Health Insurance Premiums Spike Across The State

Health Insurance Premiums Spike Across The State
Study Shows Three-in-Four Small Businesses Saw Massive Premium Increases

St. Paul — The Minnesota Jobs Coalition and the National Federation of Independent Business- Minnesota Chapter released today a first-of-its-kind survey of licensed insurance agents across the state of Minnesota. Findings show that roughly 75-percent of small group insurance plans saw an increase in their premiums with over 86-percent of those increases being greater than 10-percent. Among the individual marketplace two-thirds of individuals saw an increase in their premiums from the prior year at an average increase of over 25-percent.

Nearly 65-percent of small businesses indicated to their insurance agent that in an effort to address this major increase that they would be either eliminating coverage, increasing employee contributions to the plan or increasing employee compensation and sending their employees to the individual marketplace.

“We are pleased to be able to release the findings of our comprehensive survey of licensed insurance agents in an effort to better understand the impacts that the Affordable Care Act has had on the cost of health insurance and its impact to small business in Minnesota,” said Minnesota Jobs Coalition executive director John Rouleau. “The rate increases Minnesotans had heard anecdotal reports of were, unfortunately, confirmed by our results.”

“Health insurance costs are among the largest expenses incurred by small business across the state of Minnesota and across the nation,” said Rouleau. “Of particular concern is that nearly two-thirds of small businesses were forced to make a decision to eliminate their employer sponsored insurance plan or increase their employees contributions to the plan. In a time when Minnesota is still reeling from the Great Recession, employees and employers are being hit with massive cost increases when they can least afford it.”

Rate increases of as high as 135-percent were experienced by groups across the state.

The survey of licensed insurance agents in Minnesota was commissioned by the Minnesota Jobs Coalition in cooperation with NFIB-MN and was completed between the dates of September 22nd and September 26th.

To view the complete survey results click here.