Humana announced on its July 29, 2026 earnings call that it will exit additional Medicare Advantage plans in 2027, affecting roughly 600,000 members nationwide. Independent agents shouldn’t panic-message clients yet — the specific plans and counties aren’t public. Instead, audit your book by carrier, prepare compliant outreach templates, and get contracted with alternative carriers before ANOC letters land in late September.
What exactly did Humana announce?
On its Q2 earnings call on July 29, 2026, Humana confirmed it’s pulling out of more Medicare Advantage plans for the 2027 plan year. The company framed it as a margin discipline move, not a retreat from Medicare — it’s targeting what it called “lower-return” plans while leaning into higher-performing plans with stronger value-based care penetration.
The financial goal behind it is a sustainable 3% pre-tax margin by 2028. Humana also said it expects to retain “just over 40%” of affected members inside other Humana plans, which lines up with what actually happened when it trimmed plans for 2025.
Here’s the part that matters most for your week: Humana has not published which specific plans or which counties are going away. That detail comes later, through the CMS Annual Notice of Change (ANOC) letters that get mailed to members in late September and early October.
How many Medicare beneficiaries are affected?
About 600,000 Humana members nationwide, based on the company’s own guidance. But Humana isn’t the only carrier doing this.
UnitedHealth is trimming roughly 1.1 million MA members. Several other insurers have announced strategic MA pullbacks over the past twelve months. Put it together and industry analysts are forecasting somewhere in the range of 3.4 to 3.8 million beneficiaries who could face forced Medicare Advantage plan terminations for 2027.
You’ve probably seen this coming if you’ve been paying attention. CMS benchmark pressure, medical cost growth running hotter than carriers priced for, and ongoing Star Ratings litigation have all been pushing the same direction. This is a market shakeout, and it’s been building for a couple of years now.
Here’s the thing — a shakeout isn’t a crisis for a prepared agent. It’s a reshuffle. Reshuffles create movement, and movement is where independent agents who know their book tend to do just fine.
What happens to members whose plans exit?
When a plan terminates, the member gets notified through their ANOC letter, and they get two protections that open up their options.
First, they get a Special Enrollment Period. Second, they get a 63-day Guaranteed Issue period. Together, those give the member room to move in a few different directions:
- Enroll in another Medicare Advantage plan
- Move to Original Medicare plus a standalone Part D prescription drug plan
- Return to Original Medicare with a Medigap policy, under the applicable GI Medigap protections
That third option deserves your attention. Guaranteed Issue means Medigap medical underwriting gets bypassed — and that only happens a handful of times in a person’s Medicare life. For a member who’s had health changes since they first enrolled, it’s genuinely significant.
For you as the agent, displaced members are two things at once. They’re a retention risk, because someone else may reach them before you do. And they’re an acquisition opportunity, because they’re actively looking for someone to explain what just happened. Which of those it turns out to be mostly depends on how ready you are in early October.
What should independent agents do right now?
Right now — meaning August — the work is preparation, not outreach. You’ve got time to get organized before the specifics are public, and that’s exactly how it should be sequenced.
Below is the playbook we’re walking our agents through.
Agent playbook: 7 moves before ANOC letters land
- Audit your book by carrier in your CRM. Open your CRM and filter your clients by carrier. How many are on Humana plans? On UnitedHealth plans? On any other carrier that’s signaled exits? If you can’t pull that list in about five minutes, that’s your first fix — before anything else. This is one of those quiet reasons we built a Medicare-specific CRM instead of asking agents to bend a generic one into shape.
2. Don’t panic-message your clients. This one’s important. Humana hasn’t published which plans and counties are exiting. If you email every Humana client saying “your plan is going away,” a lot of those messages will be flat wrong — and you’ll have spent trust you can’t easily earn back. Wait for the ANOC letters. They’re CMS-mandated and they’re the authoritative source. Being the agent who didn’t cry wolf is worth something.
3. Build your outreach templates now so you can execute in October. Once ANOCs hit mailboxes, you’ll have roughly a six-to-eight week working window before AEP closes on December 7. That’s plenty — if the materials already exist. Get a postcard, an email, and a phone script written, compliance-reviewed, and sitting in a folder ready to go. Plain language. Personal. Not a blast.
4. Get your ready-to-sell status current across multiple carriers. If your clients get displaced, retention means being able to actually offer them something. A reasonable floor: contracted and certified with three or four alternative MA carriers, plus two or three Medigap carriers, in every state you write in. If you’re short somewhere, August is when you fix it, not October.
5. Refresh your Medigap knowledge. Some displaced members are going to want to go back to Original Medicare with a Medigap plan. The GI protections that apply to them are specific, and they have deadlines. Know them cold. This is not the year to be rusty on Medigap.
6. Update your compliance workflow for October 1. The CMS marketing rule changes taking effect October 1, 2026 — the Scope of Appointment 48-hour hold going away, and the shift in TPMO disclaimer timing — go live at essentially the same moment ANOCs land. If your SOA process still assumes the old rules, that’s this week’s project. You don’t want to be rebuilding workflow while your phone is ringing.
7. Prepare a guidance conversation, not a sales conversation. Somebody whose plan just terminated is usually confused and a little stressed. What wins is answering questions calmly and in order. Remember the math: if Humana retains just over 40% of affected members, then close to 60% are legitimately in play — but only if you’re the steady, informed voice they happen to reach.
And an eighth item that’s less a task than a check-in.
What role should my FMO play in a carrier exit like this?
A good FMO earns its override in exactly these moments. That means outreach templates you don’t have to write from scratch, educational sessions on what the exits actually mean, current intel on which carriers are absorbing displaced membership, and someone who’ll sit down and work through your retention plan with you.
So here’s a fair question to ask: did you hear from your FMO about the Humana announcement? Did anything land in your inbox the week of July 29 that helped you think it through?
If the answer is no, that’s a data point. Not a reason to blow up your business in the middle of AEP prep — but worth writing down. If you do end up exploring options, we’ve written about how to switch FMOs safely, including the timing considerations that keep your book intact.
How is this connected to the CMS October 1 marketing rule changes?
They’re connected by timing, and the overlap is the tricky part. ANOC letters arrive in late September and early October. The new CMS marketing rules kick in October 1. So the week your displaced-member conversations start is the same week your compliance rules change.
Agents who sort out their SOA and disclaimer workflow in August will handle that overlap without thinking about it. Agents who don’t will be troubleshooting compliance questions in their busiest stretch of the year. Same work either way — just a much better time to do it.
How TMS supports agents through moments like this
We treat carrier exits as a training topic, not a fire drill. That means walking through book audits with agents, reviewing outreach language before it goes out, and keeping the Medicare Agent IQ podcast focused on what’s actually happening in the market rather than recycled motivation. It’s the same idea behind our training philosophy: build the systems before the season, so the season is just execution.
TMS Correduría de Seguros (Texas Medicare Solutions) is a Texas-based FMO with statewide reach, and we work with agents across Texas as well as agents in other states — both remotely and in person. Our free Medicare CRM is where most of this starts, because a carrier audit is only fast if your data’s already clean.
Where this leaves you
Humana’s exit is real, it’s large, and it’s part of a broader shift that isn’t finished. It’s also entirely manageable if you spend August getting your book, your contracts, and your templates in order instead of waiting for October to surprise you.
If you want a second set of eyes on your carrier mix or your retention plan before ANOCs land, we’re happy to walk through it with you. No pitch — just a working session. And if you’re quietly wondering whether your current FMO is going to show up for you this cycle, we can show you how TMS operates and you can decide from there.
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