Nudging Leads Consumers In Colorado To Shop But Not Switch ACA Marketplace Plans

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) dramatically expanded the use of regulated marketplaces in health insurance, but consumers often fail to shop for plans during open enrollment periods. Typically these consumers are automatically reenrolled in their old plans, which potentially exposes them to unexpected increases in their insurance premiums and cost sharing. We conducted a randomized intervention to encourage enrollees in an ACA Marketplace to shop for plans. We tested the effect of letters and e-mails with personalized information about the savings on insurance premiums that they could realize from switching plans and the effect of generic communications that simply emphasized the possibility of saving. The personalized and generic messages both increased shopping on the Marketplace’s website by 23 percent, but neither type of message had a significant effect on plan switching. These findings show that simple “nudges” with even generic information can promote shopping in health insurance marketplaces, but whether they can lead to switching remains an open question.