Medicare Advantage enrollment grew less than 1% during this past annual enrollment period, but beneath that modest topline number was a dramatic reshuffling as national payers shed hundreds of thousands of members while smaller and regional plans posted some of the largest enrollment gains in their histories.
In interviews with Becker’s, leaders at five of those plans independently pointed to the same explanation for their success: stability.
The growth came against a backdrop of unprecedented market disruption. One in 10 MA enrollees are being forced to switch plans in 2026 due to insurer market exits, a tenfold increase from historical averages. UnitedHealthcare’s MA membership dropped about 9% during annual enrollment, Elevance Health declined 14% and Aetna fell 2%. Seven states recorded MA enrollment declines for the first time.
“I think this year, enrollees voted and said, we’re going to go with the plan that’s been consistent and that’s not moving their benefits around every year,” Margaret Anderson, president of Health Alliance Plan in Michigan, said.
HAP added more than 37,000 new enrollees during AEP, a 58% increase that brought its individual MA membership above 100,000. The insurer now boasts a 13% market share in Michigan, up five percentage points year over year, and finished the enrollment season as one of the top 10 MA carriers for growth nationally. More than 80% of the new members switched from other carriers.
HAP is the only insurer in Michigan with seven consecutive years of four-star or better ratings for both its HMO and PPO products, a track record Ms. Anderson said allowed the plan to reinvest into member benefits as competitors cut them.
She attributed HAP’s results to “stability and commitment. Those are two very different but important things.”
The same word kept surfacing in conversations with plan leaders across the country.
“Members and agents trust the stability and that we’re not just jumping in and out and making investments for short periods of time,” Carrie Kincaid, senior vice president of government markets and market development at Priority Health, said. “We hear that a lot, that we are the carrier that is here to cover every constituent across all areas.”
Priority Health added more than 35,000 new members during AEP, bringing its total MA membership to 250,000. It now holds 27% of the individual MA market in Michigan, making it the largest carrier for individual MA products in the state. Ms. Kincaid said members are becoming more familiar with the pattern of national insurers pulling back from service areas and returning when margins improve.
“The stability that we provide by sticking in the areas that we serve and then having that alignment with the care system is something I think that they’re looking for,” she said.
SCAN Group added 127,000 new members during AEP, roughly a third of its current total membership of 430,000 across six states. The growth pushed SCAN into the top 10 nationally among MA plans, with 90% of the new members switching from other plans.
Karen Schulte, Medicare president at SCAN, said about half the growth was attributable to market disruption, with the rest coming from intentional, strategic efforts.
“As a nonprofit, we pride ourselves, and it’s a number one priority, that we maintain as much consistency and stability for our members as possible,” she said. “For profits have to answer to their shareholders. We answer to our members.”
Ms. Schulte said SCAN enrolled twice as many members as it had originally projected.
But even among some publicly traded MA plans, the emphasis on growth was clear. Humana bucked the wider trend and added more than 1.2 million MA members during AEP. At Alignment Healthcare, the company grew 31% year over year in 2025 to roughly 276,000 total members, with 81% of new enrollees switching from other carriers. CEO John Kao said the company was deliberate about where it picked up membership, using the word “durability” to describe the company’s growth strategy.
“We could have grown a lot more, like a lot more, but we just were very selective,” Mr. Kao said. He predicted that some plans that pursued more aggressive growth strategies will face “digestion issues” in 2026, potentially setting up another round of disruption heading into the 2027 enrollment period.
In Wisconsin, Network Health, part of Froedtert ThedaCare Health, grew 37% during AEP to 126,000 total MA members while posting a 98% retention rate. It was the plan’s second consecutive year of record growth, following a 15% increase the prior year.
“We thought it was going to be a tidal wave. It turned out to be a tsunami,” Coreen Dicus-Johnson, president and CEO of Network Health, said. “There’s stability with us and continuity of plan design year over year. We’re running in when others are running out.”
More than 20,000 of the plan’s new members came from UnitedHealthcare alone. Ms. Dicus-Johnson said Network Health has maintained five-star customer service ratings for five consecutive years and did not cut broker commissions, a move many competitors made to manage costs.
“Now the real work begins to make sure that all of our members get the care that they need,” Ms. Dicus-Johnson added.
