Health Plans Project 2024 Premium Growth of 8.0% for Group Fully-Insured Plans and 6.1% for Individual Plans

Health plans are expecting 2024 premiums to increase by 8.0% for Group fully-insured plans and by 6.1% for Individual plans. For Group plans, this growth is 0.7 percentage points higher than their expectations for 2023. For Individual plans, growth expectations are lower by 0.5 percentage points. Individual members include all who purchase insurance individually who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid.

After the effect of buy-downs, plans anticipate premium increases for Group plans of 7.3% and 5.3% for Individual plans. A buy-down is a change in a product’s benefit design to secure a lower premium.

For plans participating in this survey, we infer their projected medical cost increases of 6.6% for Group plans and 7.0% for Individual plans. This is based on their anticipated MLR decrease for Groups of 1.1 percentage points and a increase of 0.8 percentage points for Individual plans. Similarly, we estimate an increase in consumer cost sharing of 9.2% for Group plans and 7.7% for Individuals.

There were 45 respondents to our survey. We estimate that the plans serve more than 36 million members. This is Sherlock Company’s twenty-ninth consecutive annual survey of premium pricing trends.

Additional information concerning the survey results, including region-specific trend breakouts, is available through our newsletter PULSE, available to subscribers.

Sherlock Company (www.sherlockco.com), based in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania, provides informed solutions for health plan financial management. Since its founding in 1987, Sherlock Company has been known for its impartiality and technical competence in service to its clients.

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