The renewal letter arrives, you open it, and the new number lands like a punch. We have sat with a lot of people in that moment. Two instincts show up every time. Pay it and stop thinking about it, or drop coverage and hope for a healthy year. Both instincts are usually wrong, and there is almost always a middle path. Here are the six moves we work through with clients, in order, before anyone accepts a new number.
Move one: Rerun your subsidy before you judge the price
The renewal number is not your price until you rerun the subsidy against it.
The number on your renewal notice is not necessarily what you will pay. Subsidies are recalculated every year against a new benchmark plan, so your assistance can rise even when sticker prices do.
Run it this year even if you skipped it before, whether your income changed or you assumed you earned too much. These five minutes change more outcomes than everything else on this page combined. Our income estimate guide walks through getting that number right.
The six moves, in the order they pay off
| Move | What it does |
|---|---|
| 1. Rerun your subsidy | Changes the price before you judge it. Five minutes, and it moves more outcomes than the rest combined. |
| 2. Do not auto-renew | Auto-renewal locks the increase. Open enrollment lets you move to any plan in your county. |
| 3. Shop your tier, then question it | Same metal level first, then ask whether that level still fits how you use care. |
| 4. Check doctors and drugs | Confirm every doctor and prescription against any plan you are considering. |
| 5. Recheck the household math | A spouse's plan or state coverage for the kids can beat one family plan. |
| 6. Look at the private side | Short-term and fixed-benefit plans, which the Marketplace cannot sell you. |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Work them in order. Each one changes the numbers the next one depends on.
Move two: Do not auto-renew into the increase
Auto-renewal keeps your plan, not your price. Carriers reprice every year.
Auto-renewal keeps your plan. It does not keep your price. During open enrollment you can move to any plan available in your county, and carriers reprice differently every single year. We regularly see last year's best deal become this year's overpriced option, sometimes from the very same company.
One note on the calendar, because these dates were in doubt until recently. Open enrollment opens November 1 for coverage starting January 1. December 15 is the last day to enroll for coverage starting January 1, and January 15, 2027 closes enrollment. Those dates were unsettled for months. A federal court struck down the shortened window in June 2026, and CMS has since confirmed enrollment runs through January 15. If you read a shorter deadline somewhere, that was the vacated rule.
Move three: Shop your tier, then question your tier
Compare inside your metal tier first, then ask whether the tier itself still fits.
First compare other plans at your current metal level. Then ask the harder question: is the tier itself still right for you?
If you barely touched your coverage last year, a higher-deductible plan can cut your premium a lot. Pairing one with a health savings account adds a tax benefit on top. If you use a lot of care, the richer plan often costs less overall despite the scarier premium. The real number is always premium plus what you actually spend, never premium alone. Our plan types guide decodes the labels.
Move four: Check your doctors and drugs against the cheaper options
A cheaper plan that drops your doctor or your drug is not cheaper.
A cheaper plan that drops your doctor or moves your medication to an expensive tier is not actually cheaper.
Verify every doctor by name and every prescription against any plan you are considering. It is tedious work, which is precisely why we do it for clients rather than asking them to enjoy it.
Move five: Recheck the household math
Splitting a household across the right plans is often the biggest saving nobody looks for.
Family situations quietly change the answer. A spouse's employer plan may now be the better home for part of the family. The children may qualify for lower-cost coverage in your state.
Splitting a household across the right plans is sometimes the single biggest saving available, and it stays invisible unless somebody goes looking for it.
Move six: Look at the private side properly, not as a consolation prize
Private and short-term plans are a real option for a healthy household, with real limits.
This is the move most people never get offered, because the person handing them a renewal notice only sells one shelf. Private plans, short-term and fixed-benefit coverage, are a real market and we place them gladly.
Here is what they can genuinely do for you. Some run on national PPO networks. That can mean keeping out-of-network access and seeing a specialist without a referral, often well below the price you were quoted. In Arizona that is worth reading twice. Every plan on the Marketplace there is an HMO, so you cannot buy a PPO on the exchange at any price. For a healthy household this is not a downgrade, and treating it as one costs people money every year.
Now the limits, plainly, because they are the whole basis of the decision. These are not ACA-compliant comprehensive coverage. They can exclude pre-existing conditions and they can cap what they pay. If you have an ongoing condition, private underwriting is exactly where it hurts, and we will tell you that rather than sell you something that will not pay when you need it.
So it comes down to which side of that line you are on, and that is a fifteen minute conversation rather than a guess. More on our private and short-term plans page.
And the move to avoid
Going without is the one move that can cost more than the increase ever would.
Going without coverage entirely.
One bad month erases a decade of premium savings, and getting back in usually means waiting for the next enrollment window. If your budget genuinely cannot absorb the increase, use the six moves above to find the least-bad answer, because there is nearly always one that beats nothing at all.