How Delaware advisors are handling health insurance with fewer insurers, steeper prices and almost no bridge coverage

Sam Jaber, Licensed Health Insurance Advisor · Updated October 2026

NPN 20698748 · Licensed in Delaware, one of 31 states where Sam Jaber holds a license · Licensing details

Short answer: If your commissions and fees qualify you for a tax credit, a HealthCare.gov plan is usually the most affordable route. Above the line you pay full price after a 27.7% average rise, with one of three insurers leaving after 2026, so a healthy advisor can price underwritten nationwide PPO plans instead. Start with a short call.

• My income qualifies for a credit
• My book pays too well for one
• I'm healthy and over the line
• I have a health condition
• I'm leaving a firm or COBRA is ending
• Not sure yet

This page is for Delaware financial advisors and insurance agents who work as 1099 contractors or run their own practice, whether you live on commissions and renewals or a quarterly fee on assets. No group health plan comes attached to that income.

Delaware's market handed you three things to plan around for 2026. Average rates rose 27.7%, a weighted average the state reported, even with a reinsurance program that has been holding full-price premiums down for years. Three insurers sell on HealthCare.gov in Delaware this year, and one of them is leaving at the end of 2026, which leaves two for 2027. And Delaware caps short-term health plans at three months, with no renewals and no back-to-back policies.

Your path turns first on one question: will your income this year qualify you for a premium tax credit? If you are about to leave a firm, there is a second one, covered further down. Read the sections that apply to you.

If your commissions and fees leave you in the credit range

Delaware residents use HealthCare.gov, and that is the only place the premium tax credit applies. Advisors whose projected income qualifies will usually pay the least on a HealthCare.gov plan with the credit applied.

The income estimate is where advisors get caught. First-year commissions on a large case can land in a single month, and a strong quarter for the markets lifts a fee-based practice's revenue along with it. The credit is based on the year's total, it is reconciled when you file, and a year that beats your projection can mean returning some or all of the credit. Above 400% of the federal poverty level, the credit is gone entirely since the enhanced credits expired after 2025. Read how the subsidy cliff applies to your household before you settle on a figure.

Base the estimate on renewals and fees you can count on, and update HealthCare.gov when a big case pays.

If your book pays too well for a credit

Above the line, the full premium is yours, and the 27.7% average increase reaches you undiluted. For a sense of scale, the average benchmark premium in Delaware, the second-lowest-cost silver plan for a 40-year-old, was $691 a month in 2026.

Both figures are statewide averages. Your own premium depends on your age, where you live, your household and your plan.

The choice is also narrowing. With one of the three insurers leaving after 2026, there will be fewer plans to compare next year. For many advisors above the credit line, a full-price marketplace plan no longer fits the budget, and the deciding question becomes your health.

Above the line and healthy

Outside HealthCare.gov, healthy advisors can price private plans that are medically underwritten and use nationwide PPO networks. Because acceptance depends on health, these insurers end up covering a healthier membership than marketplace plans, which must enroll whoever applies. That is how a healthy advisor can sometimes come in below the full HealthCare.gov premium.

• Medical questions come with the application. The insurer uses your answers to approve you, decline you, or leave a known condition uncovered.
• Your network reaches your clients. If your clients are spread across Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey, a national PPO network treats doctors there as in network too.
• The plan's benefits are its own. These plans are not held to marketplace benefit rules, so read the coverage in full. Our guide to what medical underwriting means explains the review.

Above the line with a health condition

If you are managing a chronic condition or paying for a costly medication, stay with a HealthCare.gov plan at full price. HealthCare.gov plans cannot refuse you or price you on your medical history, and each includes the essential benefits. An underwritten insurer has neither obligation, so it might say no or exclude what you need treated.

One Delaware detail matters here. If your 2026 plan comes from the insurer that is leaving, you will need a new plan for 2027 from one of the two that remain. Check that your doctors and prescriptions are covered before you switch, rather than discovering it at your first appointment.

If you're leaving a firm, or your COBRA is running out

Advisors who leave a firm's payroll to set up their own practice face Delaware's thinnest options, because the usual stopgap barely exists here.

• A firm with 20 or more employees: federal COBRA generally lets you keep the same group plan for up to 18 months, at up to 102% of its full cost.
• A firm with 1 to 19 employees: Delaware's continuation law can let you keep the plan for up to 9 months, if you had at least 3 months of continuous coverage before leaving. You have 30 days to elect it, and you pay the whole premium.
• A short-term plan: in Delaware it can run no longer than three months, cannot be renewed, cannot be stacked back to back, and the same insurer cannot sell you another one within the year. It covers a short gap, not a transition.

Your job plan ending also gives you 60 days to sign up on HealthCare.gov outside open enrollment, and so does COBRA or Delaware continuation running out later. Whatever you use to bridge the first months, the plan you keep long term goes back to the same two questions as everyone else: will your new practice's income qualify for a credit, and are you healthy? Our comparison of COBRA and its alternatives walks through the numbers.

Choose your starting point

Find the row that describes you. Every row ends at the same next step, since your own numbers answer this fastest.

Not sure which row fits? Call and ask. The Delaware guide for self-employed buyers explains Delaware's other rules, and Michigan engineering contractors face a different version of the bridge problem.

Common questions