Liz Weston: What are your employee benefits really worth?

Benefits make up more than 30% of the typical job’s compensation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics . But figuring out what your benefits are worth isn’t always easy.

You may need to do a little digging to find how much your employer contributes toward health insurance, retirement plans and other perks. Some benefits also have nonmonetary value, and people can value the same benefits in different ways.

For example, people with health conditions are likely to appreciate guaranteed access to disability or life insurance that could be hard to get or prohibitively expensive otherwise. Someone with student loans may value a program to help with education debt far more than someone without student loan debt.

Now that open enrollment season is upon us again, it’s a great time to review your employer’s current offerings. Understanding what your benefits are worth could renew your commitment to your current job — or make you realize it’s time to seek out a better deal. If you’re thinking of becoming self-employed, you can better understand how much more you’ll need to earn to replace your current benefits.