By Ty Cramer, C&A Benefits Medicare & Individual Director, Celebrating 20 Years in the Business
Medicare Supplement insurance companies do not give rate increases to specific people based upon their personal claims history. They do, however, give rate increases to their “book of business” or “block” based upon aggregate claims within a particular state or region.
The Med Sup Rate Tool 2026 PDF shows the lowest offered rate to the most expensive Medicare Supplement Plan G rate in the zip code 43017. Note several things, the “Rating” of the company and the “Years in Market”. For instance, Anthem has been in Ohio for 60 years and a Cigna company has been there for 1 year. Now look at the Med Sup Rate Tool 2026 MARKET ANALYTICS PDF. There is little or no rate “Increase History” for companies writing in Ohio for 1-3 years. If they have been there longer, you can see rate increases were controlled and generally, reasonable. Some years, some companies actually gave premium DECREASES. NOTE: “Age Increases” & “Increase History” are two separate rate increases that can be given in any particular year and they can be given independent of each other. This is why some clients call saying “They gave me a rate increase a few months ago, and I just got another rate increase today! What’s going on?!”
During COVID (2020-2022), companies saw a delayed claims reaction because people put off surgeries and basic checkups. Post-COVID (2023-present), insurance companies saw a HUGE boomerang of claims, and large claims at that, hitting. Why? Because people put off surgeries and basic checkups for three years. This meant fewer major health issues were caught in the early, more treatable, stages so a greater number of people have had significantly higher average claims.
Each insurance company has given rate increases based upon the higher claims of their particular block of clients.
Some companies, like Physician’s Mutual, blindsided the market with a 24.1% rate increase. The national rep tried to spin it as positive by saying “We decided to give two years of rate increases at once at the end of 2025 so we don’t have to give another until at least 2027.” Also, these representations are not always accurate as Anthem says they gave 10% increases in 2024 & 2025; however, in practice we noted the average was closer to 17.2%. Even adding in the “Age Increases”, they are giving a lower, inaccurate number.
Notice some insurance companies are on the list more than once. Some of these companies, like AARP/United Health Care or Cigna or Humana, try to mitigate rate growth by opening a new company under a slightly different banner or name. For instance, the main company may have been in the state for 28 years, but the new company with a similar sounding name, may have been here for only 2 years.
This is good for the new company and new company clients (at least for the short-term), but bad for the existing company and clients as no new younger/healthier people are going into their book of business (i.e. no dilution). This means the claims history of the older book may increase sharply as the average age goes up and average claims rise over time.
Other companies are on the list more than once because some companies have multiple “Rating Classes.” This means they may accept sicker people as long as that person pays them more money for their Medicare Supplement plan.
These are the main reasons there have been such sharp Med Sup rate increases. As a broker/agent, we are appointed to write business with the majority of the companies on those PDF lists; however, we choose to work with the ones who fit our following “4 R’s” criteria:
- Rating: the company must be A rated (A+, A, A-) based upon their financial strength
- Rate (Initial): has to have a competitive starting monthly premium
- Renewal Rate: impossible to foresee, but we make our best judgement on who will have the most reasonable future rate increases
- Recognition of Name: we tend to work with companies whose names are well known, although this is the weakest of the four standards
