Virginia: *Final* avg. unsubsidized 2025 #ACA rate changes: +4.0%; Aetna drops out (updated)

Originally posted 9/18/24

After last year's near-chaos on Virginia's individual market, things seem to be much calmer & less interesting this year. The premium increases for 2025 being requested by individual market carriers have a weighted average of 4.0%, while small group market carriers are asking for 6.8% increases on average.

The most noteworthy news for 2025 is that Aetna Life Insurance (their EPO division) is exiting the Virginia market, although Aetna Health (HMOs) is sticking around.

UPDATE: I thought Piedmont was also pulling out in 2025, but it turns out they left Virginia's individual market last fall at the very last minute.

In addition, it looks like Aetna is pulling completely out of the small group market, as is Innovation Health and, again, Piedmont Community.

According to the official data from CMS and the carriers, over 100% of Virginia's individual market is on-exchange, which obviously can't be the case; the discrepancy is mostly due to not knowing the current enrollment numbers for Aetna Life.

UPDATE 9/23/24: Whoops...it looks like I had a minor screwup when I first posted this last week; the filings which I had entered as preliminary rate changes for 2025 are actually the final/approved rate changes (the wording on the rate summary page is a bit confusing...the column headers read "initial requested" and "final requested" but the footnote states that these are representative of the rates "approved by the Virginia Bureau of Insurance (BOI) and supporting data."

I can only conclude that the final "requested" rates are also the rates approved by the VBOI.