Mark Farrah Associates Adds New Insight on Commercial Health Insurance Market

CORRECTION: The figures were incorrectly stated in the third paragraph below and have been changed to $237.5 billion & $204.1 billion from $474.9 billion in Commercial premiums & $408.1 billion in claims - 6/17/2011

KENNEBUNK, Maine--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Commercial segment is the largest market for U.S. health insurance carriers. Exciting new insights into this segment are currently available thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and new National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) filing requirements. Mark Farrah Associates (MFA) previously discussed the new health plan reporting requirements mandated to support PPACA and health reform initiatives in a January 2011 report, New Health Plan Reporting Requires More Transparency. MFA is analyzing results from the first round of reporting as 521 insurance companies filed the new Supplemental Health Care Exhibit (Supplemental Exhibit) with their 2010 Annual Statutory Financial Statements. Reporting companies included Health, Life, Property and Fraternal insurers with direct, comprehensive major medical health business.

Health plans completing the new Supplemental Exhibit insured nearly 65.6 million people in Individual, Small Group and Large Group segments. By MFA's estimation, the new data includes 78% of the total Commercial risk population. In the Supplemental Exhibits, health plans reported more than 10.2 million people were covered by 6.6 million individual policies in 2010. Approximately 17.2 million people received health insurance through 1.9 million small employer groups during the same time period.

The purpose of this Supplemental Exhibit is to assist state and federal regulators in identifying elements that make up the medical loss ratio (MLR). Aggregate results for the carriers filing data showed $237.5 billion in Commercial premiums (commercial net adjusted premium earned after reinsurance) and $204.1 billion in claims (commercial net insured claims after reinsurance) during 2010. The aggregate MLR, incurred claims as a percent of earned premiums, was 85.9%.

In the latest Healthcare Business Strategy report MFA presents key observations about the Commercial Health Insurance Market based on MFA's preliminary analysis of data from the new Supplemental Health Care Exhibit. To read the full text of "New Insights about the Commercial Health Insurance Market" visit the Healthcare Business Strategy library on Mark Farrah Associates' website www.markfarrah.com.

MFA is a leading data aggregator and publisher providing health plan market data and analysis tools for the healthcare industry. Committed to simplifying analysis of health insurance business, our products include Medicare Business Online™, Medicare Benefits Analyzer™, Health Coverage Portal™, Health Insurer Insights™ and Health Plans USA™.

Contacts:
Mark Farrah Associates
Debra Donahue, 207-985-8484