Dates and deadlines
When you can enroll, and what to do if you miss it
Figures on this page checked . Medicare and marketplace numbers reset every year — if you are reading this long after that date, call and we will tell you what moved.
Open Enrollment for 2027 coverage
Open Enrollment starts November 1, 2026. Inside it you can enroll, switch plans, or change carriers with no qualifying event and no health questions.
Work to this date
Enroll by December 15, 2026 and your coverage starts January 1. That deadline is correct under every version of this year’s rules, which is why it is the one to plan around.
Enrollment closes January 15, 2027. Enroll between December 15, 2026 and that date and your coverage starts February 1 rather than January 1 — so the December deadline is still the one to plan around.
This date was in real doubt earlier in the year, and it is worth knowing why. A 2025 federal rule shortened every state marketplace’s window; a federal court struck down the part of it that sets how long the window runs, and that appeal is undecided. Colorado looked at moving its own deadline and decided against it. If anything changes before November we will say so here — and if you are reading this close to a deadline, call us and we will tell you where it stands the day you ask.
What happens if you do nothing
If you already have a marketplace plan, you are generally auto-renewed rather than dropped. You may find you are already enrolled in something for next year before you have looked at anything.
That is convenient and it is not the same as being in the right plan. Auto-renewal carries you into the closest thing to your current plan, not the best available one, and it does not re-shop your financial help against next year’s benchmark plan. With carriers asking for an average increase of about 11% and one carrier leaving Colorado altogether, the gap between “renewed” and “right” is wider this year than usual.
One carrier’s customers cannot auto-renew at all. Cigna is leaving Colorado’s individual market after this plan year, and there is nothing for those plans to renew into.
Outside the window: qualifying life events
A qualifying life event opens a Special Enrollment Period, usually 60 days long. The common ones:
- Losing other coverage, including job-based coverage
- Marriage or divorce
- A baby, an adoption, or a foster placement
- Moving, if you had coverage before the move
- An income change that affects what help you qualify for
Turning something in late is the usual way people lose these. If you think one applies, start the conversation before you have the paperwork rather than after — the clock is running from the event, not from when you got organized.
The router on our individual and family page will tell you what your window is and what to have ready.
Four doors that are Colorado’s own
Colorado runs its own marketplace and writes its own list, so a guide written for the federal one is missing things. These four reach people who are certain they are stuck until November, and every one of them is on Connect for Health Colorado’s own page.
- Pregnancy. A health care provider’s certification of pregnancy opens a window, on its own, with no other event needed. You do not wait for the birth.
- Your tax return. Checking a box when you file your Colorado state taxes by April 15 can open one. Almost nobody knows this, and it catches households who missed the autumn entirely.
- Health First Colorado and CHP+ have no window at all. If your income qualifies you, you enroll the week you find out, in March or in August.
- Members of federally recognized tribes can enroll at any time of year.
If you think you are just over an income line
Apply anyway. The published Health First Colorado and CHP+ thresholds are stated before a federal rule that ignores the first 5% of income, so somebody a little over the printed number can still qualify — and the application is free. Deciding you are ineligible by comparing a pay stub to a web page is how families go years without coverage they were entitled to.
Grove Benefit Advisors, LLC is a certified broker with Connect for Health Colorado and is not a government agency or the marketplace itself. Plan availability, networks, and pricing vary by county. Any savings figure shown here is illustrative; final eligibility for a premium tax credit is determined by Connect for Health Colorado on your application.
Questions about enrolling
What counts as a qualifying life event?
Losing other coverage, marriage or divorce, a birth or adoption, moving if you had coverage before the move, and an income change that affects your eligibility for help. There are others — gaining citizenship, leaving incarceration, and several that belong to Colorado rather than to the federal marketplace.
The Colorado ones catch people out in the useful direction. A certification of pregnancy opens a window here on its own, and so can a box you check on your state tax return by April 15. If a national article told you that you were stuck until November, check with somebody who works in this state.
Voluntarily dropping a plan does not count, and neither does losing coverage because you stopped paying for it. Those are the two that surprise people the other way.
What happens to my current plan if I do nothing?
You will usually be auto-renewed into the same plan or its closest successor. The exception is a plan that will not exist next year — Cigna is leaving Colorado's individual market after this plan year, and those customers have to choose something new.
What auto-renewal does not do is check whether your plan is still the best value, whether your doctors are still in network, or whether your financial help has changed against next year's benchmark plan. Twenty minutes answers all three.
Is my current carrier still on the exchange next year?
Carrier participation changes annually, by county. A carrier that covers Larimer County this year may not next year, and networks shift even when the carrier stays.
Assuming your carrier will be there is exactly the wrong move this year — Cigna will not be. Ask us in October and we will tell you what is available where you live before you have to decide anything.