Virus Outbreak Could Send Health Premiums Soaring, Analysts Say

The Covid-19 crisis could result in higher health insurance premiums in 2021, but insurers’ profits may not take a hit, health-care industry stock market analysts said Tuesday.

High premium increases are “a possible outcome,” Matthew Borsch, managing director of BMO Capital Markets, said in a roundtable. But, he said, there’s a wide range of possibilities that could play out. “It could be the costs of Covid-19 overall are more than offset by the reductions in volumes from all of the disruption to the health-care system that’s occurred.”

Insurers are benefiting from an initial deferral of elective procedures by hospitals, which ...