Originally posted 9/03/24

I'm pleasantly surprised to report that after several years of Kentucky's rate filings being heavily redacted, this year at least (and hopefully going forward), I was able to acquire the actual enrollment data for all of them...not just the individual market, but the small group market as well!

There are four carriers offering policies on the KY individual market (Anthem, CareSource, Molina and WellCare), with an weighted average rate change request of 8.5%, while the small group carriers are requesting steeper average increases of 17.8% for what seems to be shrinking market.

UPDATE 9/19/24: OK, it looks like the approved rate filings have been uploaded to the SERFF database. Average unsubsidized individual market premiums will be going up 7.9%, while small group rates will see a 16.6% average increase.

District of Columbia

Originally posted 8/27/24

via the District of Columbia Dept. of Insurance, Securities & Banking (DISB):

Thursday, May 23, 2024

(yes, I know...I missed this last spring...)

(Washington)– The District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) has received 193 proposed health insurance plan rates for annual review in advance of open enrollment for plan year 2025. The proposed rates were submitted for DC Health Link, the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace, from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Kaiser and United Healthcare.

The proposed rates are for individuals, families and small businesses for the 2025 plan year. Overall, the number of plans submitted for 2025 is down by 22 from those submitted for 2024. The number of small group plans decreased from 188 to 166 while the number of individual plans remained at 27.

Originally published 7/15/24

Arkansas is a problematic state for many reasons, but I have to give their insurance dept. website high praise for posting their annual rate filings in a clear, simple & comprehensive fashion (which is to say, not only do they post the avg. premium changes for each carrier, they also post the number of covered lives for each, which is often difficult for me to dig up). Better yet, they also include direct links to the filing summaries and include the SERFF tracking number for each in case I need to look up more detailed info.

Anyway, there's nothing terribly noteworthy in the 2025 filings. Insurance carriers are seeking an average 4.2% rate hike on the individual market and 9.6% for small group plans.

HMO Partners (Health Advantage) appears to be dropping out of the small group market, but otherwise it looks pretty calm.

Originally posted 8/13/24

The Delaware Dept. of Insurance has posted the preliminary 2025 individual & small group market rate filings from insurance carriers participating in those markets.

The big news on the individual market is that Aetna is seeking massive rate hikes of over 34% next year, though the weighted average across the board being requested is "only" a still ugly 13.3% increase.

On the small group market, average increases are the lower but still-not-great 8.8%. More significantly here is that Aetna and Optimum Choice are pulling out of the Delaware small group market entirely, reducing the number of carriers from six to just two, since Aetna had three divisions operating there.

UPDATE 9/19/24: The Delaware Insurance Dept. has published the final/approved 2025 rate changes for the individual market (small group plans will be finalized in October). Overall, 2025 rate increases have been reduced from 13.3% to 8.5%:

Originally posted 6/24/24

via the Indiana Dept. of Insurance:

IINDIANA 2025 ACA FILINGS

The overall proposed average rate increase for 2025 Indiana individual marketplace plans is -1.6%.

The IDOI will finalize the review of the 2025 ACA compliant filings both on and off the federal Marketplace by August 16, 2024. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will issue the ultimate approval for the Marketplace plans sold in Indiana. CMS will issue its approval on or before September 18, 2024.

General Note:

Connecticut

Originally posted 6/12/24

via the Connecticut Insurance Dept:

CONNECTICUT INSURANCE DEPARTMENT RELEASES HEALTH INSURANCE RATE REQUEST FILINGS FOR 2025

The Connecticut Insurance Department (CID) has received eight rate filings from seven health insurers for plans that will be available on the individual and small group market, both on and off the state-sponsored exchange, Access Health CT. As part of our regulatory responsibilities, we will conduct a thorough examination of these filings to ensure that the requested rates comply with Connecticut’s insurance laws and regulations.

Originally posted 8/30/24

Hawaii only has two health insurance carriers serving the individual market, Hawaii Medical Service Assocation and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Both of them have submitted their proposed premium rate filings for 2025: HMSA is requesting a 7.6% hike, while Kaiser is only asking for a 4.0% bump. The weighted average is 6.4%.

On the small group market, the 5 carriers participating are requesting unweighted average increases of 7.1% statewide.

UPDATE 9/19/24: Hawaii regulators have uploaded the approved 2025 rate filings for the individual market only (I assume the small group filings will be uploaded soon). HMSA's rates will be going up slightly more than originally requested, but overall not much changed.

It's worth noting that Hawaii has a larger portion of its individual market enrolled in off-exchange policies than most states...around 37%, which means only 53% of the total indy market is subsidized at the moment.

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:

Wyoming

The bad news for Wyoming residents who earn too much to qualify for any federal ACA subsidies is that the state has the second highest unsubsidized premiums in the country after West Virginia. The good news is that, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, there are far more residents who do qualify for federal subsidies, which chop those premiums down to no more than 8.5% of their income....at least until the end of 2025, at which point the upgraded IRA subsidies are currently scheduled to expire.

Unfortunately, once again, I've been unable to get ahold of enrollment data for any of Wyoming's carriers on either the individual or small group markets, so I can only run unweighted averages for both markets.

With that said, the unweighted average rate hikes being asked for are 10% on the indy market and 6.4% for small group plans.

 

Wisconsin has the most competitive ACA markets in the country, at least in terms of the sheer number of insurance carriers offering policies on both the individual (14) and small group (16) markets. Their small group market is losing 2 carriers next year (All Savers and Common Ground Health Co-op), but it's still pretty robust.

The bad news is that it's once again extremely difficult to acquire Wisconsin's actual rate filings prior to the actual Open Enrollment Period launching, meaning I can only run unweighted average requested rate increases/decreases for the most part, although I've made a crude attempt at a partially-weighted average for the individual market.

With that in mind, individual market carriers are requesting unweighted increases of around 9.1%, while small group carriers are seeking hikes of around 7.4% overall.

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