Best Cheap Health Insurance in Delaware 2019

If you are looking to purchase health insurance in Delaware, you can find cheap individual policies on the state insurance exchange. We conducted research and found that the Shared Cost Blue EPO 7150 is the cheapest Silver plan available across the state. Delaware has also passed the expanded version of Medicaid, which is available if your income falls below 138% of the federal poverty level. Highmark BCBSD Inc. is the only insurance provider in the state, but the company does offer a variety of policies, which allows you the flexibility to choose a plan that fits your financial situation.

Cheapest Health Insurance by Metal Tier

Health insurance in Delaware is broken down into four different metal tiers: Catastrophic, Bronze, Silver and Gold. We compared all the policies available in each tier and identified the lowest-cost options available to you. The table below provides the cheapest plan at each level of coverage, along with the deductible, out-of-pocket maximum and monthly cost for a 40-year-old.

A policyholder's age will affect the premium the most when trying to purchase a health policy. As you can see in the graph below, for all metal tiers, the average cost of a health plan increases significantly with age. For example, a Gold health insurance plan is 22% more affordable on average for a 21-year-old when compared to a 40-year-old, whereas 60-year-olds would pay 112% higher premiums than 40-year-olds.

Finding the Best Health Insurance Coverage in Delaware

Costs are not the only aspects of health insurance policies that you should consider. Cost sharing, such as deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, are also just as important to evaluate before purchasing a health plan. In Delaware, the best health insurance coverage tier will primarily depend on your level of income and expected medical costs. Households and families with higher medical costs should lean toward policies with lower deductibles, while healthier individuals should opt for cheaper plans.

Catastrophic and Bronze Plans: Best for Healthy Individuals

Bronze and Catastrophic plans are the cheapest health policies offered on the Delaware exchange. But these plans have large deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, which can be expensive if you have to use medical services throughout the year. For this reason, we only recommend Bronze and Catastrophic plans if you are very healthy and do not need routine medical care. Catastrophic plans are also only available if you are under the age of 30 or have received a hardship exemption.

Silver Plans: Average Premiums and Deductibles

Silver metal tier health plans are good policies for beginning your health insurance search because of their modest premiums and deductibles. These are the plans that other exchange health policies are benchmarked off of and are a middle ground between Bronze and Gold policies.

Silver plans are the only health insurance policies in Delaware that are eligible for cost-sharing reductions, making them a good option for low-income households. These reductions further decrease the amount of the copays, coinsurance and deductibles but are only available if your household income falls below 250% of the federal poverty level.

Gold Plans: High Premiums but Smaller Deductibles

Gold health insurance plans have the highest premiums across all the metal tiers but are great policies if you expect to have large or frequent medical expenses. This is due to a low deductible, which allows for cost-sharing between you and the health insurance provider. For example, the Shared Cost Blue EPO 1400 Gold plan has a deductible of $1,400, while the Shared Cost Blue EPO 6950 Bronze plan has a deductible of $6,950. The lower deductible is met faster for Gold plans, which allows access to the cost-sharing benefits more quickly.

Best Cheap Health Insurance Companies in Delaware

Highmark BCBSD Inc. is the only health insurance company on the Delaware state exchange. This does decrease the number of options for residents, but Highmark BCBSD Inc. offers multiple policies within some metal tiers. For instance, it offers three Silver metal tier health plans, each with different deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums: the Shared Cost Blue EPO 3500, Shared Cost Blue EPO 7150 and Health Savings Embedded Blue EPO 3500. These options provide some flexibility for you when searching for health insurance.

Cheapest Health Insurance Plan by County

The cheapest Silver health insurance policy in Kent, New Castle and Sussex counties is the Shared Cost Blue EPO 7150 plan. To help you find the best health insurance for your financial situation, we have listed all Silver policies in Delaware, along with their average cost for a 30-year-old and cost-sharing features. We recommend using the table below to compare the Silver health plans available and determine the appropriate coverage as compared to monthly rates.

Average Cost of Health Insurance by Family Size in Delaware

Health insurance costs are very dependent on the number of people insured under the policy and their ages. For example, if you wanted to add a 40-year-old adult to your Silver health insurance in Delaware, it would cost on average $587—this is $236 more than if you wanted to add a child age 14 or younger. So, expanding a health insurance policy to cover a family of five, as opposed to a family of four, would only increase your monthly cost by $351 on average.