DES MOINES, Iowa—The Iowa Insurance Division has taken control of CoOportunity Health, a private health insurance exchange that had been working with the Iowa and Nebraska CU Leagues.
On Dec. 23, the state’s insurance commissioner submitted a petition for an Order of Rehabilitation and the Polk County District Court issued an order appointing Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart as rehabilitator of the Des Moines, Iowa-based CoOportunity Health.
In a release on its website, the Insurance Department stated its move was made due to concerns over CoOportunity Health’s “insufficient capitalization” and the company’s “inability to obtain additional capitalization from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the unavailability of federal payments of the risk mitigation programs until the second half of 2015, and extremely high healthcare utilization.”
CoOportunity’s adverse claims experience, the state’s legal order explains, has resulted in “the deterioration Of CoOportunity’s surplus.” This year, through October, CoOportunity Health lost $45.7 million, according to the legal order.
The state’s order does not permit CoOportunity Health to sign up new enrollees in Iowa during 2015.
The Iowa and Nebraska CU Leagues in 2013 partnered with CoOportunity Health to offer health insurance products to CUs in Iowa and Nebraska—and CUs have been slow to enroll.
“To say credit union interest has been slow is fair,” said Jim Niederhauser, ICUL VP of member services. “When we kicked this off last fall the exchanges faced a great deal of complexity and challenges. And let’s face it, overall, health insurance exchanges did not perform to the level everyone expected.”
The number of credit unions signing on with CoOportunity Health through the Iowa league reflects CU hesitation. Andrea Dose, ICUL member outreach coordinator, said 46 credit unions across Iowa and Nebraska partnered with CoOportunity Health in 2013 and about 100 members have enrolled through credit unions.
This summer the leagues made a change, aligning with CUNA Mutual Group when it announced it was entering the health insurance arena by partnering with the GoHealth exchange.
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