The Stop-Loss Crisis: Why Your Safety Net May Have a $4 Million Hole

49% of plan sponsors reported claims exceeding $1 million last year — double the rate from the year before. And stop-loss carriers are responding not by covering you better, but by finding creative ways to limit their exposure to the most expensive treatments.In this episode, I break down:→ Why stop-loss insurance was built for a different era (when catastrophic meant $300K, not $4.25 million)→ What carriers are actually doing — lasering, exclusions, and reimbursement term misalignment — to push risk back to employers→ The gene therapy pipeline problem: 48 approved therapies today, dozens more coming, and no historical data to predict frequency→ Why even jumbo employers who've never needed stop-loss should reconsider→ The 5 things every self-funded employer needs to do at renewal — including the one question that will tell you everything about your coverageThe mainstream story is that gene therapy is a miracle of modern medicine. It is. But the financial infrastructure wasn't built for this reality, and carriers have decided that the most expensive thing in healthcare is now predictable enough to exclude.You should find that arrangement concerning.📺 Watch the full video breakdown:https://youtu.be/1wwrtwmYAPE📖 Read the Substack post with sources:https://open.substack.com/pub/danmccoymd/p/the-stop-loss-crisis-what-self-funded📧 Subscribe for more healthcare benefits analysis:https://danmccoymd.substack.com