Florida: *Final* avg. unsubsidized 2025 #ACA rate changes: +7.5%; Simply Healthcare & Wellpoint joining exchange (updated)

Originally posted 8/30/24

Florida state law gives private corporations wide berth as to what sort of information, which is easily available in some other states, they get to hide from the public under the guise of it being a "trade secret." In the case of health insurance premium rate filing data, that even extends to basic information like "how many customers they have."

If you think I'm being sarcastic, this is literally a screenshot of what you get if you attempt to use the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's filing search:

In any event, this means that I can only run the numbers on unweighted average rate change requests in Florida for the moment, since even the federal Rate Review website only lists the average rate changes themselves, while the enrollment data is redacted for nearly every carrier in both the individual and small group markets.

The current enrollment (as of March 2024) is available for three of the individual market carriers (and two small group carriers). Unfortunately, without knowing this for the remaining 11, I can't do a weighted average, although I can run a very crude "semi-weighted" average if I assume the total enrollment statewide to be slightly over 4.5 million (on-exchange enrollment was 4.1 million as of February) and that all eleven of the unknown enrollment figures is the same (which obviously isn't the case). This gives an average increase of 6.2%, which isn't that different from the unweighted average of 6.1%.

For the small group market I can't even do that; I have no clue how many small group enrollees there are statewide, so I can only present the unweighted average increase of 4.3%.

UPDATE 9/19/24: OK, the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FLOIR) has published their final/approved rate changes for both the indy and small group markets. While these don't include the enrollment numbers for each carrier, they do clarify what the weighted average rate change is for both markets: +7.5% for individual market plans, +9.4% for small group plans.

It's also worth noting that there are two new entries into Florida's individual market in 2025: Simply Healthcare and Wellpoint (h/t Louise Norris for the catch).

It's also worth noting that while Florida's total market size isn't know, based on data from CMS and estimates by myself and Mark Farrah Associates, it looks like ar ound 90% of it is on exchange, which sounds about right.