Health insurance for Illinois appraisers: a new marketplace, a 28.8% increase and two insurers leaving

Sam Jaber, Licensed Health Insurance Advisor · Updated October 2026

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

Short answer: If your appraisal income qualifies for a tax credit, a Get Covered Illinois plan is usually your most affordable option. If it doesn't, you pay full price after a 28.8% average increase for 2026, and a healthy appraiser can price underwritten plans on nationwide PPO networks instead. Either way, a short call sorts it out.

• My income qualifies for a credit
• I earn too much for one
• I'm healthy and over the line
• I'm treating a condition
• My plan or COBRA is ending
• Not sure yet

If you appraise homes in Illinois and pay for your own health insurance, whether from a one-person office or as a fee appraiser taking orders from appraisal management companies, there is usually no employer paying part of the premium. The decision sits with you.

Three things changed at once this year. Illinois now runs its own marketplace, Get Covered Illinois, which took over from HealthCare.gov for residents starting with 2026 coverage. The Illinois Department of Insurance put the statewide weighted average increase for individual plans at 28.8%. And two of the seven insurers selling on Get Covered Illinois in 2026 are leaving when the year ends.

Where you go from here hangs mostly on one number: will your appraisal income for the year be low enough to earn a premium tax credit? Read the section that matches; skip the rest.

When your fee income is low enough for a credit

The premium tax credit only works on a marketplace plan, and in Illinois that now means Get Covered Illinois. For appraisers whose expected income lands inside the credit range, buying there with the credit applied usually gets you the most affordable coverage on offer.

The hard part is predicting the income. Order volume for most appraisers rises and falls with mortgage activity, so a year that starts slow can turn busy if rates drop and refinance work comes back. The credit you take each month rests on your estimate for the full year and gets reconciled when you file. Finish higher than you guessed and some or all of it may have to be repaid. Past 400% of the federal poverty level there is no credit at all, since the enhanced credits expired after 2025; for one person buying 2027 coverage in open enrollment from November 1, that line is $63,840, and for 2026 it is $62,600. Our explainer on the subsidy cliff shows how it works for a household.

One Illinois detail is worth a look while you compare. A pricing rule the state applied to silver plans for 2026 can leave a gold plan costing less than a silver one for buyers who do not get extra cost-sharing help. Price both levels before you pick.

When a busy year pushes you past the credit line

Above the line, every dollar of the premium comes out of your fees, and the 28.8% weighted average increase reaches you in full. That figure is the state's average across individual plans, measured before any subsidies.

Put it in appraisal terms. The average benchmark plan, the second-lowest-cost silver plan, cost a 40-year-old in Illinois $646 a month in 2026, or $7,752 for the year at full price. That is a lot of reports before you pay yourself, and it sits beside the other costs of the practice, like errors and omissions coverage, data subscriptions and mileage.

The $646 is a statewide average for one age, and the 28.8% is an average across plans. Your own price depends on your age, county, household and plan.

For a lot of appraisers above the credit line, the full Get Covered Illinois price stops fitting the budget. What comes next depends on your health.

Past the line and in good health

If you are healthy, the place to look is outside Get Covered Illinois. Private health plans sold off the marketplace can use medical underwriting and run on PPO networks that reach across the country. Because the insurer reviews each applicant and ends up covering a healthier group, a healthy appraiser may come out below what Get Covered Illinois charges at full price.

• Your health history is part of the application. From your answers the insurer decides to take you, turn you down, or cover you minus a condition you already have.
• Doctors count as in network outside your area. A national PPO network includes providers in other states, which matters if you take assignments well outside your home county or spend time with family out of state.
• The benefits belong to the plan. Plans sold off the marketplace are not built to marketplace benefit rules, so read what each one covers. Our guide to medical underwriting walks through the process.

The only honest way to know whether this route beats your marketplace price is to put two real numbers next to each other: an underwritten quote for your household and the full Get Covered Illinois price for the same people.

Past the line with a condition you're treating

If you take a costly prescription or see a specialist on a schedule, keep your coverage on Get Covered Illinois even at full price. Get Covered Illinois plans take every applicant, price you without regard to your health, and carry the essential benefits. Medical underwriting carries no such promise; the application could be refused, or the very condition you need treated could be excluded.

So the work here is choosing among marketplace plans, not leaving them. Confirm that your doctors, your hospital and your prescriptions are covered by the plan you choose, and check again every fall, since plans and networks can change from one year to the next.

If your plan is ending: your insurer leaves, or COBRA runs out

Two of the seven insurers on Get Covered Illinois this year are leaving at the end of 2026. If one of them covers you now, your current plan will not exist in 2027, and you will be choosing something new during the coming open enrollment. Insurers that leave a market have to give their members written notice ahead of time, so keep an eye on your mail and your account.

The same applies if you are leaving a staff appraiser job or your COBRA is about to run out. Losing job-based coverage opens a 60-day window to enroll on Get Covered Illinois, and Illinois' own continuation law reaches insured group plans at employers of any size, as long as you were covered for at least three months before the job ended.

Either way, a forced change is a good moment to rethink the whole thing rather than grab the nearest replacement. Start with the same question as everyone else on this page: what will your income look like for the coming year? If you expect a credit, or you are managing a condition, compare the insurers that are staying and make sure your doctors are in their networks. If you expect to be above the line and you are healthy, price the underwritten route at the same time.

Pick your scenario

Each row below ends with the same step, because a short conversation with your actual fee income and household beats guessing from a chart.

Still not sure where you fit? That is exactly what the call is for. The Illinois guide for self-employed buyers goes through the rest of Illinois' rules, and real estate agents facing a similar squeeze can read how Georgia realtors are working around their rate increase.

Common questions