For individual plans, growth expectations are 5.0 percentage points higher. Individual members include all those who purchase insurance individually and who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid.
After the effect of redemptions, the plans anticipate premium increases for Group plans of 4.3% and 1.8% for Individual plans. A buyback is a change in the design of the benefits of a product to ensure a lower premium.
For the plans participating in this survey, we infer that they anticipate medical expense increases of 4.7% for group plans and 3.1% for individual plans. This is based on their predicted decrease in MLR for groups of 0.7 percentage point and an increase of 0.3 percentage point for individual plans. Likewise, we estimate an increase in consumer cost sharing of 8.4% for Group plans and 4.9% for Individuals.
There were 54 respondents to our survey. The plans serve approximately 22 million members with fully insured commercial and non-group products, or 22.6% of the total in the United States. This is Sherlock Company’s twenty-seventh consecutive annual survey of premium price trends.
Additional information regarding the survey results, including region-specific trends, is available in our newsletter. IMPULSE.
Sherlock Company (www.sherlockco.com), based in North Wales, Pennsylvania, provides informed solutions for the financial management of healthcare plans. Since its founding in 1987, Sherlock Company has been recognized for its impartiality and technical competence in the service of its customers.
