The good news is that the federal Rate Review database has now posted the preliminary avg. 2024 rate filings for the individual and small group markets for every state. This makes it very easy to plug in the average requested rate changes in 2024 for every carrier participating in both markets.
The bad news is that most of the underlying filing forms are heavily redacted, meaning I can't use the RR database to acquire the other critical data I need in order to run a proper weighted average: The number of people actually enrolled in the policies for each carrier.
This means that in cases where this data isn't available elsewhere (either the state's insurance department website, the SERFF database or otherwise), I'm limited to running an unweighted average. This can make a huge difference...if one carrier is requesting a 10% increase and the other is keeping prices flat, that's a 5.0% unweighted average rate hike...but if the first carrier has 99,000 enrollees and the second only has 1,000, that means the weighted average is actually 9.9%.
BISMARCK, N.D. – Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread has approved the rates for individual and small group health insurance plans compliant with the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Individual and small-group health insurance plans that are ACA-compliant are purchased through the Healthcare.gov exchange or licensed agents. Three statewide insurance carriers operate on the individual market, available via Healthcare.gov and through insurance agents. Five major carriers exist in the small group market, primarily purchased by employers of small businesses.
“We’re releasing these rates to give consumers who purchase their health insurance on the individual or small group markets an idea of what’s to come for 2024,” said Godfread. “The changes in rates this year are on par with previous years, with no big jumps or decreases in rates. When purchasing health insurance, or any insurance policy, shop around and look at different coverage options and find one that best fits your and your family's needs.”
The good news is that RateReview.HealthCare.Gov has posted the preliminary 2024 rate filing summaries for every state, making it much easier to pin down which carriers are actually participating in the individual & small group markets next year, as well as what the carriers average requested rate changes are in states which don't publish that data publicly (or which make it difficult to track down if they do).
The bad news is that in many of those states, acquiring the actual enrollment data is even more difficult, as their rate filings tend to be heavily redacted. Alabama falls into this category.
Utah's preliminary 2024 individual and small group market rate filings are listed below. They launched a handy new website specifically dedicated to insurance filings, which is nice to see.
Unless there's a change in the final/approved rates, unsubsidized individual market plan premiums are increasing by around 11.4% in 2023, while small group plans will go up 10.5% on average (caveat: I had to estimate the actual enrollment numbers for two of the small group carriers, so the weighted average may be slightly off). Both market hikes are significantly higher rate increases than they were last year.
I should note that both Aetna and Imperial Health appear to be newly entering the Utah individual market next year.
UPDATE 10/04/23: The Utah Insurance Dept. has published approved rates for all individual & small group market carriers with one exception (Molina is still listed as "submitted," but they only have 0.6% of the total market anyway so any dramatic change to their final rates would be a rounding error at most statewide).
Overall most of the filings were accepted as is, although a couple saw significant changes: BridgeSpan had their 6.7% increase nearly doubled to 12.1%, while Regence BCBS was shaved down slightly, from 9.2% to 8.8%.
Not a whole lot to report in the smallest (physically) state of the Union. Rhode Island only has two insurance carriers participating in the individual health insurance market, while six of them compete in the small group market. Thankfully, the SERFF database not only has all eight of these filings, each of them has at least one document which includes the actual number of RI residents enrolled in the carriers policies.
As a result, I can run a fully weighted average for both markets: In the individual market, carriers are requesting an average rate hike of 6.6%, while small group market insurers want to bump up premiums by 6.8% overall.
UPDATE 10/03/23: The Rhode Island Insurance Commissioner has issued a press release with the final, approved 2024 rates; the table has been updated below. In the end, individual market policies are going up 5.8% while small group plans are only going up 4.0% on average.
In August, I posted an unweighted average of the preliminary rate filings for Nevada's individual & small group markets; it was unweighted at the time because I was unable to find the actual unredacted rate filing forms on the SERFF database, federal Rate Review website or even Nevada's own insurance filing database site.
Fortunately, now that the approved 2024 filings have been published, the NV DOI has added the Rate Change Justification forms to their database, making it easy to plug in the number of enrollees for every carrier in both markets. It's also important to note that there are two new carriers joining Nevada's individual market: Molina Healthcare and Imperial Insurance Co.
Overall, the weighted average rate increases are 3.8% for unsubsidized individual market plans and 6.4% for small group market enrollees.
Each year, the Idaho Department of Insurance posts rate changes of individual and small group health insurance products so consumers can review and provide comments on the proposed increases. Insurance companies submit proposed rates for the upcoming calendar year to the Department, along with descriptions and justifications for why the rates are reasonable and not excessive.
The Department of Insurance is seeking public input for rate changes of individual and small group health insurance products to improve insurer accountability and transparency. By following the links below, the public can access a summary of the increase amounts and the carrier justifications for the rates. Please submit any comments to the Department for consideration.
MN Dept of Commerce approves 2024 rates for individual and small group health insurance in Minnesota
Commerce’s focus remains on consumer choice and reducing health care costs
The Minnesota Department of Commerce today announced its approval of 2024 rates for Minnesotans who buy small-group and individual health insurance, underscoring the breadth of choices available to consumers and the stability of the state’s insurance market. The rate approvals are part of Commerce’s focus on reducing consumers' health insurance costs.
A few weeks ago, the Washington HealthPlanFinder announced that 2024 ACA individual market rates for unsubsidized enrollees would be increasing by an average of roughly 8.9% overall (small group plan rate changes hadn't been finalized yet, though the requested increases averaged around 8.3%).
This page contains proposed health plan rate information for the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace, DC Health Link, for plan year 2024.
The District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) received 215 proposed health insurance plan rates for review from Aetna, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, Kaiser and United Healthcare in advance of open enrollment for plan year 2024 on DC Health Link, the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace.
The four insurance companies filed proposed rates for individuals, families and small businesses for the 2024 plan year. Overall, 215 plans were filed, compared to 238 last year. The number of small group plans decreased from 211 to 188, while the number of individual plans remained at 27.
