not a pamphlet
If the only barrier were awareness, the fix would be information — a better benefits email, a clearer plan document. But the survey says roughly a third of people already knew and still did not file. Telling them again does not move them.
The friction has to come down too: the visit tracking, the deadline watching, the document assembly, the form. That is the part software can actually carry.
Method note: GymClaim Consumer Survey (Wanner, 2026), n=124, fielded April 4–19, 2026, among insured working professionals in the New York City metro area. Percentages describe survey respondents and are not projected to the national insured population.
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