I'm Mary Jones. I'm an independent health insurance broker, licensed in 38 states, and I work mostly with self-employed people, freelancers, and small business owners. I've placed about 145 clients across the country.
Most of them came to me because they were paying too much for the wrong plan. A few didn't know there were any other options besides the marketplace. A lot assumed that since they were self-employed, health insurance was just going to be one of those things you pay too much for and try not to think about.
That isn't actually true. There's a different way to do this for a lot of self-employed people, and almost nobody explains it because almost nobody benefits from explaining it to you. So I will.
What does health insurance actually cost when you're self-employed?
If you're self-employed and shopping the marketplace right now, you're probably looking at numbers that don't make sense. A 45-year-old in Nevada earning $80,000 a year is looking at $600 to $900 a month for a Silver plan in 2026. A family of four with two adults in their 40s can easily run $1,800 a month, sometimes more. Premiums went up about 22% in Nevada this year, which is the largest single-year increase on the state exchange.
The thing is, those numbers are only one set of numbers. They're what the marketplace charges for ACA-compliant plans, which are priced based on your income and your zip code, not your health. If you make decent money and you're generally healthy, you are subsidizing the people on those plans who aren't.
There's another set of numbers, and they're built differently.
Marketplace versus private: how I actually decide
The marketplace and what we call "private" health insurance are priced on completely different inputs, and that's the whole game.
Marketplace plans are income-based. The carrier doesn't care if you're healthy, sick, on medications, just had a baby, recovering from cancer, or training for a marathon. They charge everybody the same age-banded premium, and the federal government kicks in subsidies if your income is low enough.
Private health insurance is health-based. The carrier looks at your application, your medications, your conditions, and quotes you a premium based on the actual risk you represent. If you're healthy, your premium is low. If you have managed conditions, it's higher. If you have something the carrier won't underwrite, they decline.
Here's the part most people don't know. Private plans rate up by age bracket, not every year. Roughly: 19 to 26 is one rate, 27 to 36 is another, 37 to 46 is another, and so on. Marketplace rates climb every birthday after 21. So a 35-year-old on the marketplace is paying meaningfully more than a 28-year-old, even if they're identical otherwise. On a private plan, they might be paying the same thing.
Two situations where the marketplace is the right answer:
You have a pre-existing condition that would disqualify you from private underwriting, or it would push your private premium higher than the marketplace.
You're low income, and the subsidies make the marketplace cheaper than anything else you could buy.
Almost everyone else is overpaying on the marketplace.
The questions I ask before recommending anything
When somebody calls me, I'm not selling them a plan. I'm trying to figure out which plan actually fits them. Five questions get me 90% of the way there.
- What's your household income?
- What's your age, and your spouse's age if there is one?
- Do you have any health conditions or daily medications?
- How many people are you covering?
- What kind of deductibles and copays are you comfortable with?
For life insurance the questions shift. I want to know about debts and mortgages, and whether the goal is funeral expenses, paying off something, or leaving a lump sum to someone. Different problem, different answer.
Whatever the situation is, I'm trying to find the plan that solves your problem, not the plan that pays me the most or the plan that's easiest to enroll. Sometimes that's the marketplace. Sometimes that's a private major medical plan. Sometimes that's an indemnity plan that pays you cash when something happens. Sometimes it's a combination.
What I actually write, and why
The carriers I work with most often are Manhattan Life, United Health One, Allstate, Best One Dental, VSP for vision, and North American Life on the life insurance side. These are the ones I trust to handle a claim properly and not put my clients through the wringer.
For health, major medical plans are what most people picture when they think "health insurance." Real network. Real coverage. Higher premiums, but the kind of plan you want if you have managed conditions or you take regular medications.
Indemnity plans are different. They pay you a flat cash amount when specific things happen. You go to the ER, the plan pays X. You stay overnight in the hospital, it pays Y. There's no deductible to satisfy first. If you're healthy and you mostly need protection against a catastrophic event, an indemnity plan can be a fraction of the cost of major medical, and you can pad it with additional layers to get close to full coverage. The catch is they're not a fit for somebody with a pre-existing condition that needs ongoing care, because the cash payouts don't cover that the same way.
Dental and vision I usually sell as add-ons to a health plan, but I write a lot of standalone dental and vision for people who have decent employer health coverage and lousy dental and vision through that same employer. Sometimes it's cheaper to drop the rider and buy it separately.
A real client situation from this year
Family of four came to me last fall. Both parents in their 40s, two kids, generally healthy. They were on a marketplace Silver plan paying just over $1,800 a month because their income put them above the new subsidy cliff.
I moved them to a private major medical plan with similar network access. Health-rated, not income-rated. Premium dropped to about $900 a month. Same network of doctors, lower deductible, comparable coverage for the things they actually used.
The savings worked out to almost $11,000 a year. Mom had been holding off on a medication her doctor had been pushing her to try for over a year because they didn't have the room in the budget. With the savings, she started it.
That's a real outcome. It's not the only outcome, and it's not the right answer for every family. But it's an outcome the marketplace can never produce, because the marketplace doesn't price on health, and that family was healthy.
What you actually get when you work with me
Most insurance agents place you on a plan and then disappear until renewal. I'm not built that way.
When you have a claim that gets denied or processed wrong, I'm the person who picks up the phone and gets it fixed. When you need a doctor in network and the carrier portal is useless, I look it up for you. When your medication is too expensive, I look up coupons and savings programs and tell you which pharmacy has the best cash price. When you have an outpatient procedure scheduled and you haven't met your deductible yet, I help you find a facility with the best cash-pay rate so the procedure costs less than going through your insurance would.
When something major changes in your life, a new baby, a marriage, a job change, a move, I adjust the plan or write a new one. I won't move you off a plan that's the best fit for you just to write a new policy and earn a new commission. I give advice to people who aren't even my clients, because I'd rather you be on the right plan with somebody else than the wrong plan with me.
That's what I mean when I say I sell my service, not a product. The product is a contract. The service is everything around it.
A few things most people don't know
Enrollment periods only apply to the marketplace. You can enroll in most private plans year round. If you missed Open Enrollment and you don't have a Special Enrollment Period, you still have options.
Many employer plans cover the employee for cheap and charge an arm and a leg for dependents. If you're paying $1,000 a month to add a spouse and kids to your work plan, there is a real chance you'd save money by keeping your employer coverage on yourself and putting your family on a private plan separately. I run those numbers all the time.
If you're a small business owner with three to thirty employees, you have more options than the marketplace SHOP exchange and "everybody fend for themselves." There are group plans, ICHRA reimbursement structures, and combinations that work better for almost any team I've seen. I do a lot of those too.
How to figure out what fits you
If you're self-employed and you're not sure whether you're on the right plan, the cheapest version of that conversation is a phone call. There's no charge. I'll ask you those five questions and tell you what I would recommend, and if your current plan is the right fit, I'll tell you that too.
I'm a traveling insurance agent, which means I work from wherever I happen to be. Nevada is home base, but I'm there less than two months out of the year. The phone works the same from a campground in Wyoming as it does from a coffee shop in Henderson.
Book a call here, or call (702) 379-9084 directly. I'll do the math for you.