Kentucky created a Medicare Supplement “birthday rule” in 2023. It took effect January 1, 2024, and it is the most useful thing about buying Medigap coverage in this state — but only if you know the rules, because all four conditions have to be met:
That third point trips people up, and the reason is worth knowing. The statute (KRS 304.14-525(2)(c)) says only “within sixty (60) days of the applicant’s birthday date,” which reads like 60 days on either side. The regulation settles it. 806 KAR 17:570 Section 14(3)(g) states the period “shall begin annually on the insured’s birthday and shall end sixty (60) days after their birth date.” It starts on your birthday. It does not start before it.
What the birthday rule does not do is let you change plan letters. The regulation entitles you to “the same Medicare supplement plan … issued by a different insurer.” If you have Plan G, the birthday rule gets you Plan G somewhere else — not Plan N.
We are at 111 W. 3rd Street in downtown Owensboro. Call 270-225-4445 before your birthday, not after, or start online.
Medicare.gov states it plainly: “Federal law doesn’t require companies to sell Medigap policies to people under 65.” In most states, someone who reached Medicare through a disability or end-stage renal disease can be turned down for a Medicare Supplement policy outright, or quoted a rate that amounts to the same thing.
Kentucky is not one of those states. Since January 1, 2024, state law has required all of the following.
One caution, because it matters and almost nobody mentions it. The same law created a one-time window for Kentuckians who were already on Part B before January 1, 2024. It ran six months and closed June 30, 2024. If you are under 65, already on Part B, and outside your six-month window, your options are narrower than this section might suggest — and that is a conversation to have rather than a thing to guess at.
A Medicare Supplement policy exists to cover what Original Medicare does not. So the honest place to start is with what Original Medicare leaves on your side of the ledger. These are the 2026 figures published by CMS.
Here is the figure that is not on that list, because it does not exist: Original Medicare has no annual out-of-pocket maximum. Part B’s 20% coinsurance has no ceiling. That single gap is the reason Medicare Supplement insurance exists at all.
CMS publishes the following year’s figures each November. When the 2027 numbers post, this page will be updated. Anything quoted to you as a 2027 figure today is a projection, not a published rate.
The federal Medigap Open Enrollment Period is the six-month period beginning the first day of the month in which you are both 65 or older and enrolled in Part B. Inside that window you can buy any Medicare Supplement policy sold in Kentucky at the same rate as someone in perfect health, and your medical history cannot be used against you.
Kentucky adds one condition that federal law does not. KRS 304.14-525(2)(a)2. conditions that protection on having enrolled in Part B “timely … without penalty under federal law.” Enrolling in Part B late can therefore cost you more than the Part B penalty by itself — it can affect the terms on which you buy a supplement.
Medicare’s Annual Enrollment Period runs October 15 through December 7. The Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period runs January 1 through March 31. Neither one is a Medicare Supplement enrollment period.
This is the most common misunderstanding we hear, and it is an expensive one, because people wait for October when the window that actually applies to them was in March. If your goal is to buy or change a Medicare Supplement policy, the dates that matter are your six-month open enrollment window, your birthday window, and your guaranteed-issue rights.
The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-10) barred the sale of any Medigap policy covering the Part B deductible to anyone “newly eligible” for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020. In practice, that closed Plans C and F to people who turned 65 in 2020 or later. Medicare.gov puts it this way: “Plan C & Plan F aren’t available if you turned 65 on or after January 1, 2020, and to some people under age 65.”
If you became eligible before that date, you can still buy them. If you did not, the closest equivalents are Plans D and G.
In April 2026, Daviess County had 23,863 people on Medicare — 20,493 of them eligible by age and 3,370 by disability.
Something shifted here in January 2026. For years, most Daviess County beneficiaries stayed in Original Medicare. In January, that reversed for the first time: 12,226 in Medicare Advantage and other health plans against 11,637 in Original Medicare. By April the gap had widened to 12,255 and 11,608.
We are not going to tell you which side of that line to stand on. That decision turns on your doctors, your prescriptions, how much you travel, and your budget, and it genuinely comes out differently for different people. What we will tell you is that only one of those two paths uses a Medicare Supplement policy, and that moving between them years later is not always as simple as choosing between them at the start.
For local context: 19.4% of Daviess County residents are 65 or older, compared with 18.8% across Kentucky. The state passed one million Medicare beneficiaries in 2025.
Three gaps catch people, and none of them is a fine-print trick — they are simply outside what Medigap is built to do.
Medicare Supplement policies sold today do not include drug coverage. Prescriptions run through Part D, which is a separate enrollment with its own late-enrollment penalty. If you drop a plan that included drug coverage and do not replace it, that penalty can follow you for as long as you have Medicare.
Original Medicare covers very little of these, and a Medicare Supplement policy pays a share of what Medicare approves — so it cannot fill a gap Medicare never entered. These are separate purchases.
Medicare pays for skilled nursing under specific, time-limited conditions, and the $217-per-day coinsurance above applies from day 21 to day 100. Custodial long-term care — help with daily living, indefinitely — is not a Medicare benefit, and no Medigap plan letter changes that.
This is the part of Medicare that works in your favor, and it is worth understanding clearly. Medicare Supplement plans are federally standardized. Ten plan letters exist — A, B, C, D, F, G, K, L, M and N — and a given letter covers exactly the same things no matter which company sells it. Plan G from one insurer is Plan G from another.
Two 2026 figures worth knowing, both set federally rather than by any company: the high-deductible versions of Plans F and G carry a $2,950 deductible, and the out-of-pocket limits on Plans K and L are $8,000 and $4,000.
What is not standardized is price, rate history, underwriting, and who picks up the phone in year three. That is the whole reason an independent agent is useful here: when the product is identical, the only things left to compare are the company behind it and the person servicing it.
Kentucky runs a State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) through the Department for Aging and Independent Living. Its counselors are trained, the service costs nothing, and in the state’s own words, “SHIP does not sell any health insurance products.”
The number is (877) 293-7447, option 2.
We are pointing you toward a free service that competes with us because a decision this size should not rest on a single conversation. If you call SHIP first and us second, that is a good outcome.
The Kentucky Department of Insurance also publishes a Medicare Supplement Guide listing every company currently selling Medigap in the state — 36 of them. One thing to know before you open it: the guide contains no rates. Its own disclaimer tells readers to “contact the company or a local insurance agent to verify rates.” That is precisely the gap we fill, and we did not write the disclaimer.
Rates depend on your age, your ZIP code, when you enroll, the plan letter you choose, and each company’s own filed rate schedule — which is why the state’s guide sends you to an agent rather than printing a number. Anyone quoting you a single figure for “Medigap in Kentucky” without those inputs is guessing.
What we can tell you is what does not change the price: working with us. Agent compensation is built into the filed rate, and Kentucky regulates it directly — first-year commission is capped at 200% of the second-year commission, and renewal compensation has to be paid for at least five years. You do not pay us a fee, and you do not get a lower rate by calling the company yourself.
Call 270-225-4445 or request a review online. If you would rather sit down, we are at 111 W. 3rd Street, Suite 2, in downtown Owensboro.
Yes. Kentucky’s birthday rule took effect January 1, 2024 under KRS 304.14-525(2)(c). It gives you a guaranteed-issue window that begins on your birthday and ends 60 days later, during which you can move to the same plan letter at a different insurance company without answering health questions. Four conditions apply: you must already have a Medicare Supplement policy, you must apply to a different company, you must apply inside the window, and you must keep the same plan letter. The regulation that fixes the start date at your birthday — rather than 60 days on either side of it — is 806 KAR 17:570 Section 14(3)(g).
Yes, and Kentucky is better than most states on this. Federal law does not require companies to sell Medicare Supplement policies to people under 65, but Kentucky law does. Since January 1, 2024, every Medicare Supplement policy sold in the state must be made available to people who qualified for Medicare through disability or end-stage renal disease. You get a six-month guaranteed-issue window starting the first month you are enrolled in Part B, you cannot be charged more than the insurer’s weighted average rate for its 65-and-over policyholders, and the policy cannot carry a waiting period or a pre-existing condition exclusion. Note that the separate one-time window for people already on Part B before 2024 closed on June 30, 2024.
No, and this is the most common misunderstanding we hear. October 15 through December 7 is Medicare’s Annual Enrollment Period, and January 1 through March 31 is the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period. Neither is a Medicare Supplement enrollment period. The windows that actually govern a Medigap purchase are your six-month open enrollment window when you first turn 65 and enroll in Part B, your annual 60-day birthday window, and any guaranteed-issue rights you have. People lose months waiting for October when the window that applied to them was somewhere else on the calendar.
Because of a federal law passed in 2015. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (Public Law 114-10) barred the sale of any Medigap policy that covers the Part B deductible to anyone newly eligible for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020. That closed Plans C and F to people who turned 65 in 2020 or later. If you became eligible before that date you can still buy them. If you did not, Plans D and G are the closest equivalents — Plan G is identical to Plan F except that you pay the Part B deductible yourself.
The 2026 figures published by CMS are a Part A hospital deductible of $1,736 per benefit period, Part A coinsurance of $434 per day for days 61 through 90, $868 per day for lifetime reserve days, skilled nursing coinsurance of $217 per day for days 21 through 100, a Part B standard premium of $202.90 per month, and a Part B annual deductible of $283. The most important figure is the one that does not exist: Original Medicare has no annual out-of-pocket maximum, and Part B’s 20% coinsurance has no ceiling. That gap is what a Medicare Supplement policy is built to close.
You can still apply, but the company may use medical underwriting — meaning it can ask health questions, and it can decline you or charge more based on the answers. There are exceptions. Kentucky’s birthday rule gives you a guaranteed-issue window every year if you already hold a policy and stay on the same plan letter, and both federal and Kentucky rules create guaranteed-issue rights in specific situations, such as an employer plan ending, a Medicare Advantage plan leaving your area, or a first-time Medicare Advantage enrollment you exit within 12 months. Missing your initial window narrows your options; it does not always close them.
No. Agent compensation is built into the rate the insurance company files with the state, so the price is the same whether you call us or call the company directly. Kentucky regulates that compensation as well — first-year commission is capped at 200% of the second-year commission, and renewal compensation must be paid for at least five years, which is designed to discourage churning people between policies. You pay us no fee. The Kentucky Department of Insurance’s own Medicare Supplement Guide contains no rates and tells readers to contact a company or a local agent to verify them.
They are two different structures, not two versions of the same thing. A Medicare Supplement policy works alongside Original Medicare, paying a share of the deductibles and coinsurance Original Medicare leaves to you, and you keep any provider who accepts Medicare. Medicare Advantage replaces the way you receive Original Medicare, delivering your benefits through a private plan that generally uses a provider network. Which structure fits depends on your doctors, your prescriptions, how much you travel, and your budget, and it comes out differently for different people. What is worth knowing early is that only one of the two paths uses a Medicare Supplement policy, and moving between them later is not always as easy as choosing between them at the start. This is a conversation worth having before you enroll, not after.
Getting started is easy. Whether you’d like to stop by for a friendly, face-to-face conversation or prefer to request your quote online from the comfort of home, we’re here to make the process simple. Tell us what you need, and our team will guide you from start to finish.
Once we gather your information, we’ll provide personalized Medicare supplement insurance quotes tailored to your needs. We’ll walk you through how each option compares to your current coverage so you understand exactly what you’re getting. Whether you're hoping for better protection, lower rates, or both, our team is here to help you find the policy that fits just right.
When you’re ready to lock in the policy, just say the word, and we’ll set up your new Medicare Supplement insurance policy.
