Florida Small Business
You're staring down a stack of quotes, or a renewal that came in higher than last year, and trying to figure out what your team actually needs.
We're a Florida-licensed, independent brokerage. We help employers across the state — 1 to 50 employees — sort through carriers, costs, and the rules that decide what your group qualifies for.
The Rules
One statute governs almost everything here: Florida's Employee Health Care Access Act, Fla. Stat. § 627.6699. Most guides paraphrase it without naming it, so here's what it actually says for your business.
A small employer is one that averaged 1 to 50 eligible employees on business days in the prior calendar year, with at least one employee on the first day of the plan year. At 1 to 50 eligible employees, coverage is guaranteed issue — every small-group carrier has to offer you a plan regardless of your team's health status, preexisting conditions, or claims history. There's no medical underwriting at the group level to get in the door. One eligible employee is the statutory floor; carrier practice on true owner-only groups is a separate question, covered in the FAQ below.
The rest of the statute, in the terms that decide what your group qualifies for:
Eligible employee works a normal week of 25 or more hours and has cleared any waiting period. Self-employed individuals and partners can count; part-time and temporary workers don't.
Modified community rating is how carriers price your group — and only four things move the number: age, family composition, tobacco use, and where your employees live. Nothing about your team's actual health or claims history. Rating areas follow county lines, so your county matters.
Participation minimums do exist — but they're set by each carrier, not by a single statewide number. That commonly cited figure of around 70% employee participation comes from carriers, not Florida law.
No state mandate exists in Florida — offering coverage is a choice, not a legal obligation. The federal ACA requirement only reaches employers at 50 full-time-equivalent employees and above.
Cost
There's no single price for small-group coverage, and any site that gives you one is guessing. The figures here are compiled from industry sources for the 2026 plan year — useful for orientation, not a quote. Your group's rate depends on your census and your county.
Reported 2026 monthly ranges — fully insured Florida small-group plans
What moves your number: the age of each enrollee (Florida rates in age bands), tobacco use, family composition, your county, and the metal tier and network you pick — a narrower-network plan prices below a broad-network PPO covering the same benefits.
For context, Florida's approved 2026 small-group increases averaged 12.8% by membership, with individual carriers landing between about 9% and 16% — meaningful, though notably softer than the individual marketplace's reported 31.5% jump. Separately, the enhanced federal premium subsidies that made marketplace coverage cheaper from 2021 through 2025 expired at the end of 2025, so employees buying their own coverage are paying more out of pocket in 2026 than they were in 2025. Employer contribution norms in the state tend to land around 50 to 75% of the employee-only premium and 25 to 50% of dependent premium. Those are market conventions, since Florida law sets no contribution percentage.
The Market
Florida's Department of Financial Services publishes an official 2026 small-group carrier list. It's the authoritative answer to who can write your group.
Three on the 2026 list
Florida Blue's small-group portfolio alone spans BlueOptions, BlueSelect, and the narrower-network SimplyBlue, at different price and network points.
Seven on the 2026 list
Several are regional — a carrier strong in Central or South Florida may not be the right fit on the Space Coast, and vice versa.
We won't tell you one carrier is the best — that's not how good advice works. Which plan fits depends on where your employees live, the hospitals and doctors they use, and your budget.
As an independent brokerage, we market your group across carriers and bring you the comparison — not a single-carrier pitch.
Other Paths
For many Florida employers, a fully insured group plan is the right call. But it isn't the only structure — and for some teams, it isn't the best value.
A fixed monthly payment with stop-loss insurance behind it — and a possible surplus back when your group's claims come in under the funded amount. For a stable, comparatively healthy workforce, it can price below traditional group coverage, with more year-to-year variability to weigh.
How level-funded worksFlips the model: instead of sponsoring a plan, you reimburse employees tax-free for individual-market coverage they choose themselves, with allowances that can vary by employee class. Suits employers who want predictable cost and employee choice, or who can't meet participation minimums.
What an ICHRA isThe smaller-employer cousin of ICHRA — a capped, low-admin reimbursement benefit for businesses under 50 FTE that don't offer a group plan, with 2026 limits of $6,450 a year for self-only and $13,100 for family coverage.
Options for 1–9 employeesAssociation health plans come up often, and we'll be straight with you: their legal status in Florida is unsettled after a 2019 federal court ruling struck down the rule the state had adopted. We'd point you to the reliable structures above before an association plan.
Common Questions
The rules, costs, and eligibility questions we hear most from owners weighing group coverage.
No. Florida sets no state mandate requiring small employers to offer coverage. The only requirement comes from the federal ACA, and it applies to Applicable Large Employers — those averaging 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees in the prior calendar year. If you're under 50 FTE, offering coverage is a choice, usually a retention and recruiting one, not a legal obligation.
Usually the group needs at least one common-law W-2 employee who isn't the owner or the owner's spouse. This is carrier practice rather than a line in Florida statute, and in the market most carriers won't write a true owner-only or owner-plus-spouse group. If that's your situation, individual coverage or a reimbursement structure like QSEHRA or ICHRA is generally the practical path, and we can walk you through which one fits.
You can start most of the year. Florida small-group plans aren't tied to the individual marketplace's January open-enrollment window. Carriers run an initial enrollment period and an annual open-enrollment window, and many employers target a January 1 or July 1 effective date for budgeting, but those dates are conventions, not legal restrictions. There is also one federal window each fall that relaxes the usual participation and contribution minimums for a January 1 start, which matters most to very small groups — our page for groups of one to nine covers how it works.
It depends on your census. Figures compiled from industry sources put 2026 fully insured small-group premiums in a broad range — roughly $550 to $850 a month for employee-only Silver coverage, more for family tiers — but your group's actual rate turns on the age of each enrollee, your county, tobacco use, family composition, and the plan and network you choose. Treat any published range as a starting estimate, not a quote.
Florida's Department of Financial Services publishes an official 2026 small-group carrier list. It names three PPO/indemnity carriers — Florida Blue, National Health Insurance Company (Allstate Health), and UnitedHealthcare — plus seven HMO carriers — AvMed, BeHealthy Florida, Capital Health Plan, Florida Health Care Plan, Health Options (the Florida Blue HMO), Neighborhood Health Partnership, and UnitedHealthcare of Florida. Which carriers actually quote your group depends on where your employees live and the networks they need.
They're three ways to answer the same question: how you fund your team's coverage. A traditional fully insured plan hands the risk to the carrier — you pay a set premium, and that's the number. Level-funded blends fixed monthly payments with stop-loss insurance, and can hand back a surplus if claims run low, which tends to suit stable, comparatively healthy groups. ICHRA reverses the model entirely: instead of sponsoring a plan, you reimburse employees tax-free for individual-market coverage they pick themselves. Each fits a different situation, and we help you compare them side by side.
Generally yes, though the mechanics differ by entity. Employer-paid group premiums are usually deductible to the business and excluded from employees' taxable income. S-corporation owners who hold more than 2% face special W-2 reporting, and sole proprietors typically take the self-employed health insurance deduction. Florida has no state income tax, so this is a federal question. This is general education, not tax advice — confirm the specifics with your CPA.
They're an option some employers explore, but the legal footing is genuinely unsettled right now. A 2019 federal court decision struck down key provisions of the expanded association-health-plan rule that Florida had incorporated, leaving the category in limbo. Because availability and standing are uncertain, we'd steer you toward the reliable paths — traditional group, level-funded, or a reimbursement arrangement — before an association plan.
All the carriers, cost structures, and rules can be a lot to hold at once. You don't have to sort them alone.
Let's review where your group stands, market your group across carriers, and design coverage that fits your team and your budget.
