Bernauer Insurance Agency
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We're Certified MNsure Brokers

Minnesota's official marketplace — and the only place you can get a premium tax credit.

Wherever you are in the process — no account, half an application — Pat or Spencer take it from there.

We don’t charge a fee, and you pay the same premium as going direct to MNsure or the insurance company. We’re paid by the insurance company, not by you.

Get help with your MNsure applicationCertified MNsure brokers, whatever stage you are at.

Rather fill in what you know? Let us help you

Written by Pat Bernauer, licensed Minnesota insurance agent (NPN 32897) · Updated

The short answer

MNsure is Minnesota’s official health insurance marketplace and the only place a premium tax credit can be applied to your monthly cost. You can use it with a broker at no extra charge — brokers are licensed by the state and certified by MNsure, and that is what we are. Start with us and we handle the application, the plan comparison and the paperwork; start on MNsure and stall, and we pick it up where you left off.

Brokers:
licensed by the state of Minnesota, certified by MNsure, and most charge nothing — MNsure
Premium tax credits:
available only through MNsure — MNsure

What we take off your hands

However far along you are, these are the parts we take off your hands.

  • Choosing between the plans you qualify for, and what each one really costs you.
  • Submitting the paperwork, and checking it before it goes in.
  • Resubmitting an application that came back, and sorting out what MNsure is asking for.
  • The questions that stall people halfway through — income, household, who counts.

Talk to Pat or Spencer.

Open enrollment dates

Opens
November 1, 2026
Enroll by, for coverage from January 1
December 15
Closes
January 15, 2027
Have a UCare individual or family plan?UCare’s individual and family plans end December 31, 2026.

Your UCare plan keeps working as it does now through December 31, 2026, when UCare’s individual and family plans end. For 2027, Medica is automatically moving you to the Medica plan it matched to yours (it’s named in your 2027 plan letter), and you can keep that plan or choose a different one during open enrollment — by December 15 for a new plan to start January 1. Medica’s networks are different from UCare’s and its drug lists can differ too, so check your doctors and prescriptions before you decide, and if you get help paying your premium, you may need to update your information with MNsure to keep it. If you stay with Medica, Medica expects to mail your first bill in mid-December: your coverage begins once that bill is paid by its due date, and UCare autopay doesn’t carry over.

If you have questions about the plan Medica matched you to, or you don’t like it, reach out to us.

UCare’s Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare plans are a separate change: they became Medica One Health Plan on October 1, 2026, with no gap in coverage, and members get a new ID card in the mail.

Medica’s questions and answers for UCare members →

Will you get help paying for it?

Two numbers give you the direction before you fill in anything. Nothing here is sent to us, and nothing here is a final answer — it is the same arithmetic we would do on the phone.

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Fill in what you know. Anything you leave blank, we’ll sort out on the phone. It goes to Pat and Spencer, not to a call center.

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More about MNsure

A premium tax credit is a federal subsidy that lowers your monthly premium, based on household income and size. From 2021 through 2025 there was no upper income limit on it. That ended: the enhanced credits expired on January 1, 2026 and the cap at 400% of the federal poverty level came back. Above that line there is now no credit at all rather than a smaller one, and below it there often is more help than people expect. Which side of the line a household lands on is a five-minute calculation, and it decides everything else — which is why our form asks for your household income, though you can leave it blank and tell us on the phone.

  • Premium tax credit eligibility check, before anything else
  • MNsure plans compared side by side
  • Cost-sharing reduction plans
  • Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare screening
  • Special enrollment period qualification
  • Help creating and managing your MNsure account
  • Pat added as your broker, so we can see the application
  • An honest answer when the marketplace is not your best option
  • No cost to you — carriers pay us a monthly fee

Depending on income, your household may qualify for Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare rather than a subsidized private plan. Both are accessed through MNsure. We will tell you which bucket you fall into instead of selling you something you do not need.

Marketplace coverage is normally bought during open enrollment for the following year. Outside that window you need a qualifying life event — losing employer coverage, moving, marriage, divorce, a birth or adoption. Those windows are limited and they do close, so if something has changed for you, call sooner rather than later.

The credit is paid in advance against an estimate of what you will earn, and reconciled on your tax return. The caps that used to limit how much a household could be asked to repay are gone as of 2026, so a year that ends well above the estimate now means repaying the full difference. If your income is variable, tell us — estimating deliberately rather than optimistically is the whole game.

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