State Sets 2025 Health Insurance Rates

The Connecticut Insurance Department announced 2025 health insurance rates Sept. 6 for the fully-insured market for both individual and small group health plans.

Health insurance carriers are required by law to submit rate requests to the CID ahead of the following plan year and are subject to actuarial review.

Earlier this summer, CID received eight filings by seven health insurers that cover roughly 200,000 people in both Affordable Care Act markets.

For individual insurance market rate increase requests, the average rate increase of 8.3% was reduced by an average of 29%, resulting in an average increase of 5.9%.

For small group insurance market requests, CID reduced requested premium increases by 35%, resulting in an average increase of 7.8%. The original average request was 11.9%.

According to the filings, carriers noted medical costs surging by 8-9% and prescription expenses rising approximately 12-19%.

Small Group Market

Healthcare spending increased with higher utilization and greater disease severity as well.

The rate review process also exposed a startling continuation of deterioration in the small group market.

Just last year, the market covered roughly 76,000 people, according to last year’s rate review fact sheet.

The small group market now covers roughly 58,000 lives—a 24% decrease in market participation over last year.

Today, the small group market covers roughly 58,000 lives—a 24% decrease in market participation.

This is also down from 2020 when the market enrolled over 110,000 people.

Many small employers are moving to self-funded and level-funded plans to achieve greater plan flexibility, transparent claims and cost information, and relief from onerous state benefit mandates and taxes. 

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2023 Employer Health Benefits Survey, 65% of all workers with employer-sponsored coverage are in self-funded plans, while 35% of covered workers at small firms are enrolled in a level-funded plan.