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Small-group health insurance premiums are still going up at about the same rate as before, and the enrollee count continues to fall.
A government agency that tries to protect plans with unusually sick enrollees published the numbers in a new report.
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The average monthly premium increased 6.1% in 2024, to $659. The rate of increase was down, slightly, from 6.2% in 2023.
The number of enrollees fell 5.5%, to the equivalent of about 8.6 million. In 2023, small-group enrollment fell 6.9%.
The federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight compiles the numbers for use by the Affordable Care Act commercial health insurance risk-adjustment program.
The center is the arm of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that oversees HealthCare.gov and other ACA rules and programs that affect the commercial health insurance market.
Related: ACA changes could impact employer plans, ICHRAs
The risk-adjustment program tries to use cash from issuers with unusually healthy, low-risk enrollees to compensate issuers that end up with unusually high-risk enrollees.
At the state level, the average small-group monthly premium ranged from $445, in Mississippi, up to $1,048, in Ohio.
California had the biggest fully insured small-group market, with about 2 million enrollees.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
