NY Off-Exchange Rate Filings

RayNY

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https://myportal.dfs.ny.gov/web/prior-approval/rate-applications-by-company

The Department Of Financial Services rate applications by company page.

Important to note that these were released this week and are not yet official, still pending (as of 6/19/13). All the known carriers are there.

These are OFF EXCHANGE ONLY. On exchange applications are supposed to be released around 7/15/13, at the same site. Please remember, what is sold ON will be sold OFF. Commission is BY PRODUCT, and these are NOT exchange products. As awesome or dismal as the commissions may be in these filings, they are not approved, guaranteed, or required to be the same for on-exchange products. Same goes for the product offerings and designs.

Quick rundown, EasyChoice came out of nowhere with a ton of product (only half a dozen plans today, more than quadrupled their portfolio for the exchanges). Confirmed commission at 3.5%. Emblemhealth cut down to 1 product, HMO, no commission. All current plans hard-stop 12/31/14. HIP also cut product, indicated 0% commission on POS, up to 3% on HMO product. GA override still exists ($10 flat fee in SG). GHI looks like 0% comm as well. Oxford/UHC, Empire/BCBS, MVP, Aetna, etc all look like they are following a similar path: focus on HMO and POS, all current products hard-stop, commissions are reduced (1.2-3.5% depending on carrier)

Each app is between 150 and 300 pages, and many are split into multiple apps (aka, Indiv vs. SG). There is more data here than I could ever sum up, so feel free to give it a read and share what you learn.
 
Each app is between 150 and 300 pages

Why?

If this is off-exchange, no subsidy and no underwriting. Of course NY has been a GI state since LaGuardia was reading the comics over the radio.
 
App as in application for product sent to DFS, not enrollment app.

You can view what they've submitted, TONS of data. NY included commissions in their application requirements, and the filed off-exchange rates should be a decent gauge of what will be offered on-exchange (and, at the end of the day, that's a big question to brokers).
 
NY commissions are considerably different (lower) than in other states. Not sure all this translates and even more so when it comes to IFP and group medical.
 
Of course, the numbers don't translate to outside NY. The trend, however, is likely more universal.

Some carriers drop/reduce commissions and expect the lost broker business to be made up with exchange business. (By the way, the company that dropped commissions expects ~60% decrease in premiums collected off-exchange). The other carriers stick with what works and don't change much. No one increases compensation.

NY has long been ahead of the curve, and is unique with respects to healthcare. It's the only state that I know of that even released commissions in the filings. How valid this data is is questionable, but it's straight from the carriers and provided by a government source, and that's a whole lot better than the conjecture and blog posts we've been referencing thus far.
 
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