More than 40,000 Coloradans will need a new health insurance carrier next year. Here's who is affected.

More than 40,000 Coloradans will be shopping for a new health insurance carrier for next year because of Cigna's decision to withdraw from the individual insurance market nationwide.

Cigna announced its plans in a call with investors in late April and cited instability within the market. Starting in 2027, the company is dropping plans sold through the Affordable Care Act exchanges — such as Connect for Health Colorado locally and HealthCare.gov nationally — as well as off-exchange plans. Cigna plans for 2026 remain good through the end of the year.

"We did not make this decision lightly and appreciate the importance of ensuring patients have continuity through the transition," Cigna COO Brian Evanko said on the call.

Cigna made its withdrawal official in Colorado last month, when it filed a notice with the Colorado Division of Insurance.

"After careful consideration, Cigna Healthcare determined that continued participation in the individual medical market is not viable over the long term due to its limited scale and the operational demands of competing in a highly dynamic market," the company wrote in a letter to Colorado Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway.

The company said it insures 40,853 people in Colorado through the individual market. Those plans are sold in 12 Front Range counties from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, as well as in Routt County.

As recently as 2024, Cigna was the third-largest carrier in the individual market in Colorado, behind Elevance Health (formerly Anthem) and Kaiser Permanente.

The decision affects only the individual market — which encompasses people who purchase plans on their own, sometimes with the help of a government subsidy, but without any direct contribution from an employer. More than 300,000 Coloradans buy coverage this way.

Going head-to-head with other carriers on the insurance exchanges — which are sort of like Amazon for health insurance — makes the individual market highly competitive for insurers. And major changes in state or federal policy, such as Congress's decision to allow certain subsidies to expire this year, can create big price swings year to year.

In an interview, Conway said Cigna's decision is a consequence of those subsidies going away. The subsidies were implemented during the COVID pandemic and expanded the federal financial help for people shopping on the individual market, making plans more affordable for a larger number of consumers.

"It seems pretty evident that the reverberations from the tax credits expiring made it too difficult of a market for them to continue in," Conway said. "Creating that massive amount of uncertainty in the marketplace is going to have impacts like this. Insurance companies, one thing they hate the most is uncertainty."

People with Cigna plans through their job or through a Medicare Advantage plan will not see their coverage affected.