Only one of the three ways a Medicare Supplement policy can be priced raises your premium because of your age. The other two do not — but all three can raise it for reasons that have nothing to do with your birthday, which is why almost everyone’s Medigap premium goes up most years anyway.
That distinction is the whole answer, and it is worth twenty minutes of your attention at 65 because it compounds for the rest of your life.
The three ways a Medigap policy is priced
Medicare.gov says each Medigap policy can be priced, or “rated,” in one of three ways (Medicare.gov). These are its own illustrations:
| Pricing method | How it’s priced | What happens as you age | Medicare.gov’s example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community-rated (no-age-rated) | Generally the same premium for everyone regardless of age | Premium isn’t based on your age. It may go up from inflation and other factors, but not because of your age | A 65-year-old and a 72-year-old both pay $165 |
| Issue-age-rated (entry-age-rated) | Based on the age you were when you bought the policy | Doesn’t change as you get older. May still go up from inflation and other factors | Buy at 65 → $145. Buy the same policy at 72 → $175 |
| Attained-age-rated | Based on your current age | Goes up every year as you get older, plus inflation and other factors | $120 at 65 → $126 at 66 → $132 at 67 |
Notice what the attained-age row actually says. Medicare.gov’s own framing is that these policies start low for younger buyers and may cost less at first, but can end up costing more over time. That is not a warning about a bad product — plenty of people are well served by one. It is a warning that the number on the quote you compare at 65 is not the number you will be paying at 78.
“My premium went up” is usually not about your birthday
Even on a community-rated or issue-age policy, your bill can change. Three ordinary reasons:
Claims and medical costs. Carriers file rate changes for an entire block of policyholders at a time, and those filings track what the block is actually costing to insure. You are not being repriced individually; your whole class is.
Medicare’s own numbers move. A Medigap plan pays a share of what Original Medicare leaves behind, and that leftover grows. For 2026 the Part A hospital deductible is $1,736 per benefit period and the Part B annual deductible is $283 (CMS.gov). A Plan G pays that Part A deductible for you. When CMS raises it, the plan’s liability rises with it — before any actuary has looked at you at all.
Discounts fall off, or were never applied. Medicare.gov notes that what you pay can also depend on whether the company offers discounts — for non-smokers, for married or household policyholders, for paying annually, for paying by electronic funds transfer (Medicare.gov). Some are applied at issue and some have to be asked for.
Want to see the whole picture rather than one line item? The annual Medicare cost estimator adds Part B, Part D and a supplement premium into one yearly number.
How to find out which kind you actually have
Almost nobody knows. It is not usually printed on the premium notice.
- Look at the Outline of Coverage you received when the policy was issued. The rating method is a required disclosure.
- Call the carrier’s service line — not the agent’s, the carrier’s — and ask, in these words: “Is this policy attained-age, issue-age, or community rated?”
- Compare your own history. If your premium has stepped up on or near your policy anniversary every single year, including years the carrier announced no rate change, you are almost certainly on an attained-age policy.
Can they drop you as you get older?
No. Medicare.gov states that a standardized Medigap policy is guaranteed renewed every year, even if you have health problems, and that your Medigap insurance company can only drop you if you stop paying your premiums, you weren’t truthful on the application, or the company goes bankrupt or goes out of business (Medicare.gov).
That is a genuinely strong consumer protection, and it is also widely misread. Guaranteed renewable means they cannot cancel you. It does not mean they cannot raise the price. Those are separate promises, and only one of them was made.
The catch when you try to shop your way out of an increase
Here is where the arithmetic collides with the underwriting. When a premium gets uncomfortable at 76, the obvious move is to switch to a less expensive policy with the same plan letter — the benefits are standardized, so a Plan G is a Plan G whoever sells it.
The obstacle is that you have to be accepted. Outside your one-time Medigap open enrollment period, or one of the narrow guaranteed-issue situations, an insurance company is allowed to use medical underwriting to decide whether to accept your application, and may decline it (Medicare.gov). Guaranteed-issue rights exist — plan terminations, employer coverage ending, certain trial rights — but they are event-driven and usually run only 63 days.
So the honest planning rule is this: the year to think hardest about rating method is the year you are healthiest, not the year the premium hurts. We wrote about the window itself in what happens if you miss your Medigap open enrollment period, and the enrollment window checker will date yours from your birthday.
What to do with this in Florida
Three practical moves, none of which require you to predict the future:
- Compare the same letter, then compare pricing method. Medicare.gov is blunt that the benefits in each lettered plan are identical no matter who sells it, so price is the difference between two Plan Gs. But a low attained-age quote and a higher issue-age quote are not the same product on a ten-year view, and comparing them side by side as if they were is the common mistake.
- Use the state’s own data. The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation publishes a CHOICES rate comparison that returns Medicare Supplement rates by Florida county and age. It is the regulator’s file, not a lead form.
- Settle the letter question before the carrier question. If Plan G and Plan N are the two you are weighing, the Plan G vs Plan N comparison works the cost-sharing through with your own numbers first.
None of this makes one rating method correct. Someone enrolling at 65 who expects to keep a policy for twenty-five years and someone enrolling at 72 after retiring late are looking at genuinely different math, and the household budget matters as much as the projection does.
If you would like to look at your own outline of coverage and work out which of these you are on — and what it plausibly means a decade from now — book a time with Virginia. It is a conversation, not a quote.