Findable.
They are not untouchable. You just need to know where to look.
Last week, The Jenn Files hit #57 Rising in Business on Substack.
You did that.
You showed up. You shared it. You said yes, this is real and it needs to be said. This conversation is spreading because you are spreading it.
Thank you. Now let’s keep going.
You built something.
Maybe it’s small right now. Maybe it’s growing. Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle — real revenue, real expenses, real decisions landing on your desk every week that nobody prepared you for.
And then the renewal notice arrives.
You know the one. The envelope you open standing at the kitchen counter, or the email you click on a Tuesday morning before you’ve finished your coffee. The one with the new premium number.
You read it twice. Because the first time doesn’t make sense.
I wrote about this in Sticker Shock. The math that hits you when health insurance stops being a line item and starts being a crisis. The moment you realize the system you thought was protecting you was never designed with you in mind.
That piece resonated because you’ve been there. Most of you are there right now.
This one is about what you do next.
We Are the Economy
Before we talk about who to call, let’s talk about who you are.
There are 34.8 million small businesses in the United States. They employ 59 million Americans. 45.9% of the entire workforce. They represent 43.5% of GDP. They pay 39% of all private sector payroll. Over the last decade, small businesses created 55% of all net new jobs in this country.
99.9% of all American businesses are small businesses.
And here’s the number that should be in every conversation about insurance, taxes, and the cost of building something: when you spend $100 at a local independent business, $43 stays in that community. Spent at a national chain or online, that same $100 leaves $13 behind. Local businesses recirculate money through their neighbors, their vendors, their employees, their community. More than three times the local economic return.
We are not a niche. We are not a footnote. We are the backbone of this economy and the lifeblood of every community we operate in.
No business owner I have ever met said oh good, higher premiums. Not one. Every dollar absorbed by an insurance increase is a dollar that doesn’t go back into hiring, into inventory, into the community, into building something that lasts.
That’s not a political statement. That’s just math.
So when the system squeezes small business owners — and it is squeezing, hard — it isn’t just hurting the owners. It’s pulling money out of communities. It’s slowing job creation. It’s taxing the engine that actually runs this country.
Now let’s talk about who benefits while that’s happening.
The six largest health insurance CEOs collected $159.4 million between them in 2024 alone. The top earner was Andrew Witty of UnitedHealth Group — $26.3 million. One person. One year. At Elevance Health, the CEO earned 370 times more than the median employee at her own company.
Your premium went up.
Your state’s insurance commissioner, the public official whose entire job is to protect you from exactly this, earns somewhere between $86,000 and $222,000 a year in public salary.
Do the math.
We the People
The system wants you frustrated. Frustrated people give up. They pay the bill, swallow the denial, and go back to absorbing the cost.
That’s the design.
The corruption is real. The deal-making is real. The revolving door between regulators and the industry they’re supposed to regulate is real. Both parties have let it fester for decades.
We are fed up. We want fairness, accountability, and transparency. We want it all out in the open.
We the people are getting stronger. We are getting smarter. We are learning how to play this game.
You think we’re joking? You think we’re not strong enough?
Watch.
The Person You’re Looking For
Every state in this country has an insurance commissioner.
Their job, the one they are paid to do, the one they are legally obligated to do, is to protect you. The office is established by state constitution or statute. It exists because the law says it has to. They regulate the insurance industry in your state. They enforce the rules. They investigate complaints. They have authority to take action when insurance companies aren’t playing by the book.
In 11 states, that commissioner is elected directly by voters. California. Delaware. Georgia. Kansas. Louisiana. Mississippi. Montana. North Carolina. North Dakota. Oklahoma. Washington. If your state is on that list, your insurance commissioner answers to you at the ballot box.
We the people elected you in. We the people can take you out.
In the other 39 states, the commissioner is appointed, typically by the governor. Which means they answer to someone who answers to you.
Either way, there is a human being with a name, a phone number, a public office, and a staff whose entire job description includes handling exactly what you’ve been dealing with.
Most people have never heard of them.
Now you have.
How to Find Yours
Go to content.naic.org/state-insurance-departments.
Every U.S. state, the District of Columbia, and all five U.S. territories have a Department of Insurance dedicated to helping consumers. It takes 60 seconds to find yours.
You’ll get a name. A website. A phone number. A complaint portal.
Use it.
If your insurer unfairly delays or denies your claim, or does not honor your policy or state law, your Department of Insurance can investigate. They can request corrective action. They can take enforcement action when laws are violated. They track complaint patterns across companies, and those patterns matter when regulators decide whether to approve rate increases.
Your complaint isn’t just about you. It goes into a record. It adds to a picture. It is one of the mechanisms this system has to hold insurers accountable.
File it. Every single time.
The Second Lever
Beyond the commissioner, there are state legislators who sit on insurance committees.
These are the people who write the rules the commissioner enforces. They set the parameters. They decide what’s permissible. They hold hearings. They have constituent services offices built to hear from people like you.
Find your state legislature’s website. Search for the insurance committee. Find the member who represents your district.
Write them a letter. Not an email. A letter. Show up to a town hall. Call the constituent services line.
Tell them what your premiums cost. Tell them what you were denied. Tell them what you’re paying for coverage that doesn’t cover what you need.
They answer to voters in a way insurance executives never will. So make them answer.
We Are Done.
We the people are paying attention now.
We are tracking votes. Reading donor lists. Filing complaints. Writing letters. Showing up to town halls. Building paper trails. And we are not going away.
We built businesses from nothing. We made payroll when it hurt. We kept going when there was no playbook. We are not people who roll over.
Done with the denial letters written by algorithms. Done with premium increases mailed on a Friday with no explanation. Done with being told to appeal a decision made by someone who never looked at our file. Done with the lies, the abuse, the backroom deals dressed up as policy.
The people making these decisions are not sitting in some impenetrable fortress. They have offices. They have bosses. They have re-election cycles and appointment reviews and public records obligations.
We are holding you accountable. All of it. In the open. Where everyone can see.
Your Next Move
1. Find your commissioner. Go to content.naic.org/state-insurance-departments. Write down the name. Bookmark the complaint portal.
2. File the complaint. Denied claim. Unexplained premium spike. Coverage dropped without notice. Document it. Submit it. Keep every copy.
3. Find your legislator. Look up your state’s insurance committee. Find your district’s rep. Write one page. What you pay. What you were denied. What you need them to do.
4. Do not stop. Do it again next year. Accountability is built through repetition, not a single call. They are counting on you to get tired. Don’t.
The question everyone is asking after Sticker Shock and now this: how do we actually get premiums down? Not the sponsored answer. Not the broker pitch. The real strategies, the real structures, and an honest look at what it would actually take to fix this market. That’s next.
The system is designed to make you feel powerless.
You’re not.
You just need to know where to look.
One more thing. See this dog? This is Bella. She came from an unethical breeder/hoarder situation. When you’ve seen what neglect does to an animal, you don’t just want to love them better. You want to know better. Building a pet business from scratch and watching what people didn’t know about their animals’ health made that even clearer. That’s why I got my Integrative Pet Health Coaching certification.
Founding members of The Jenn Files receive a complimentary session with me — a $350 value. You send me your pet’s information, I build you a personalized guide, and we get on a call. Founding membership is $100, less than half the regular rate of $240. Only a few more days at this price. If you’ve been thinking about it, now is the time.
If this resonated, subscribe to The Jenn Files. I write about business, money, resilience, and grit — cutting through the noise so you can build something that can’t be broken.
Sources
SBA Office of Advocacy, 2024 Small Business Profiles
Bureau of Labor Statistics — Small Business Job Creation, 2013–2023
Civic Economics — Local Multiplier Effect studies (via American Independent Business Alliance)
Fierce Healthcare — 2024 CEO compensation, six major national health plans
Becker’s Payer Issues — CEO-to-worker pay ratios, 2024 proxy filings
S&P Global Market Intelligence — Cigna/UnitedHealth CEO compensation, 2024
Ballotpedia — Insurance Commissioner salaries, elected vs. appointed by state
content.naic.org/state-insurance-departments — State insurance department directory