Group health insurance for Miami employers

The local employer base

SUSB 2022 counts 192,943 employer firms and 2,333,976 paid employees in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area. 176,179 of those firms had fewer than 20 employees and employed 517,732 people. Another 11,039 firms were in the official 20-to-99-employee class, with 404,046 employees. No under-50 metro total is published in that file. Those counts are metro-wide. Employers in Broward County should also see group health insurance in Fort Lauderdale.

What official surveys say about cost here

MEPS-IC 2025 Table IX.A.1 reports that 39.0% of private-sector establishments in this metro area offered health insurance. Table IX.A.2 puts the average annual premium, among offering establishments, at $9,238 for single coverage and $27,246 for family coverage, with average employee contributions of $1,679 (single) and $7,845 (family). The family average is higher than the $25,808 published for Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and the $20,925 published for Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford in the same table.

Table IX.B.2 further splits this metro area by firm size. At firms with fewer than 50 employees, the average annual single premium was $9,135 and the average family premium was $21,942, with an average family employee contribution of $6,217. (The table marks the under-50 single-contribution and employee-plus-one premium figures as not meeting its precision standard, so those are not used here.) At firms with 50 or more employees, the averages were $9,255 (single) and $28,465 (family), with employee contributions of $1,672 and $8,219. The under-50 offer rate in Table IX.B.1 was 26.3%, compared with 96.5% at firms of 50 or more.

Statewide under-50 averages for Florida were $9,742 (single) and $24,957 (family). See the cost page. None of these figures is a Miami-Dade quote.

Florida's small-group rule, and who sells coverage

Florida's Department of Financial Services states that small-group health plans are for employers with one to 50 full-time-equivalent employees. Self-employed individuals and family-only businesses are covered through the individual market.

For policies effective on or after January 1, 2026, the Florida Department of Financial Services Small Group Market Carrier List names the marketers that advised the Office of Insurance Regulation they are offering ACA small-group plans. The indemnity/PPO list is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida d/b/a Florida Blue, National Health Insurance Company, and UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company. The HMO list is Av-Med, Inc.; BeHealthy Florida, Inc. (TruLi for Health); Capital Health Plan, Inc.; Florida Health Care Plan, Inc.; Health Options, Inc. d/b/a Florida Blue; Neighborhood Health Partnership, Inc.; and UnitedHealthcare of Florida, Inc. County-level on- and off-SHOP availability is on the Florida OIR tables. Some of those HMO names are regional. We will only compare products the OIR tables show as available for the counties where your people work. Pages on Florida Blue, UnitedHealthcare, and AvMed describe products; they are not a statement that Ares is appointed with every carrier or that any carrier endorses the firm.

A company with people in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties may see different on-SHOP and off-SHOP options in each county. We will check the OIR tables for every county on the roster, including on a multi-state or multi-county workforce.

Continuation when someone leaves the plan

Federal COBRA generally applies to employers with 20 or more employees. For many smaller Florida groups, section 627.6692, Florida Statutes — the Florida Health Insurance Coverage Continuation Act — provides continuation when federal COBRA is not available. The statute's basic continuation period is 18 months after the date coverage would otherwise have ended because of a qualifying event, with a disability extension described in the same section. See COBRA for employers.

How we help a Miami employer