Kansas Insurance Department

TOPEKA–The Kansas Insurance Department announced that proposed premiums for individual and small group health plans in Kansas for 2016 would probably show increases.

The range of requested average rate revisions by insurance companies is from -0.40 percent to 37.78 percent. Those proposed changes are for private insurance company health plans sold on the federal marketplace and also for plans not sold on the government website.

All rate filings are subject to analysis by the insurance department’s Health & Life Division. The insurance companies’ actuarial data and assumptions are reviewed, and all final rates are required to be filed by Aug. 25, 2015, to be included on the 2016 online marketplace. The proposed revisions may not necessarily be the rates charged following the review process.

The plans with proposed premium increases more than 10 percent will be posted on the Kansas Insurance Department website, www.ksinsurance.org, beginning Monday, June 1.

This is the first time since the federal marketplace began that insurance companies have had a full year of claims experience with which to base their proposed premium rate revisions.

For 2016, a total of 97 plans have been proposed for sale during open enrollment in Kansas on the federally-facilitated online marketplace. That number includes 75 individual and 22 small group plans, an increase of 11 individual plan choices and four small group choices from the 2015 marketplace.

Open enrollment begins Nov. 1, 2015, for the 2016 calendar year.