HARTFORD – Senator Tony Hwang, ranking member of the Connecticut General Assembly’s Insurance & Real Estate Committee, is urging residents to sign up and testify at next week’s public hearing held by the Connecticut Insurance Department (CID) on proposed rate hikes for health plans in 2024.

Each year, insurance companies must make any rate increase requests to CID. During CID’s review process of these rate increases, residents can testify before the Insurance Department to express discontent with proposed increases and highlight how they are negatively impacted by rising healthcare costs.

This year, insurers are seeking an average increase of 8.3% on 2025 individual plans, and an 11.9% increase on group plans. In more extreme cases, long-term care (LTC) insurance provider MedAmerica Insurance Company requested a 300.6% increase for a block of group long-term care plans, and LTC insurance provider Transamerica Life Insurance Company requested a 114.11% rate increase on individual LTC plans.

These increases continue a trend of rising insurance premiums over the past decade.

Hwang issued a statement encouraging distressed residents to testify and make their voice heard on this issue. He also pressed CID to closely scrutinize these rate increases to protect struggling families from even higher insurance premiums:

“Residents have felt unheard in their struggles against multiple, double-digit rate increases on health plans since 2021. Now is the time to speak up, make your voice heard, and oppose these rate increases during this month’s hearing.

“Residents are facing an affordability crisis, paying higher costs for groceries, utilities, housing, and now even their health insurance. These rate increases will make health insurance unaffordable and inaccessible to thousands of Connecticut residents. This will worsen health outcomes, crowd our emergency rooms, and increase health costs statewide in the long-run.

“We need to do better. That starts with a close scrutiny of these rate increases by the Connecticut Insurance Department, whose role is to protect consumers from costly rate increases that threaten coverage for so many residents,” Hwang remarked.

According to CID, the hearing will begin at 9 am Tuesday, August 20. The public comment portion will begin in the afternoon.

Registration for the in-person testimony will open at 8:30 August 20 in Hearing Room 1D at the Legislative Office Building, 300 Capitol Avenue in Hartford.

For those who wish to testify online, sign up by sending an email with full name to cid.Ratefilings@ct.gov. Written testimony will be accepted until 5 pm on the hearing date.