Insurers who exit a state health insurance exchange are not necessarily throwing in the towel on all individual policy business in a state.

Kaiser Health News reports that company procedure on selling individual policies varies from company to company and state to state. Consumers who worry they won’t have much choice in states the insurers abandon may find the same companies still offer plans off the exchange, KHN advised.

Aetna, KHN said, no longer sells via the Kansas, Utah, and District of Columbia exchanges. But it continues to offer individual policies in Kansas and Utah, because neither of those states require insurers to sell through an exchange if they want to sell off-exchange.

Washington, D.C. is another matter. Aetna can’t offer individual policies off exchange because D.C. has the on-off exchange requirement.

And Aetna is being selective about which exchanges it is abandoning. It said last week that, despite the challenges of trying to make (or keep from losing) money through exchange policy sales, it will continue to offer health insurance on 15 state exchanges.

UnitedHealth has said that it is exiting “most” of the 34 states where it sells individual polices. But when is an exit not a full departure?

In Colorado, reports the Denver Post, UnitedHealth said it was pulling out of on and off-exchange plan sales. But subsidiary Golden Rule Insurance will continue to sell individual plans off of the exchange. UnitedHealth still will offer small and large group business plans.

An earlier Kaiser Family Foundation study said that an exit from all state exchanges by UnitedHealth would leave more than 1.1 million consumers with just one individual plan option on the exchange. But, the foundation said, the impact would be felt much more in rural and southern regions. Additionally, Kaiser concluded, the effect on the cost of a plan would not be significant, given that UnitedHealth “does not generally offer low premium plans in the marketplaces.”

Longer term, the study concluded, the picture becomes murky. Fewer competitors on the exchanges would likely lead to increased cost to consumers. But because the exchanges are evolving and insurers are still learning to manage costs and products on them, it’s too early to accurately forecast exchange sales trends.

Instant Insights /

Aetna exits state exchanges but not off-exchange market

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