You can still get a nationwide PPO in Utah once you leave a contractor's group plan. Here's how electricians along the Wasatch Front, from Lehi to Ogden, are switching to their own coverage without a gap.
Hi, I'm Sam. My business is health insurance and nothing else, Tampa is home base, and Utah is on my license. You won't need to come to an office; we talk by phone.
The stretch of I-15 from Lehi through Provo has been one long construction site for years: office campuses, data rooms, apartments and the subdivisions that follow the jobs. Up through Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties it's the same story. That much work convinces plenty of journeymen and masters to pull permits under their own name. The contractor's health plan stays behind, though, and the switch needs a little planning.
Leaving a contractor that offered a PPO doesn't mean settling for less. Through me, you can still get a nationwide PPO in Utah.
HealthCare.gov can't supply it. Utah's 57 individual medical plans for 2026, from 6 insurers, are split between 37 HMOs and 20 EPOs, and even in Utah County, where 43 plans from 5 insurers are on offer, none is a PPO. Under an HMO or EPO, seeing someone outside the network for anything short of an emergency is generally your bill to pay. A PPO keeps contributing toward those visits, with a bigger share on you, and doesn't hold you up for a referral. Plans that underwrite on health provide that kind of national network, and set your premium after looking at your history.
Losing coverage from work counts as a qualifying event. Most of the time you get 60 days from that loss to choose a marketplace plan, in whatever month it falls, so there's no reason to wait for fall to make your move. If COBRA is offered, be deliberate: quitting COBRA early because something better came along does not reopen enrollment. Only running out of it does.
Underwritten plans need time to review an application, so start that a few weeks before you hand in your keys.
This is the electrician this page is written for. You're used to a PPO, nobody at home has an ongoing condition, and a one-network plan feels like a step backward.
For you, a private nationwide PPO is the natural replacement. The application walks through your family's medical history; the company then approves it as written, turns it down, or approves it while leaving out coverage for a single earlier condition. Healthy applicants are the reason these plans can price below the marketplace's full premium. Every policy spells out benefits its own way, and we'll go line by line before your start date.
Next step: Call me three or four weeks before your last day so the new PPO is in force when the contractor's plan stops.
A new shop usually starts slower than the paycheck it replaced. Your income for marketplace purposes becomes profit: revenue minus the van, wire and parts, tools, the license, insurance and fuel. If that puts your household in the federal premium tax credit's range, a marketplace HMO or EPO will very likely beat any private plan on cost, because the credit can't be spent anywhere else. In Utah County you'll have plenty of options to sort through; we'll find the one whose network includes your doctors.
If the first year comes in very lean, Utah's Medicaid expansion reaches adults with household income up to 138% of the poverty line, a safety net while the shop finds its feet.
Next step: Send me your honest first-year projection and I'll tell you which option your household lands in.
A spouse with diabetes or a child on daily medication changes the advice: plan on a marketplace plan, where nobody can be refused or charged extra over health, and let underwriting go. The work then is matching your specialists and prescriptions to the right network. And if your new shop carries workers' comp, remember it handles injuries on the job and nothing else.
Next step: Send over your family's doctors and medications and I'll show you which Utah plans in your county keep all of them.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
The group plan generally ends with the job. That loss typically opens a 60-day special enrollment period to choose a marketplace plan at any point in the year.
Not through the marketplace, where every 2026 medical plan is an HMO or EPO. A healthy electrician can buy a private nationwide PPO through me.
Compare it to your other options first. Voluntarily dropping COBRA doesn't open a new enrollment window.
Utah expanded Medicaid, so adults with household income up to 138% of the poverty line may qualify.
When the contractor's coverage stops, which county you live in and who needs to be on the new plan: that's all I need to map a gap-free switch, with prices on each choice and a frank opinion on the best one.
The guide for every state, and other work I help with