Choose your discomfort — the reality of insurance in 2026

Let's talk about where insurance actually is right now. Not where it was last year, not where someone on TikTok says it is — where it is, in 2026, in the second quarter of a year that has felt about three years long.

Short version: property and casualty is finally cooling off. Health insurance is a slow-motion disaster. And the honest truth is that every option sucks a little — your job is to pick which uncomfortable you can live with.

The P&C side is actually improving

For the first time in a few years, we're seeing good news on home and auto insurance:

• Rate increases are slowing. We're not back to premium decreases across the board, but the brutal 20-30% jumps we saw in 2023-2024 have moderated significantly.
• Some renewals are actually going down. Especially on home insurance where carriers over-corrected and are now adjusting.
• Carriers who left the market are coming back. Several big names that had either stopped writing new business or shrunk their appetite are opening the spigot again.
• New carriers are entering Texas. Which is great for competition, but we're cautious.

The "cautious about new carriers" thing is important. A new carrier shows up, undercuts the market with aggressive pricing, writes a bunch of policies — then gets wrecked by one bad hail season and either jacks up rates 40% at renewal or exits the market entirely. We've seen it before. Anchor Insurance was one example — Florida-based, thought they understood weather risk, got surprised by what Texas hail actually looks like, pulled out.

Health insurance is a different story

Health insurance is where things are getting ugly:

Let that sink in. The win was a 77% premium increase. That's where we are. Here's what's driving it:

• ACA subsidy cuts. Enhanced subsidies that made marketplace plans affordable for middle-income families have been reduced or eliminated.
• Claims costs rising faster than inflation. Specialty drugs, hospital stays, surgical procedures — everything is more expensive.
• Fewer carriers in many markets. As carriers exit unprofitable markets, the remaining carriers can price higher without losing share.
• Narrower networks. Even when you can afford the premium, the plan increasingly includes fewer doctors and hospitals.

And employer-sponsored insurance isn't immune. Even big companies are pulling back — either raising employee contributions, reducing benefits, cutting dependent coverage, or shifting more cost to higher deductibles and copays.

Choose your discomfort

Here's the framework we've been giving clients when health insurance comes up now. Every path forward has some kind of pain. Your job is to pick which pain you're better suited to handle.

Discomfort #1: Pay the full ACA / COBRA / employer premium

What you get: Comprehensive coverage, familiar networks, predictable claims process, max out-of-pocket cap, no surprises if something catastrophic happens.

What hurts: The monthly premium is painful. Could be $800-1,500/month for a family. You're writing a check for insurance that you may or may not use heavily.

Discomfort #2: Switch to a health share / short-term plan

What you get: Dramatically cheaper monthly cost — often half or less. Catastrophic protection if something major happens.

What hurts: Not technically insurance, so no legal guarantee of coverage. Pre-existing conditions excluded. May not be accepted at every provider. If you have ongoing medical needs, this often doesn't work.

Discomfort #3: Go without insurance

What you get: No premium. The money stays in your pocket month to month.

What hurts: One serious hospitalization bankrupts you. One cancer diagnosis bankrupts you. One accident bankrupts you. For most people, this isn't actually an option — it just feels like one until you need care.

What we're actually recommending to clients

It genuinely depends on the situation, but here are the patterns:

• Healthy adults under 50 with no ongoing medical needs: Health share plans are often the right call. Pay a fraction of what ACA costs. Have catastrophic protection.
• Families with young kids: Depends heavily on income. If you qualify for ACA subsidies, use them. If you don't, do the math on a high-deductible plan with an HSA.
• Anyone with pre-existing conditions: You basically have to be on real insurance (ACA, employer, or Medicare). Health shares will exclude you. Short-term plans will exclude you.
• Approaching 65: Bridge to Medicare with whatever makes sense for the timeline. Don't make 5-year decisions when you're 2 years from Medicare eligibility.
• Employer plan available: Almost always worth it, even with higher employee contributions. The employer subsidy still beats the open market in most cases.

The participation rate trap for employers

If you're an employer facing a huge renewal, here's something your broker should be talking about: plan participation rates matter. If you shift too much cost to employees, the healthy ones drop coverage. The sick ones stay (because they have to). Your pool gets sicker. Your next year's rate gets worse.

Companies that split the increase too aggressively (50/50 or more to the employee) often see 10-20% of their healthy employees drop coverage, which then triggers a death spiral in subsequent renewals.

Why information overload is making this worse

Here's a frustrating meta-observation: people are so flooded with information right now — on insurance, on everything — that they're paralyzed. They can't make a decision because every option has 100 YouTube videos saying it's the wrong one.

The best thing you can do in a confusing market is find one or two trusted sources and tune out the rest. Your independent agent should be one of them. Your financial advisor if you have one. Maybe one or two creators you've vetted. Beyond that, muting the noise helps you think clearly.

The honest bottom line for 2026

P&C is settling down. Health is getting worse before it gets better. Carriers are businesses, and businesses raise prices when their costs go up. We're going to see premiums continue to increase on both sides, just at different speeds.

What you can control:

• Shop every 2-3 years to make sure you're not overpaying
• Raise deductibles if you have an emergency fund
• Bundle for discounts
• Pick an independent agent who shops multiple carriers
• Max out your HSA if you have one
• Lock in life insurance while you're young and healthy

What you can't control: that insurance is expensive, that it's going to stay expensive, and that the entire industry has structural problems nobody is going to fix overnight. Choose your discomfort accordingly.