Montana: APPROVED avg. 2021 #ACA rate changes: +1.4% indy market, +2.4% sm. group

It was just a few weeks ago that the Montana Insurance Department posted the preliminary 2021 rate filings for the individual & small group markets. At the time, the individual market carriers were requesting a 3.2% average rate increase, while the small group carriers wanted a 2.4% bump.

Unfortunately, the actual actuarial filing memos ("Part II Justification") weren't available as of this writing, so I couldn't tell whether there's any COVID-19 impact specifically mentioned or not. Montana is one of the states with the fewest casese of COVID per capita, so I wasn't expecting much, but it would be nice to know.

Today I checked again and it looks like they've not only posted the Actuarial Memos (which don't mention COVID-19 at all, as I expected), but it also looks like Montana is the first state to publish their final/approved 2021 rate changes as well. They also modified the estimated enrollment numbers somewhat. Here's what it looks like now:

The small group market rate filings appear to have been approved as is, while the individual market filings were all cut down by the insurance regulators, from 3.3% (adjusted for the modified enrollment) down to 1.4%.

As a result, the average unsubsidized individual market enrollee will be paying around $100/year more next year.