The Kansas Insurance Department on Tuesday announced the range of rate increases by Kansas insurance companies for individual health plans for 2016.

The range of average rate increases by insurance companies for individual plans is from 9.4 percent to 25.4 percent, which is less than the increases originally requested in May, said Insurance Commissioner Ken Selzer in a press release.

Rate revisions were announced after three months of review and discussions with Kansas health insurance companies planning to sell individual health plans on the 2016 federal marketplace.

“Many factors contributed to the need for rate increases in 2016,” Selzer said in a release. “Guaranteed issue of policies, broad coverage requirements and other federal mandates continue to drive up health insurance costs in Kansas and throughout the country.”

Selzer said that additional factors pushing rates up included changes in pharmacy costs and medical costs.

Less than 5 percent of Kansans are affected by the rate revisions, both on and off the marketplace, according to department statistics. Through June 30, there were a total of 107,232 people who have selected a marketplace plan in Kansas.

A new company entrant, UnitedHealthcare of the Midwest Inc., has proposed plans to be sold on the marketplace in 2016. Also proposing to sell on the marketplace are Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City; Coventry Health & Life Insurance Company; Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc.; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas; and BlueCross BlueShield Kansas Solutions Inc.

These private companies also sell plans outside the government website.

“During the review process our department was able to lower many of the rate increase requests for 2016, saving significant money for Kansas consumers compared to the original requests,” Selzer said.

This is the first time since the federal marketplace began that insurance companies have had a full year of claims experience on which to base their premium rate revisions. In almost every case, from the insurance companies’ perspective, the claims experience has been worse than anticipated, Selzer said, meaning the amounts of claims were higher in the first year than projected by the insurance companies.

For 2016, a total of 96 plans have been proposed for sale during open enrollment for the Kansas federally facilitated online marketplace. That number includes 74 individual plans, an increase of 10 individual plan choices from 2015.

Open enrollment begins Nov. 1, 2015, for the 2016 calendar year.