Carriers Are Redrawing the 2027 Map. Here's How to Work It.

Every fall for the past three years, some share of your book has opened a letter telling them their plan is going away. That share is getting bigger. Medicare Advantage carriers are pruning counties and plans faster than at any point in the program's modern history, and the 2027 plan year looks like more of the same — with one wrinkle that matters for how you plan the next eight weeks: most of the specifics aren't public yet.

This is a working agent's read on what is actually confirmed, what is still preliminary, and what to do in the window between now and October 15. The short version: you cannot build a client list off the 2027 exits yet, but you can build everything around it.

What Is Actually Confirmed

Be careful with the numbers circulating right now. A lot of the county counts being passed around in agent groups are last year's — the 2026 exits — relabeled as 2027. Here is what carriers have actually said about the 2027 plan year, and how firm each one is.

• Humana — roughly 600,000 members, firm on scale, vague on specifics. On its second-quarter 2026 earnings call, Humana said its planned 2027 plan exits would affect approximately 600,000 members. CFO Celeste Mellet was explicit that it was "too early to provide many specifics regarding our bid strategy," describing an approach meant to retain as many of those members as possible while supporting margin expansion. So: the scale is real, the map is not published.
• UnitedHealthcare — 34 counties across 12 states, explicitly preliminary. UnitedHealthcare shared a preliminary 2027 county-exit list with third-party marketing organizations covering 34 counties in 12 states. The company has said that list is not final and remains subject to change. Treat it as a planning signal, not a client-notification list.
• The direction of travel is not in doubt. On its July 2026 earnings call, UnitedHealth Group said it expects full-year Medicare Advantage enrollment to fall by roughly 1.1 million, and CEO Tim Noel told analysts the company would protect margin through "benefit adjustments and selective changes in market participation" in its 2027 bids. Humana, for its part, has tied its exits to reaching a sustainable 3% pre-tax margin by 2028.

Why It Keeps Happening

This isn't a one-year correction. Carriers spent years buying growth with rich supplemental benefits — dental, vision, OTC cards, flex allowances — priced against assumptions that utilization would stay where it was. It didn't. Post-pandemic utilization came back harder than modeled, risk-adjustment scrutiny tightened, and star ratings moved, taking quality bonus payments with them. Humana's own guidance this year shows the mechanics plainly: it affirmed adjusted earnings while cutting its GAAP outlook, with lower star ratings eating into bonus revenue.

When a plan can't be made profitable, carriers have two levers: cut the benefits or leave the county. Most are doing some of both. And the counties that lose plans are disproportionately rural — thinner provider networks, smaller enrollment to spread fixed costs across, less room to make the math work.

The Fall Timeline That Decides Your Season

Four dates structure everything between now and the new year:

• By September 30 — the ANOC lands. Every member with a continuing plan gets an Annual Notice of Change describing next year's premium, benefits, and cost-sharing. This is the document that makes your phone ring, and most of your clients will not read past page one.
• October 1 — plan data goes public. Service areas, benefits, and networks for 2027 become available. This is the first day you can build a real, county-accurate disruption list.
• October 15 – December 7 — AEP. The main event, and the window in which most affected members will make their move.
• December 8 – end of February — the SEP most agents underuse. See below. This is the difference between a season that ends December 7 and one that runs into the new year.

Non-renewal letters specifically — the ones telling a member their plan will not exist next year — generally go out in October, separately from the ANOC.

The Non-Renewal SEP Is Your Second Season

When a plan non-renews or a carrier reduces its service area so a member's county is no longer covered, that member gets a Special Enrollment Period. Under CMS's Medicare Advantage and Part D enrollment and disenrollment guidance, it runs from December 8 through the end of February — well past the close of AEP. Confirm the current-year language in the CMS guidance before you rely on it in a sales conversation; these windows are defined by CMS, not the carrier.

This matters more than most agents act like it does. A member who is disrupted, confused, and still un-enrolled on December 8 is not a lost opportunity; they are an opportunity with a runway that stretches into the new year and far less competition, because most of the market has packed up and gone home. If a CMS contract termination is involved rather than a carrier's own withdrawal, a separate SEP applies — beginning a month before the termination takes effect and running two months after.

The practical move: build a December 8 list now, in your head if not in your CRM. Every disrupted client you cannot reach or close during AEP goes on it.

Disruption doesn't decide whether you keep the client. Being the first person to call them does.

What To Do Between Now and October 15

You can't build the exact list yet. You can build everything that makes the list actionable the moment it exists.

• Segment your book by carrier and county now. When the October 1 data drops, you want to run it against a list you already have, not start assembling one. Know which of your clients sit with the carriers signalling the largest pullbacks, and which sit in rural counties.
• Check your own appointments against the map. A disruption you can't solve is a client someone else keeps. If a county in your book is losing two of its three MA carriers, the question is whether you're appointed with what remains — and if not, whether you can be before AEP.
• Write your outreach before you need it. The ANOC call script, the non-renewal script, the "your plan is fine but let's review anyway" script. Drafting these in September is a calm afternoon. Drafting them in late October is not.
• Pre-clear your marketing. Anything requiring carrier or CMS review needs lead time you won't have in the fall. If your FMO offers a marketing co-op, know what qualifies before you spend.
• Plan for Med Supp conversations. A member losing an MA plan in a thinning county may be better served by a Supplement — and depending on their situation and state, underwriting may or may not apply. If Med Supp isn't a line you write, you're referring away business that walked into your lap.

The Bottom Line

The 2027 exits are real, they are large, and they are not fully mapped yet. Humana has put a number on the scale — roughly 600,000 members — while saying the specifics aren't set. UnitedHealthcare has circulated a preliminary list it has explicitly called subject to change. The authoritative picture arrives October 1, two weeks before AEP opens.

That gap is not a reason to wait. It's the window to segment your book, check your appointments, write your scripts, and decide whether your carrier lineup is wide enough to absorb what's coming. The agents who lose clients to carrier exits are rarely the ones who saw them coming. They're the ones who had nothing to offer when they arrived.

And if the honest answer is that your lineup is too narrow, that's a conversation worth having before the letters go out — not after.