health insurance

Question

Bob’s employer covers 23% of his family’s annual health insurance premium. The balance of the premium is deducted in equal amounts from Bob’s paycheck 26 times over the calendar year. If $185.30 is withheld from each of Bob’s paychecks, what is his family’s annual health insurance premium?

Answer 1

This problem is a Percentage and Fraction problem. To solve it, you need to find out, what is Bob's annual health insurance premium amount.

First Factor: Bob's employer deducts $185.30 from each of his paychecks 26 times. Therefore Bob pays a total of $4817.80 each year for health insurance. [The math to that deduction: $185.30 x 26 = $4817.80]

Second Factor: Bob's employer pays 23% of his annual health insurance premium. ***This factor is key to figuring out the percentage of Bob's annual health insurance premium that Bob pays.*** If Bob's employer pays 23% of the entire annual health insurance premium then Bob pays the remainder, which is 77%.

[The math for Bob's portion of the annual health insurance premium is 100% - 23% = 77%] Therefore we can deduce that $4817.80 is 77% of the annual health insurance premium, which everything we need to write the problem's equation as follows:

$4817.80 = 77% x (annual health insurance premium)

$4817.80 / 77% = annual health insurance premium

$6256.88 = Bob's annual health insurance premium