Assurant, a company who just recently successfully entered the California market, has just announced that they are leaving the health insurance market in 2016, all together. Why could this be? All health insurance carriers are receiving the costs of implementing the Affordable Care Act this month.
One has to assume that the data will be an”eye-opener”, and will possibly lead to an intentional selling the company’s health insurance portions. For example, for the first quarter of 2015 Assurant is reporting a 80 to 90 million loss in their Health Insurance Section. “Approximately half of the loss is attributable to a reduction in 2014 estimated recoveries from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) risk mitigation programs” is what has been stated, continuing with “The remainder reflects elevated claims on 2015 ACA policies”.
According to the company’s website, Assurant has been in the health care business for over 100 years, leading up to it’s aggressive 2015 entrance into the California. They had been offering the widest network with relative competitive price structure. In regards to their withdrawal, Assurant has announced that they remain “dedicated to upholding our commitments to customers and policyholders for 2015.” (see press release).
Loosing a strong competitor such as Assurant in the health care market is a significant loss seeing that there are now only a handful of insurance carriers serving the health insurance market in California.