Maryland’s Insurance Administration approved a 10.2% average premium increase for 2027 small-group health plans, the coverage roughly 199,000 people get through a small business, after insurers had requested 13.1%. The same Sept. 25 release approved a separate 14.6% average increase for the state’s individual market, covering about 274,000 Marylanders who buy coverage on their own rather than through an employer.
What this increase doesn’t cover: The 10.2% hike applies only to small-group ACA plans; The Medicare Cost & Coverage Protection Kit lists the new Part D out-of-pocket cap that applies after Medicare enrollment. Look up the Part D cap Medicare uses instead →
What Maryland Actually Approved
The Maryland Insurance Administration’s Sept. 25 announcement sets the small-group market’s approved average rate increase at 10.2% for 2027, below the 13.1% insurers had asked for, affecting approximately 199,000 enrollees covered through a small employer’s plan. Insurance Commissioner Marie Grant’s statement on the approval urged that “Maryland residents are encouraged to carefully review their renewal notices and compare available plans during open enrollment,” advice aimed as much at the individual-market enrollees facing the steeper 14.6% increase as at small-group policyholders.
An Average Increase, Not Everyone’s Increase
A 10.2% average obscures real variation underneath it: Maryland’s small-group filings are reviewed and approved plan by plan and insurer by insurer under rate-review standards the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services oversees nationally for ACA-compliant coverage, so an individual small business’s actual renewal could land above or below that average depending on which carrier and plan it holds. The Administration’s approval sets a ceiling on what each insurer may charge for 2027, not a single flat increase applied uniformly across every small-group policy in the state.
The gap between what insurers asked for and what regulators approved, 13.1% requested against 10.2% approved, is itself notable: the Administration’s own June announcement of insurers’ initial 2027 proposals set that starting point before the Sept. 25 approval trimmed nearly three percentage points from it, while the individual market’s 14.6% figure represents what the Administration ultimately approved for that pool without a comparable requested rate published in the same release. A small business renewing its plan in the coming months will see its own insurer’s approved rate reflected on the renewal notice, which may sit above or below the 10.2% statewide average depending on the plan’s claims history and the insurer that wrote it.
Who Actually Sits Inside the Small-Group Pool
Small-group ACA plans are the coverage a business with a limited number of employees buys on behalf of its workforce through the state’s own small-business coverage marketplace, distinct from the individual market where a person buys a plan directly. That pool includes small-business owners and employees of every age below 65, among them a meaningful share of people in their late 50s and early 60s running or working for a small business who are still years, or in some cases only months, from qualifying for Medicare. For that group, a double-digit renewal increase this year is a cost that follows them right up to the point they age into a different system with its own separate premiums and rules.
That timing detail is part of why the small-group figure in Maryland’s release, 199,000 enrollees, is worth separating from the larger individual-market figure rather than treating both as one undifferentiated pool of “health-insurance customers.” A small-group enrollee’s 2027 renewal is set by whichever insurer their employer chose through the state’s Small Business Health Options Program enrollment process and reviewed under the same state process that produced the 10.2% average; an individual-market enrollee’s 14.6% increase reflects a different pool with its own separate rate filing, and the two groups do not automatically move between each other except when someone’s employment or business status actually changes.
When Enrollees Will Actually See It
The approved rates apply to the 2027 plan year, meaning the increase reaches a small-group policy at its next renewal rather than immediately upon the Sept. 25 announcement. Commissioner Grant’s own guidance, to review renewal notices and compare available plans during open enrollment, points to that renewal window as the moment the 10.2% figure becomes a specific dollar amount on an actual bill rather than a statewide average, and the same window in which a small-group enrollee could see whether their particular insurer’s approved rate landed above or below that average.
The Individual Market Saw a Bigger Jump
The Administration’s same release approved a 14.6% average increase for Maryland’s individual market, detailed in the agency’s own approved individual-market rate exhibit, the larger of the two increases and one that reaches roughly 274,000 people who buy coverage on their own rather than through an employer, a group that includes early retirees, the self-employed, and small-business owners who don’t offer a group plan at all. Both approvals apply to the 2027 plan year and both come from the same regulatory review that set the small-group rate.
The two markets move somewhat independently because they pool risk differently: a small-group plan spreads cost across a defined workforce with its own claims history, while an individual-market plan pools people who buy coverage on their own, a population that in Maryland now absorbs the steeper of the two 2027 increases. Someone who leaves a small-business plan, whether through early retirement, a business closing, or a switch to self-employment, moves from the smaller 10.2% increase into a pool facing the larger 14.6% one, a shift worth knowing about before making that move voluntarily.
Preparing for the Same Cost Questions on Medicare
Maryland’s 10.2% approved increase lands on small-group ACA plans for 2027, coverage limited to people not yet on Medicare. It leaves untouched a separate set of costs and rules, premiums, drug coverage, and prior-authorization decisions, that apply once a small-business owner or employee ages into Medicare instead, a transition a meaningful share of this enrollee pool is approaching rather than one this year’s rate filing addresses.
The Medicare Cost & Coverage Protection Kit includes 51 state Medicare cost-help packs and a medication and cost tracker for exactly that later transition.
Sort the Medicare cost help available by state →
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
