Employer health benefit costs are heading into the 2027 plan year at their worst trajectory in more than two decades, and the options on most renewal tables, including narrower networks, higher deductibles, and greater cost-sharing, are increasingly difficult sells. Oxbridge Health, a Norwalk, Connecticut-based startup, is entering that environment with a product that cuts the bill a different way.
The company announced the close of a $45 million Series B financing led by Eir Partners, a Miami-based private equity firm focused on healthcare technology that closed its third fund at $1 billion in January 2026. Optum Ventures, UnitedHealth Group’s venture capital arm, also participated, a notable dynamic given that Oxbridge sells directly to self-funded employers and their brokers, positioning it as an alternative to the fully insured products that large payers underwrite.
The round brings Oxbridge’s total investment to $90 million and marks the start of full commercial operations for its Episode Advantage Plans, now available in Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
The deal arrives at a time when employer health benefit costs are on track to rise 8.2% in 2027, the steepest increase in 24 years, even after employers take steps to contain them. Without those steps, the projected increase would be 11%, according to preliminary findings from Mercer’s 2026 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans. Oxbridge is pitching a plan designed to cost employers 10% to 25% less than a comparable PPO or HMO, without cutting benefits or narrowing the provider network.
The mechanism is pricing by episode rather than by service. For each covered procedure or condition, whether a knee replacement, cataract surgery, or a year of diabetes management, members see guaranteed prices from local care groups before treatment begins. The employer sets a coverage allowance for each episode type, so both the plan sponsor and the employee know the cost exposure in advance. Members retain access to the same physicians and hospitals available under their current plan.
The savings target rests on a structural claim in Oxbridge’s own data. Across 15 million risk-adjusted commercial episodes in its four target states, the company found that costs for clinically similar patients vary by several-fold within the same market, and that the gap comes primarily from how much care is delivered, not from the unit price of each service. Members who choose more efficient care groups pay less out of pocket. The plan stops paying a premium for volume that does not produce better outcomes.
A study by RAND economist Christopher Whaley, published in Health Affairs in 2021, examined employer-provider direct payment programs using bundled payments for orthopedic and surgical procedures. Employers captured approximately 85% of the savings, or about $3,582 per episode, representing a 9.5% relative decrease, while patient cost-sharing payments fell by $498 per episode. That study measured an existing program, not Oxbridge’s projections, and the company’s 10% to 25% savings figure is self-reported and independent validation of episode savings at that scale in a commercial employer plan has yet to be established.
Self-funded employers in the four launch states, along with the brokers and consultants advising them, can now request quotes for 2027 plan years directly through Oxbridge. Oxbridge also offers Episode Advantage Inside, a white-label version of the model that allows health plans and third-party administrators to add episode pricing and guaranteed-price capabilities to their existing benefit offerings, without replacing the underlying plan structure.
That second channel widens the product’s distribution without requiring employers to switch plans entirely. Cost reduction has overtaken talent attraction as the top benefits priority for 54% of employers, up from 38% in 2025, according to Lockton’s 2026 National Benefits Survey, and brokers advising self-funded clients heading into the 2027 renewal cycle now have something more structurally different to offer than a deductible adjustment.
“Employers have been told the only ways to control healthcare costs are to narrow networks, restrict benefits, or shift more of the bill to employees,” said Will Herling, CEO of Oxbridge Health. “Healthcare is one of the few major purchases where no one knows the price until after the service. We show the price first, and we let employers decide how much they will pay for an episode of care.”
Oxbridge was founded by Steve Wiggins, who built Oxford Health Plans into a Fortune 300 company before founding Remedy Partners, which the company said grew to manage approximately $7 billion in Medicare bundled payment programs. Remedy Partners later merged with Signify Health, which CVS Health acquired for approximately $8 billion in 2023. That track record gives the model a credibility floor that most startups in the space cannot claim. Oxbridge spent three years building the data infrastructure needed to price, administer, and reinsure the plans, with stop-loss coverage provided by four reinsurers, before moving to full commercial operations.
Employer costs for health benefits in the private sector rose 6% in the 12 months to June 2026, more than double the 3.1% growth in wages and salaries over the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Cost Index. That divergence is what Oxbridge’s reinsurance-backed, price-guaranteed model is designed to address, and what gives brokers advising self-funded clients a structural argument to make, rather than another deductible to raise.
