This week’s newsletter is Sponsored By: Medicare Market Insights +
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Here is what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter!
Important links 🔗 - the best articles we found this week about the Medicare Market along with links to Jared’s recent LinkedIn posts.
Deep Dive 📚 - 2025 Medicare Supplement Market Results - Part ✌️
Sponsor Snapshot 🚀 - brought to you by Medicare Market Insights +
It’s only a 5 minute read, but it will make you 10x smarter.
Here are IMPORTANT LINKS 🔗 for the week:
Coming Soon: CMS to Provide $50 Monthly Access to GLP-1 Medications for Medicare Beneficiaries - (link)
A deeper dive into the ACCESS Model—Who’s participating, potential headwinds and how it could spur health plan adoption - (link)
Medicare portal database exposed Social Security numbers: Reports - (link)
The 'broken handoff' leaving retirees lost on Medicare choices - (link)
Humana to ‘adjust’ Medicare Advantage benefits in 2027 as funding gap widens, CEO says - (link)
Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet the Insurance Bro. - (link)
Alignment CEO expects short delay for CMS' proposed risk adjustment changes - (link)
CNO outlines Medicare Supplement rate actions of 10.2% and ~14.5% approvals with full quarterly impact by Q4 2026 - (link)
Analysis - Medicare Advantage health plans may cut extra benefits in 2027 (link)
Jared’s recent LinkedIn posts:
DEEP DIVE 📚
2025 Medicare Supplement Market Results - Part ✌️
Last week’s Deep Dive focused on the overall Medicare Supplement experience sourced from the Medicare Supplement Insurance Experience Exhibit (MSIEE).
This week’s Deep Dive will remain in the MSIEE, but instead will focus on state level experience.
A reminder that companies with Medicare Supplement business are required to complete the MSIEE as part of their Annual Statement submission. It is subject to change throughout the year as additional carriers report or correct previously submitted data. Additionally, there are some companies that report to the California Department of Managed Healthcare (CDMHC) and are not required to submit the MSIEE to the NAIC. The data presented here utilizes the data received from the NAIC along with additional sources.
A quick refresher on the total Medicare Supplement market shows 2025 total premium grew by over $3.9 billion (8.8%) and total lives grew by 240,000 (1.7%).
It is important to note that Medicare Supplement is regulated at the state level. Therefore, different rules will govern how carriers can operate in each state. The strategy and tactics that lead to success in Texas will be completely different than those required in New York.
Medicare Supplement Penetration Rates
The first thing we’ll look at is the market penetration rates by state.
Penetration rate is calculated as:
[# of Medicare Supplement Lives] / [# of Medicare Beneficiaries]
Our numerator will be the Medicare Supplement lives from the 2025 MSIEE (and other sources), which represent in force counts as of 12/31/2025. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) releases monthly files that contain data about the number of Medicare beneficiaries. Our denominator will be the number of Medicare beneficiaries from the December 2025 file. Using this file, the number of United States Medicare beneficiaries increased by 1.45 million (2.2%) in 2025.
Using this calculation, the nationwide Medicare Supplement penetration rate is 21.0% as of year-end 2025, which is down from 21.1% in 2024.
The map shows the Medicare Supplement penetration rate by state. The darker shading represents the highest penetration rates while the lighter shading represents the lowest penetration rates.
Key observations:
The top 5 states with the highest penetration rates are Wyoming (45%), Nebraska (44%), Kansas (42%), Iowa (42%), and Montana (38%). Combined, these states have 2.1 million Medicare beneficiaries (3.1% of US total) and 875,643 Medicare Supplement lives (6.1% of US total). In 2025, these 5 states in aggregate experienced a 2.1% growth in Medicare beneficiaries and 0.6% in Medicare Supplement lives.
The 5 states with the lowest penetration rates are Hawaii (5%), New York (11%), Washington D.C. (13%), Maine (14%), and Alabama (14%). Combined, these states have 6.0 million Medicare beneficiaries (8.7% of US total) and 700,540 Medicare Supplement lives (4.9% of US total). In 2025, these 5 states in aggregate experienced a 1.9% growth in Medicare beneficiaries but experienced a 0.3% decline in Medicare Supplement lives.
There are 30 states that have a Medicare Supplement penetration rate that is above the nationwide average of 21.0%, and 21 states (including Washington D.C.) that are below the average. In 2024, there were 28 states above the nationwide average (21.1%) and 23 (including Washinton D.C.) below.
The 30 states with higher than the nationwide average Medicare Supplement penetration rate represent 31.4 million Medicare beneficiaries (46.0% of US total) and 8.1 million Medicare Supplement lives (56.1% of US total). The remaining 21 states comprise 37.0 million Medicare beneficiaries (54.0% of US total) and 6.3 million Medicare Supplement lives (43.9% of US total).
👉A state-by-state breakdown can be downloaded from here:
Medicare Supplement Total In Force Lives
The following table includes the top and bottom 5 states in terms of total in force Medicare Supplement lives and their percentage of the US market:
Key observations:
The top 5 states are California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, consistent with 2024. These 5 states represent 31.7% of the total US Medicare Supplement lives.
The bottom 5 states are North Dakota, Rhode Island, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington D.C., consistent with 2024. These 5 states represent 1.0% of the total US Medicare Supplement lives.
The state that added the most lives in 2025 was Connecticut with 33,218 and the state’s 23.5% growth was also the highest.
The state that reduced by the most lives in 2025 was Pennsylvania with 15,138 (2.2% reduction). The state with the lowest growth percentage was West Virginia at -2.4% (-1,944 lives).
Medicare Supplement Total Earned Premium
The following table includes the top and bottom 5 states in terms of total Medicare supplement earned premium and % of the US market:
Key observations:
The top 5 states are California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. These states are consistent with 2024. These 5 states represent 32.6% of the total US Medicare Supplement earned premium.
The bottom 5 states are Vermont, Rhode Island, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington D.C. These states are consistent with 2024. These 5 states represent 1.0% of the total US Medicare Supplement earned premium.
The state that added the most earned premium in 2025 was California with over $381.3 million (11.9% growth). The state with the highest growth percentage was Colorado at 16.3% ($98.7 million).
The state that added the least amount of earned premium and had the lowest growth percentage in 2025 was Maine with $710k and 0.4% growth.
Enjoying the recent Medicare Supplement Deep Dives? We’ll continue to monitor the market and bring you what is interesting. Let us know if there is anything you are seeing that you would like us to “deep” dive in to!
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What MMI + Subscribers read this week…
Insurance Regulatory Insights May 2026 - Insurance in Motion: Med Supp Changes, CMS Updates, AI Laws, and Dental Proposals (link)
Non-Commissionable Plans - 2026 - Repository of 2026 Non-Commissionable Plans (link)
April ‘26 MA/MAPD and PDP enrollment data - April enrollment data has been loaded. Here are a few observations. (link)
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