The Individual Market "Open Enrollment" is approaching quickly and we want to give you, our valued clients, a "heads up" on what individual health insurance rates are going to look like starting 1/1/2017.  We have been communicating to you about some factors that we believe will contribute to rate increases in 2017 that are much higher than in years past.  Unfortunately, our predictions have come true and we have received the filed rates for the largest carriers in the state of Michigan - they are as follows:

• Blue Cross Blue Shield of MI (BCBSM) - 18.7% increase
• Alliance Health and Life Insurance Company (HAP ) - 23.5% increase
• Humana Medical Plan of MI - 39.2% increase
• Priority Health - 13.9% increase

Why are these rates going up so high in 2017 you may ask?  The main reason is because a component of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) called the "Reinsurance Program" is expiring at the end of the year.  In a nutshell, the Federal "Reinsurance" Program was in place to reimburse health insurance carriers who took on substantially high claims risk.  Now that this program is going away, the health insurance carriers have no safety net against substantially high claims.

• Please CLICK HERE to see a detailed newsletter we sent out on this topic back in May 
• Please CLICK HERE to see the CNBC article on this topic