Four health insurers have filed proposed rate increases with the Connecticut Insurance Department for plans to be offered in the individual and small group markets in 2027, with preliminary figures showing requests averaging 15.7% in the individual market and 17.8% in the small group market.
The CID, which regulates fully insured plans offered on and off the state exchange Access Health CT, opened a 30-day public comment period on June 5, 2026. A public informational session will be held in August before final decisions are issued ahead of open enrollment, which begins in the fall.
Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Josh Hershman did not mince words in response to the filings.
"These filings reflect a broader challenge facing Connecticut's healthcare system. Connecticut families are under increasing pressure from rising healthcare costs, and the current trajectory is unsustainable," he said. "Providers, hospital networks, pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, and policymakers all have a responsibility to help address the factors driving costs."
The 2027 filing season has fewer participants than in prior years, and the reasons carry serious implications for consumers and industry professionals alike.
Both UnitedHealthcare and ConnectiCare have notified the CID of planned internal consolidations. UnitedHealthcare has absorbed Oxford Health, reducing the number of small group market carriers, while ConnectiCare has dropped its ConnectiCare Inc. division from the individual market and will offer coverage off-exchange only for 2027.
The competitive erosion in Connecticut runs deeper than this filing season. ConnectiCare has also exited the fully insured large group market, the first major insurer in the state to do so. In the small group market, Aetna, Cigna/Oscar Health and Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare have all withdrawn since 2022, leaving just two carriers providing fully insured plans to small employers, a development experts say has directly contributed to higher costs for businesses with 50 or fewer workers.
Research supports the concern. According to the American Medical Association, insurers controlling dominant market share face reduced incentives to lower premiums, and that the monopolistic effects of mergers often produce higher premiums because consumers have fewer choices. Nationally, states with three or fewer active marketplace insurers consistently show higher premiums than those with five or more.
Connecticut's 2026 rates, approved at an average 16.8% increase for individual plans and 11% for small group, were already shaped by a cascade of federal changes. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield cited increased utilization of higher-cost services including emergency room care, behavioral health and specialty pharmacy as drivers of its 2026 request, with the company noting that rates also reflected uncertainty from changes at the federal level.
For 2027, that federal uncertainty has deepened significantly. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's Medicaid cuts, combined with the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits, will lead approximately 15 million people to lose health insurance nationally. The law also effectively eliminates auto-enrollment into marketplace coverage, a practice currently used by 88% of marketplace enrollees.
Actuaries are pricing for a sicker and smaller risk pool as a result.
"We know for sure that the individual market has gotten smaller and almost certainly sicker, as the people dropping coverage are more likely to be healthy," said Louise Norris, a health policy analyst at healthinsurance.org. Analysts at Wakely expect ongoing uncertainty and declining enrollment to play a significant role in 2027 rate-setting, with director Michelle Anderson noting that double-digit increases would not be surprising.
Connecticut's rate review process has historically delivered meaningful savings for policyholders. Over five years, the CID's actuarial reviews generated nearly $460 million in savings for Connecticut insureds in the individual and small group markets, including holding insurer profit provisions to 0.75%.
Commissioner Hershman's statement signals a clear-eyed awareness, however, that rate review alone cannot address structural cost growth.
The 2027 Connecticut filings serve as an early indicator of what rate seasons across the country are likely to look like - a market under structural pressure from all directions, with fewer carriers, a sicker pool and a federal policy environment that is making affordability harder, not easier, to deliver.
