For those following the news regularly you have probably noticed a trend in the message that health insurance premiums are rising in 2019.

This of course is as a result of various legislative and executive actions.

However, you may have also noticed that some outlets are reporting that health insurance premiums will go down in 2019.

If you’ve been shopping health insurance quotes online on sites powered by an insurance chatbot then you know that getting quick health insurance quotes is finally getting easier, thanks to really powerful artificial intelligence engines.

We shopped some quotes and looked at data state by state to collect some insights into health premiums.

So, today, let’s take a look at trends in health insurance premiums in 2019.

Adjustments In Individual Market Rates

The first thing to know is that most of the stories making news these days are related to insurance policies purchased in the individual market.

This might be within the exchange or outside of it (such as those bought from the insurance carrier directly) but not the coverage folks receive from employers are via Medicaid, Medicare or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Individual health insurance market customers amount to under 16 million Americans, meaning that under 5 percent of the total population falls into this category.

Thus, while by far, the lion’s share of Americans receives health coverage through their jobs or via government programs, news headlines about health insurance likely have nothing to do with their insurance situations. The stories, in fact, are discussing trends involved with the individual insurance market.

The market for individual coverage was the one most ripe for reform prior to the Affordable Care Act, and it is the sector most significantly impacted by that legislation.

The smaller group market witnessed notable reforms as well, but nothing as wide-ranging as those that hit the individual market.

It should come as no surprise that the individual market is the one that has undergone the most sweeping transformation in recent years, and therefore garners lots of media attention annually when rate adjustments are disseminated to consumers and the public at large.

Benchmark vs Overall Premiums

Now if we look at avg premiums across the total nationwide individual market then we see that they’re indeed slightly increasing in 2019.

That said, at the time of writing this article, checking all of the available updated for 2019 state data shows that the average increase is only a little over 3%.

This is important because the increases in 2017 and 2018 were much larger respectively at around 25% and 30%.

So, even though there is a slight average increase nationwide, the rate change is not too bad.

Also important to note is that these calculations are based on changes if everyone were to keep their current policy the same in 2019. Which is not likely to happen in the real world and thus changing these calculations.

However, sans any plan changes, we can expect a slight increase in health insurance premiums in 2019.

Rates may increase unrelated to government intervention as well.

There are a variety of other factors such as general medical care cost increases and prescription drug cost increases.

Rate Changes Will Vary By State and Other Factors

At the end of the day, whether or not your health insurance premium will rise in 2019 is going to vary for everyone’s unique situation.

One of the main factors that will determine the answer will be which state you live in.

Just because the overall nationwide premiums are slightly increasing, state by state there is quite a bit of variation.

And even though the nationwide average benchmark premiums are slightly decreasing, this doesn’t mean that your premiums will be less in 2019.

Regardless of how your rate might change this year, in order to get the best insurance rates quoted quickly I recommend finding a website powered by Leadsurance that can help personalize insurance quotes for you.