New Jersey: Preliminary avg. 2021 #ACA premiums: +4.1% individual market, +2.6% sm. group

At long last, I've finally wrapped up my 50-state (+DC) 2021 Rate Change project...or at least the preliminary rate filings; I have the final/approved rate changes for 18 states as of this writing.

I'm finishing things off with New Jersey, and unlike the past half-dozen or so states, I am able to run a properly weighted average for both the individual and small group markets in the Garden State even though, like many other states, the actuarial memos are either unavailable or heavily redacted.

I'm able to do this thanks to NJ's policy of providing public quarterly reports tracking their individual and small group market enrollment, including breakouts by carrier (they also break it out by metal level, HMO vs. PPO and so forth, which is awesome for data wonks).

In any event, based on the Q2 2020 report (which includes enrollment data updated through the end of June), 2021 enrollees in New Jersey's individual market are looking at average premium increases of around 4.1%, while small group plans are going up by roughly 2.6% on average.

I still have to go back in and fill out the approved rates for 2/3 of the states once they become available, and I'm still not happy that I only have unweighted averages for over a half-dozen states (which can be quite different from the weighted averages), but it looks like average 2021 premiums will only be going up modestly vs. 2020...by less than 2.1% on average nationally.