You can still get a nationwide PPO in Florida. Here is how developers, engineers and IT specialists on contract are covering themselves after a sharp price increase.
Hi, I'm Sam, a health insurance broker in Tampa. I help tech workers who left a salaried job to contract, and many of them live here in Florida while billing clients in other states. I'm licensed in 36 states and the whole process runs over the phone.
Remote contracting and Florida coverage don't always fit together neatly. Your plan is tied to your Florida address. Your work may involve weeks in another city, and your income may arrive in long contracts separated by quiet stretches. On top of that, Florida's individual market got a lot more expensive this year. Here's how contractors here are handling it.
Let me lead with the answer people don't expect: you can still get a nationwide PPO in Florida, through me, and a healthy contractor can often get one at a sensible price.
If you've browsed HealthCare.gov, you saw why that sounds unlikely. Only 14 of the 410 plans in Florida's marketplace file are PPOs, all from a single insurer, and they're priced well above their neighbors. In Pinellas County the marketplace PPO costs 138% more than the least expensive silver plan with another network. In Brevard the markup is 108%, and in Clay 109%.
The PPO that tends to make sense for a healthy contractor isn't that one. It's a private plan with medical underwriting, built on a network that reaches across the country and priced according to your health.
The premium tax credit drives the rest of the decision. Floridians get it through HealthCare.gov, and it's calculated from household income for the coverage year. Billing through your own LLC or on a 1099 means the marketplace counts your net, after equipment, software, a home office and the other costs of the work. W-2 work through a staffing firm counts as wages.
Florida raised the stakes for 2026. The state regulator's average approved increase on individual plans came to 34.1%, weighted by enrollment and before any subsidy. A contractor in credit range is shielded from much of that. A contractor above it pays the new rate.
Many tech contractors sit well above the range in a full year. A long gap can change that. Pick your case.
Here the Florida increase arrives in full, and the marketplace plan that would let you see doctors outside a local network is the priciest one on the shelf. That combination is why so many healthy contractors look past HealthCare.gov.
An underwritten nationwide PPO starts with a health questionnaire. The insurer reviews it and either accepts you, turns you down, or accepts you while leaving out coverage for a specific condition. A healthy applicant can often land a price under the full marketplace rate, and the network works whether you're home in Florida or on site with a client in Atlanta. Benefits vary, so we read each plan's details with you before anything is signed.
Next step: Book a call and I'll quote a nationwide PPO for your household next to the marketplace plans sold in your county.
If your health plan came from an employer or a staffing firm and it's ending, losing it opens a special enrollment period, generally 60 days, to pick a plan on HealthCare.gov. The window is triggered by losing coverage, not by the end of the contract itself. COBRA will likely be offered as well, and dropping it voluntarily later does not create a new window.
Before you choose, look at the network. Most Florida marketplace plans are HMOs, 316 of 410, built around doctors here. That works if your next contract is fully remote from home. It works less well if you'll be on site somewhere else for months.
Next step: Call me before your last covered day, and we'll have the next plan set to begin without a gap.
Months without a contract can pull your household income down into the credit range, and then a HealthCare.gov plan is usually the better value, because nothing outside the marketplace can use the credit.
Florida adds a caution at the very bottom. The state has not expanded Medicaid, and the credit generally starts at 100% of the federal poverty level. If a gap is long enough to drop the year's income under that line, you may qualify for neither. Since one new contract can lift the whole year, we work from a realistic projection before you apply.
Next step: Send me the contracts you've had this year and what's likely next, and we'll figure out where your year lands before you enroll.
If you or a family member manages a chronic condition, keep that coverage on the marketplace even without the credit. Marketplace plans can't refuse you or price by health history, and underwritten plans can.
In Florida, that turns into a network question: does a lower-priced HMO or EPO in your county include your specialists, or is the marketplace PPO's higher price worth it for a doctor the others leave out?
Next step: Tell me who you see and what you take, and I'll show you which plans in your county include them.
Contracting is the same work in any state, but the coverage around it isn't. In Florida this year, full prices rose sharply, the marketplace's PPO is a small, costly corner of the shelf, and very low incomes have no Medicaid expansion to fall back on. Get the year's income right and let your health choose between the marketplace and a nationwide PPO.
Straight answers, no sales pitch.
Yes. If you're healthy, an underwritten plan on a national PPO network is available through me, priced on your health rather than on Florida's marketplace rates.
Very few. Of the 410 plans in Florida's 2026 marketplace file, 14 are PPOs, and a single insurer offers all of them.
Only if you lose coverage. Losing a plan from an employer or staffing firm opens a window that usually lasts 60 days. Finishing a contract while you keep your own plan doesn't.
In Florida, be careful. The state hasn't expanded Medicaid, and the credit generally isn't available under the poverty level, so a very lean year can leave you without either. Call me before you enroll.
Your county, your rate, how many months you expect to bill, and who needs coverage. I'll lay out which route fits and price it for your address, and if your current plan is the smart one, I'll say so.
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