Terms Search Tips Targeted Search by Area Website FAQs Notice of SAI Plus enforcement action. Return to Index Commissioner Jose Montemayor today approved the request of the Texas Health Insurance Risk Pool for rate increases averaging 20 percent, effective January 1, 2001. The Legislature created the pool as a source of individual health insurance for people unable to obtain it in the voluntary market because of their past or present medical problems. Families of such persons also can receive health coverage from the pool.
People also move in and out of the pool.
About 36 percent of those who leave the pool do so because they obtained health insurance elsewhere, such as through an employer. The standard rate is the average of individual health insurance premiums charged in the open market by several major insurance companies. The 20 percent average increase is the combined result of increases in the standard rate and the decision to lift the multiplier from 150 percent to 165 percent. The law creating the pool authorized rates as high as 200 percent of the standard rate. Although increasing the number of rating groups is revenue neutral, it will push premiums up for some policyholders while lowering them for others.