Health insurance in Miami when nobody hands you a benefits packet

Who I work with in Miami-Dade

Miami runs on 1099 income. That's the whole client base here.

The income question nobody explains

This is where self-employed people in Miami get burned, and it has nothing to do with which plan you pick.

Marketplace subsidies are based on the income you project for the coming year. At tax time the IRS compares that projection against what you actually earned. Underestimate, and you may owe part of the subsidy back. Overestimate, and you paid more every month than you needed to.

For someone on salary that's simple. For a realtor whose year depends on a handful of closings, or a creator whose platform revenue swung 60% between years, it's a real decision — and one most people make by guessing.

What I do is straightforward: we look at your last two or three years, land on a realistic figure, and I explain what happens at both ends if you're off. If your year changes substantially, you can update the Marketplace mid-year rather than absorbing it all in April. That conversation takes ten minutes and it's the single most valuable thing I do for 1099 clients.

What I can quote you

I'm independent, so I'm not steering you toward one company. Miami-Dade residents typically have access to roughly eight to ten Marketplace carriers, compared with two or three in some rural Florida counties — more choice, and more ways to pick wrong.

If you travel constantly for work — shoots, showings, conferences — tell me. Plans differ enormously on coverage outside Florida, and that only surfaces when you need care somewhere else.

What's changing for 2027

Two things worth knowing before Open Enrollment, especially if you plan to auto-renew.

Carriers are moving. Cigna, which offered Marketplace plans in eleven Florida counties in 2026, will not offer them in 2027. Aetna exited at the end of 2025, displacing roughly 150,000 Florida enrollees. If your carrier leaves, you either choose a new plan or get auto-enrolled into something nobody selected for your doctors or your prescriptions.

Subsidies are smaller than they were. The enhanced subsidy provisions that ran from 2021 through 2025 expired at the end of last year and were not renewed, and Florida Marketplace premiums rose by an average of 31.5% before subsidies for 2026. If your premium jumped and you assumed that was just how it is now, it's worth re-shopping — the cheapest plan for you last year is often not the cheapest this year.

Neither of these means you're out of options. They mean auto-renewing without looking is a worse idea than it used to be.

Enrollment deadlines

Florida uses the federal Marketplace at HealthCare.gov — there's no state-run exchange, so these dates apply across Miami-Dade.

Outside those dates you'll need a Special Enrollment Period, triggered by a qualifying life event: losing employer coverage, moving, marriage or divorce, or having a baby. Most give you 60 days from the event. Worth calling before that window closes rather than after.