If you buy health insurance on the individual market, without help from an employer, you may want to know what Connecticut is doing to protect you from unfair and unnecessary premium rate increases. Here’s a summary of the Connecticut laws that govern rate increases.
- Connecticut has prior approval of individual market rate increases. INS. CODE § 38a-481.
- Regulators have 30 days to approve or disapprove the rates; they are deemed approved if regulators do not act within the 30-day period. INS. CODE § 38a-481.
- Rates may not be excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory. Rates are not excessive if medical loss ratios meet the target originally set in the policy when it was first approved for marketing. INS. CODE § 38a-481(d),(e).
- State law does not require a rate hearing for individual market increases, but the Insurance Department has held a hearing on at least one increase under agency law. (Hearings are regularly held for Medicare supplement plan rate increases).
- Rate filings and decisions on a rate increase are available at http://www.catalog.state.ct.us/cid/portalApps/RateFiling.aspx.