Attorney General Tong Calls on Insurance Department to Scrutinize Unaffordable Rate Hike Demands

Press Releases

06/06/2025

Attorney General Tong Calls on Insurance Department to Scrutinize Unaffordable Rate Hike Demands

Insurers Can and Must Do More to Drive Down Skyrocketing Healthcare Costs

(Hartford, CT) – Attorney General William Tong released the following statement regarding insurance rate hike requests announced today by the Connecticut Insurance Department from seven health insurers for plans available on the individual and small group market, both on and off the state-sponsored exchange.

Collectively, the plans cover approximately 224,000 people in Connecticut. The proposed average individual rate hike request is 17.8 percent, compared to 8.3 percent last year. The proposed average small group rate hike request is 13.1 percent, compared to 11.9 percent last year.

“These rates are simply unaffordable for Connecticut families and small businesses. I’ll be combing through every page of these applications and demanding that insurers justify every penny and every step they have taken to curb these out-of-control costs,” said Attorney General Tong. “Year after year, insurers demand soaring rate hikes that far outstrip the pace of inflation and other cost growth benchmarks. They give us padded applications with vague references to trends that they do not disclose or take any steps to control. But insurers are not neutral or passive actors here—they can and must use their enormous influence to drive down unaffordable and unsustainable healthcare costs. And when they don’t, we need to hold them accountable and require better.”

Attorney General Tong has previously noted that insurers are uniquely positioned to drive down costs when bargaining with healthcare providers. Yet, historically, insurers have shifted these increases to consumers through direct rate increases and by offering higher deductible plans, instead of challenging the runaway unit cost problem directly through hard negotiations with providers.

Pushed by Attorney General Tong, insurers conceded during the 2023 rate hearings that they do not negotiate the cost of individual procedures with hospitals and providers at all. Attorney General Tong has continued to push insurers and state regulators to address the broken incentive structure and negotiation dynamics between insurers and healthcare providers that contribute to the ever-rising cost of healthcare in Connecticut.

The Connecticut General Assembly this session passed new legislation authored by Governor Ned Lamont, effective January 1, 2027, that will allow CID to reduce a health carrier’s individual or small employer group health insurance rate request by up to two percentage points if the carrier’s average approved rate increase exceeds the state’s health care cost growth benchmark in each of the two most recent years for which benchmark data is available.

Twitter: @AGWilliamTong

Facebook: CT Attorney General

Media Contact:

Elizabeth Benton
elizabeth.benton@ct.gov

Consumer Inquiries:

860-808-5318
attorney.general@ct.gov