Dive Brief:
- Health insurance start-up Oscar is requesting a rate increase ranging between 8% and 30% for its individual plans, Politico New York reported.
- The insurer said the proposed increase will be necessary due to rising medical costs, sunsetting government programs which offered financial assistance, and its members that are in need of more care than had been previously anticipated.
- Last year, Oscar lost about $105.2 million and its businesses in New York and New Jersey, Bloomberg News reported.
Dive Insight:
Several other insurance companies in states across the country are proposing double-digit rate increases for individual plans, including Maryland and Iowa, as they enter the fourth year since the ACA implemented the marketplaces.
The New York Department of Financial Services must approve the rate increase Oscar is requesting. The department has reduced requested increases in the past.
Oscar was approved for a 4.54% average rate increase last year, according to Politico New York.
In February, Oscar received $400 million in funding, which caused its value to go up by about $1 billion since September 2015 to $2.7 billion. Last month, the insurance start-up announced former Google Vice President Alan Warren had become its new CTO & SVP of Engineering.