Health and Medicare insurance in Phoenix.

Phoenix is our home market, and that is not a marketing line

We are headquartered in the North Valley. Maricopa County is where we do the most work and know the networks best.

Most of what you read about Phoenix health insurance is written by people who have never been here. We are based in the North Valley, and Maricopa County is where the largest share of our book sits. That matters mainly for one thing: we know which networks actually include which Phoenix-area systems, and in Arizona that is the question that decides everything.

Seven carriers sell individual Marketplace plans in Maricopa County for 2026: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, UnitedHealthcare, Oscar, Ambetter from Arizona Complete Health, Imperial, Antidote Health Plan, and Cigna. That last one is leaving next year, which is the most time-sensitive thing on this page.

Cigna is leaving Arizona for 2027. Do not auto-renew.

Cigna sells in Maricopa today and is absent from the 2027 filings, so Phoenix members will be choosing a new plan whether they act or not.

Cigna HealthCare of Arizona sells individual coverage in Maricopa County for 2026 and is absent from the 2027 individual-market filings. It is part of a wider Cigna exit from the individual marketplace across eleven states. Your 2026 coverage is unaffected.

If you do nothing, the Marketplace re-enrolls you into a similar plan from another company. Similar means a comparable metal level, not the same network, drug list, deductible, or price, and nothing in that process checks whether your doctors are included. In Arizona, where every Marketplace plan is an HMO and out-of-network care is generally not covered at all, an automatic reassignment can quietly cost you the specialist you have seen for years.

The work worth doing now is free and takes twenty minutes: write down your doctors, list your prescriptions, and build an honest income estimate for 2027. Then when plans go on sale November 1 you can compare in one sitting instead of guessing under a deadline.

• Read the discontinuation notice when it arrives. Federal rules require written notice before a carrier withdraws, usually in the fall with renewal mail.
• Six carriers remain in Maricopa for 2027, so the field is smaller but not thin.
• A carrier exit can move the benchmark plan, which is what your subsidy is calculated from, so even people staying put should re-check their credit.

Every Phoenix Marketplace plan is an HMO

All 199 Arizona Marketplace medical plans are HMOs. There is not one PPO available anywhere in the state.

This is the single most important structural fact about buying your own coverage in Phoenix. Every medical plan on the Arizona Marketplace for 2026 is an HMO. All 199 of them, across all seven carriers. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona did not renew its PPOs and Aetna left the individual market entirely, so the PPO options that used to exist on the exchange are gone.

An HMO generally means a defined network, a referral to see a specialist, and no out-of-network coverage at all outside emergencies. If you are coming off an employer PPO, that is a real change in how your coverage works, not a technicality.

Phoenix has several large systems that do not all appear in every network: Banner Health, HonorHealth, Dignity Health, Valleywise, Phoenix Children's, and Mayo Clinic. Check your specific doctors and hospital against the specific plan before you look at the premium. It is the step people skip and the one that costs the most.

Subsidies, AHCCCS, and the 2026 reset

Most Phoenix enrollees get a subsidy, Arizona expanded Medicaid so there is no coverage gap, and 2026 is the first year back on the smaller credit rules.

About 83 percent of Arizona Marketplace enrollees qualified for a premium subsidy for 2026, so for most Phoenix households the first question is not which plan but how much help you qualify for.

The rules tightened. The enhanced premium tax credits that ran from 2021 through 2025 expired at the end of 2025, so this year uses the older, smaller formula and the 400 percent of federal poverty level cliff is back. It is not a taper. Below the line a credit can be worth thousands; a few hundred dollars above it and the credit is zero.

Arizona also expanded Medicaid, so unlike Alabama and Texas there is no coverage gap here. AHCCCS covers adults up to 138 percent of poverty, and KidsCare reaches further for children. If your income is low or uneven, that is worth checking before you shop the Marketplace at all.

Self-employed and small business in the Valley

Phoenix has a large contractor and small-business population, and health premiums may be deductible above the line.

The Valley runs on small business: trades and construction, real estate, consulting, healthcare practices, and a large 1099 workforce. If you are self-employed, health premiums may be deductible above the line, which changes the real cost of every option and is worth modeling before you choose rather than after. We look at the after-tax number, not the sticker premium. Our self-employed coverage page walks through how that works, and small group is worth pricing once you have employees.

What working with us looks like

Independent, multi-carrier, local to the Valley, and free to you.

We are an independent agency rather than a captive of one carrier, so we compare across the companies we are appointed with and recommend what fits, including when that is a plan we earn less on or no change at all. Our help costs you nothing: the carrier builds the same commission into the premium whether you use an agent or enroll yourself.

One honest note. We are based in the North Valley but we do not run a walk-in office, and everything happens by phone, video, and email. What you get instead is somebody who has read the plan documents for your county and will tell you plainly which plan is wrong for you.