Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance plans and individual marketplace plans in Arkansas continue to be among the lowest in the United States, as illustrated in our newly updated infographic.
The infographic shows how the average annual premium for an employer-sponsored health insurance plan in Arkansas has changed from 2014 through 2019. In 2014, the average annual premium in Arkansas was $14,143 for a family and $4,846 for an individual; both were the lowest in the nation. In 2019, the average annual premium in Arkansas was $17,773 for a family, the second-lowest in the nation, and $6,054 for an individual, the lowest in the nation.
Also depicted are the year-to-year changes in average monthly benchmark premiums for individual Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace plans in Arkansas and the surrounding states from 2014 through 2020. In 2014, Arkansas’s average benchmark premium was higher than the average premiums of all but two of the surrounding states at $294 per month, but by 2017 it was lower than the average premiums of all the surrounding states at $281 per month, and it has remained the lowest in the region ever since. Arkansas’s average premium in 2020 is $365 per month, the seventh-lowest among all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
For 2021, insurers offering individual plans through the Health Insurance Marketplace have asked the Arkansas Insurance Department to approve premium increases ranging from 2.9% to 4.9%.
Our infographic is adapted from analyses by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Average benchmark premiums were calculated using the second-lowest-cost silver plan for a 40-year-old.
