1–9 Employees
You're Not Too Small for Group Health Insurance
You made your first hire, or you run a two-person shop, or a family business with a few people on payroll. Every quote you find seems written for a company with fifty employees.
You don't have fifty. In Florida, that doesn't put group coverage out of reach.
We'll tell you where you actually stand — and when the honest answer is the individual marketplace, we'll say so.
Where You Stand
Florida Covers You From Your First Eligible Employee
Florida's small-group market is guaranteed issue for employers with 1 to 50 eligible employees. No one can be turned down for health status, and coverage starts at a single eligible employee — that's the legal floor.
An eligible employee, under Florida law, is someone whose normal workweek is 25 or more hours. That's a lower bar than the ACA's federal 30-hour full-time line, so don't conflate the two. Part-time, temporary, and substitute workers fall below it and aren't counted.
Here's the honest wrinkle most quotes skip. Carriers want at least one bona fide, non-owner W-2 employee — a genuinely payrolled person, not someone informally helping out. A spouse counts only if truly on payroll with real wages and withholding. If you're a solo owner with no payroll for anyone else, most carriers won't write a traditional group plan, no matter what the statute's wording allows.
When that's the case, the individual marketplace is usually the better answer — it's guaranteed issue too, and there's no group to prove. We'd rather point you there than sell you a group you don't qualify for.
The December Door
The Window That Waives the Participation Rules
For most of the year, carriers ask a small group to clear two hurdles: a minimum share of eligible employees enrolled, and the employer paying a minimum share of the employee-only premium. Both thresholds are set by each carrier, not by Florida law, and they vary — which is why we check them before quoting. For a family shop where a few people are already covered under a spouse's plan and choose to waive, those minimums are exactly what gets a group turned away. There's one door around that.
November 15 – December 15
This is the annual window in which small-group carriers must offer coverage to a qualifying small employer that can't meet their usual participation or contribution minimums. Coverage from it typically takes effect January 1.
2 people
The enrollment floor inside this window — two people actually enrolled, no matter how many are on the team or how many waive.
$0
The contribution minimum — you can put nothing toward premiums and still enroll inside the window.
Every other rule still applies — the eligible-employee definition, the paperwork, and carrier deadlines that tend to be strict. If minimums have blocked you before, this is the month that changes the math.
Reported 2026 monthly ranges — directional, not a quote
- Employee-only (Silver)
- $550–$850
- Employee + spouse
- $1,100–$1,650
- Family
- $1,600–$2,400
Compiled from industry sources for the 2026 plan year. Your actual numbers depend on ages, plan, and carrier.
The Numbers
What Coverage Actually Costs
Start by letting go of the bulk-discount idea. Small-group premiums are priced per employee on an age-banded, community-rated basis — age, tobacco use, area, and family size. A five-person group and a fifty-person group pay essentially the same per-employee rate for the same plan. There's no volume price break at this size.
Employers commonly cover 50 to 75 percent of the employee-only premium and 25 to 50 percent of dependent premiums. Those are norms, not rules — inside the December window you have room to contribute less.
The Tax Picture
Where the Tax Rules Help — and Where to Call Your CPA
Three rules cover most of what a micro-employer needs to know — and one of them belongs to your CPA.
The exclusion that does the work
Premiums you pay for a genuine group plan or a QSEHRA/ICHRA arrangement are a deductible business expense, whatever your entity type. And under IRC Section 106, employer-paid group premiums stay out of a common-law employee's taxable income — no added W-2 wages, no payroll tax. That exclusion is the whole reason employer coverage tends to beat an employee buying the same plan with after-tax dollars.
The S-corp exception
If you're a 2-percent-or-greater shareholder-employee of an S corporation, premiums the company pays for you are deductible by the corporation but must be added to your W-2 Box 1 wages — not the FICA boxes. You can then often take a personal above-the-line deduction, subject to conditions. This is genuinely CPA territory, so confirm the mechanics with your CPA before you file.
The credit not to build on
The Small Business Health Care Tax Credit is real, but narrow — gated to employers with fewer than 25 full-time-equivalent employees, modest average wages, and a plan bought through the SHOP Marketplace. The full credit only reaches very low-wage workforces and it phases out fast — and for 2026 no Florida carrier is selling a SHOP-designated small-group plan at all, so there is currently nothing here to buy it through. Worth knowing about; not worth building a plan around.
Common Questions
What Micro-Employers Ask Most
The questions Florida owners with one to nine people ask before they cover a team.
Can I offer group health insurance to just myself?
Florida's small-group law technically starts at one eligible employee, but in practice almost no carrier will issue a traditional group plan to an owner with no other payrolled employees. If you're a true solo owner, the individual marketplace is the honest answer — it's guaranteed issue too, it's usually faster, and you don't have to prove a group to an underwriter. We'll tell you which side of that line you fall on.
Does my spouse count as my employee so I can get a group plan?
Only if your spouse is genuinely payrolled as a W-2 employee — real wages, real payroll tax withholding, the works. A spouse who informally helps out does not count under the common-law employee test, and carriers underwrite to that standard. If your spouse is formally on payroll, that can create a real two-life group.
Do I have to cover my part-time employees?
Florida's small-group definition of an eligible employee is someone with a normal workweek of 25 or more hours. Part-time, temporary, and substitute workers fall below that line by default and aren't counted in the group. Individual carriers can vary, so confirm the specifics with the plan you're considering.
Can I just pay my employees extra to buy their own individual plan?
Not tax-free, and not without risk. Reimbursing an employee's individual-market premium outside a formal QSEHRA or ICHRA is treated by the IRS as a non-compliant health plan, which can trigger an excise tax of $100 per day, per affected employee under Section 4980D. If you want to help employees buy their own coverage tax-free, a QSEHRA or ICHRA is the compliant path. A plain taxable stipend added to payroll avoids the penalty only because it's ordinary wages, with none of the tax advantages of a real HRA.
When can I start a group plan?
You can start any time a carrier will underwrite you, as long as you meet the usual participation and contribution minimums. If you can't hit those minimums, the November 15 to December 15 window is when carriers must offer coverage to a qualifying small employer anyway, typically effective January 1.
Is a group plan actually cheaper per person than individual coverage for a tiny team?
Not automatically. There's no group-size discount — small-group premiums are age-banded and community-rated, so a five-person group and a fifty-person group pay essentially the same per-employee rate. For lower-wage staff who might qualify for premium tax credits on the individual marketplace, an individual approach can sometimes come out ahead. That comparison changed for 2026: the enhanced federal premium subsidies that ran from 2021 through 2025 expired at the end of 2025, so the individual side is less cheap than it was. It's worth comparing employee by employee against real 2026 premiums, which is part of what we do.
What is a QSEHRA, and is it right for a three-person shop?
A QSEHRA is a tax-free reimbursement allowance you set for employees who buy their own individual coverage — instead of sponsoring a group plan. For 2026 the caps are $6,450 per year for self-only coverage and $13,100 for family. It fits owners who want to help but can't commit to the cost or admin of a group plan, and it only works if you don't also offer a group plan.
A Small Team Is Still a Real Client
A group of two, three, or nine isn't a minimum-fee problem to us — it's a business with people who deserve coverage that fits. We'll help you compare a group plan, a reimbursement arrangement, and the individual marketplace, and tell you plainly which one earns your money.
Start with a conversation. We'll figure out where you stand and what comes next.