Every summer insurers file what they want to charge next year, and every summer the headline number lands harder than the actual bill does. On July 31, 2026, the basic details of the initial 2027 rate filings become public for every state at ratereview.healthcare.gov. Before those numbers land, it is worth understanding the thing almost nobody explains: the headline percentage is the change in a plan's sticker price, not the change in what comes out of your account. Here is how the two come apart.
What became public on July 31
Insurers file proposed rates with state regulators months before you can buy anything, and those filings became public on July 31.
Two cautions come with them. First, these are proposed rates. Regulators review them, and filed numbers can change before they are final. Second, a filed increase is an average across a carrier's whole book. Your plan, your county, and your age are not the average.
Final approved rates and the prices you can actually shop arrive later in the fall, ahead of the November 1 open enrollment start.
What the early filings already show
Some states published earlier. KFF released a preliminary analysis on July 8, 2026 covering 77 insurers across 16 states and Washington DC, and found a median proposed increase of 14 percent for 2027. Most requested between 10 and 20 percent, and 20 insurers requested more than 20 percent. KFF also noted that if these increases hold, typical Marketplace premiums would rise by more than a third between 2025 and 2027.
The reasons insurers give are consistent. Medical costs are rising, including hospital stays, physician visits, and drug spending, with GLP-1 medications called out specifically. Labor shortages are pushing provider costs up. And the risk pool is getting sicker as healthier people drop coverage, which insurers estimate added roughly four percentage points to 2026 rates and expect to add about four more for 2027.
One thing to keep in mind about that national median: Arizona and Alabama were not among the 16 states in it. Both states filed later, and as the next section shows, both came in well above 14 percent. A national median is a useful backdrop and a poor substitute for your own state.
Arizona and Alabama 2027 filed rates
The filings are public. Below is what every individual-market carrier in each state has asked for, taken from the federal Rate Review system on July 31, 2026.
These are requested rates, not approved rates. Every Arizona and Alabama filing is marked pending review. Regulators spend the summer examining them and issue final approved rates in the fall, before plans go on sale. What a carrier asks for is often not what it gets, so treat these as the opening position rather than your renewal notice.
You can also look for yourself. The federal rate review site publishes filings by state and company, and each carrier files a plain-language justification explaining its reasoning. What you will not find there is your own price, because filed averages do not become a monthly bill until plans go on sale.
- Arizona, 7 carriers filed. Oscar Health Plan 33.9 percent. Imperial Insurance Companies 30.1 percent. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona 29.6 percent. UnitedHealthcare of Arizona 28.6 percent. Health Net Community Solutions 28.0 percent. Arizona Complete Health 24.6 percent. Antidote Health Plan 3.3 percent.
- One Arizona caveat worth knowing. Health Net Community Solutions filed as off-exchange only for 2027, so its plans will not appear on the Marketplace and carry no subsidy. Six of the seven Arizona filings are on-Marketplace.
- Cigna is leaving the Arizona individual market for 2027. It filed for Arizona small group but not for individual coverage, so if you hold a Cigna individual plan in Arizona you will be choosing a new carrier for 2027 whether you wanted to or not. Alabama is unaffected.
- Alabama, 4 carriers filed. Oscar Insurance Company 35.1 percent. UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company 27.6 percent. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama 20.1 percent as recorded federally, or 19.7 percent by the company's own member-weighted total. Celtic Insurance Company, which sells as Ambetter, 11.6 percent.
- No carrier is entering or exiting Alabama. All four 2026 carriers filed again for 2027. Oscar's figure is large partly because 2027 is its first Alabama rate change; it entered the state for 2026 and had no prior rate to adjust.
- Neither state has published an overall average, and we are not going to calculate one. Two carriers did not disclose how many members their filings cover, so any average we produced would be arithmetic dressed up as a fact. What is honest: Arizona's filings span 3.3 to 33.9 percent and Alabama's span 11.6 to 35.1 percent.
The headline percentage is not your percentage
If your carrier files a 20 percent increase, the natural reaction is to assume your bill goes up 20 percent. For most people on the Marketplace, that is not how it works, because the subsidy moves too.
Your premium tax credit is not a fixed dollar amount that sits still while prices climb. It is the difference between the cost of the benchmark plan in your county and a percentage of your income that the law says you can be expected to contribute. When premiums across your county rise, the benchmark rises and the credit rises with it, while your expected contribution is set by your income rather than by the market. That is why a frightening headline can arrive with a much smaller change to what you actually pay.
The flip side is just as real. If you earn too much to qualify for a credit, you absorb the full increase. The enhanced subsidies expired at the end of 2025, and the cliff at 400 percent of the federal poverty level is back, so a single dollar of income over that line removes the credit entirely. For 2026 coverage that line was about $62,600 for a single person, and it moves each year with the poverty guidelines.
Why the benchmark plan matters
The benchmark is the second-lowest-cost Silver plan available where you live. It is a reference price, not a recommendation, and you do not have to buy it. But because your credit is pegged to it, the benchmark matters more to your wallet than your own plan does.
Two situations matter. If your plan raises rates faster than the benchmark, the credit does not keep pace and your net cost rises even when the market average looks moderate. If your plan raises rates more slowly, your net cost can actually fall in a year when every headline says premiums went up. Carrier exits and entries shake this up further: a new carrier that prices aggressively can become the benchmark and pull everyone's credit down, while a departing carrier can push it up.
Why shopping matters in a rate hike year
In a flat year, auto-renewal is a small mistake. In a rate increase year it is an expensive one, because increases are not uniform. Carriers in the same county file very different numbers, so the spread between the cheapest and most expensive plan widens, and last year's best deal frequently is not this year's. Auto-renewal keeps you in a relationship with a plan, not with a price.
- The benchmark can change hands. If a different plan becomes the second lowest cost Silver in your county, staying put quietly costs you the difference.
- Silver is sometimes the only right answer. If your income qualifies you for cost sharing reductions, those attach only to Silver plans. Giving that up to chase a lower premium can be a bad trade.
- A very cheap Bronze plan is not automatically a win. A large credit applied to a low priced Bronze plan produces a tiny premium and a very large deductible. That fits some households and ruins others.
- Update your income estimate. Your credit is based on what you project for 2027. A stale estimate is the most common reason people either overpay all year or owe money at tax time.
- Re-check the network even if you stay put. Carriers adjust networks at renewal without leaving the market, and a specialist can drop out quietly.
How this looks in Arizona
About 83 percent of Arizona Marketplace enrollees received financial help in 2026, so for most households here the subsidy mechanics above are the whole story. Arizona also comes into 2027 off a steep year: the approved 2026 increase was roughly 46 percent before subsidies, which is why these filings were watched closely. Against that, a 2027 field clustered in the high twenties and low thirties is a smaller jump than last year, not a larger one.
The Arizona story for 2027 is less about the percentages than about who is still here. Cigna's exit from the individual market means a block of Arizona households must actively pick a new carrier, and the remaining field has been shifting fast: Oscar's Arizona membership grew sharply into 2026 while Arizona Complete Health's shrank. When a market reshuffles like that, the second-lowest-cost Silver plan can change hands, and that is the plan your subsidy is measured against.
Two Arizona specifics still matter. Marketplace plans here are predominantly HMOs, so network fit deserves as much attention as premium. And Arizona expanded Medicaid, so households below the Marketplace income floor generally have AHCCCS rather than nothing.
How this looks in Alabama
Alabama's Marketplace is the larger of the two and the great majority of its enrollees receive premium tax credits. It is also shrinking, and that is the most important thing in its 2027 filings. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, which holds roughly half the market, states in its own filing that the Alabama individual market grew from about 195,000 people in 2021 to more than 475,000 in 2025, then fell below 360,000 during 2026, and it expects further decline through 2027. The company names that shrinking, sicker pool as its leading reason for the increase, ahead of medical costs.
That is the mechanism behind the national four-point risk-pool effect, showing up in one state's paperwork. It also explains the spread: the two carriers with the most Alabama members filed the smallest increases, 19.7 and 11.6 percent, while the newest and smallest filed the largest.
Alabama has not expanded Medicaid, and that creates a hard edge Arizona does not have. Households below the poverty line generally do not qualify for premium tax credits and do not qualify for Medicaid either, leaving a real coverage gap. If your income sits near that line, an accurate projection is the difference between getting help and getting nothing. Talk it through before you file an estimate you are unsure about.
What to do before open enrollment
- Do not cancel anything. A filed rate changes nothing about your current coverage. Your 2026 plan runs to the end of the year.
- Write down an honest 2027 income estimate. Include self-employment income, a spouse's income, and anything variable. If you land near 400 percent of the poverty level, pre-tax retirement or HSA contributions can lower the income the Marketplace counts. Ask your tax professional first.
- Make the doctor and prescription list now. Names and doses, not memories. It is the only way to compare plans quickly once they go on sale.
- Read the fall mail carefully. Your renewal notice states both your new premium and your new credit. Both matter, and most people read only the first.
- Confirm the deadline. Open enrollment opens November 1. The closing date is unsettled after a federal court vacated the shortened open enrollment provision in June 2026, and absent a successful appeal many states are expected to sit at January 15. Check the current date before you rely on it.