Anthem to delay insurance-rate increase

February 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross will postpone its much-criticized plan to raise rates for some California residents who buy insurance on their own, after reaching a deal Saturday with state regulators.

Anthem’s planned rate hike, which the state estimates would affect about 700,000 customers, averaged 25 percent and would have been as high as 39 percent for some.

Anthem Blue Cross of California, based in Thousand Oaks, agreed to postpone the increase from March 1 until May 1 so California could have outside experts review the company’s complex and detailed plan filing, including data on the medical costs it expects to incur.

The California Department of Insurance had been working with Anthem since mid-November to get more information about the increase, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner said. He wanted to have experts comb through the company’s figures to confirm the new rates comply with a 2006 state law that insurers spend 70 cents of every premium dollar on medical care.

Kansas had one recent case where an insurer wanting to raise most individual rates 20 percent to 30 percent was persuaded by state insurance officials to reduce the increases to 10 percent to 20 percent.

And in Oregon, multiple insurers were granted rate hikes of 15 percent or more this year after increases of around 25 percent last year for customers who buy individual health insurance.