Medicare Supplement

Which Medigap plan letters can a Virginia Beach retiree still buy in 2026?

Virginia Beach, Va. — If you are turning 65 in Virginia Beach or thinking about moving from a Medicare Advantage plan back to Original Medicare, sooner or later you will run into the alphabet: Plan A, Plan B, Plan G, Plan N and a few more. Those letters are Medigap, or Medicare Supplement, policies. They are sold by private insurers, but the benefits inside each letter are set by federal law — so a Plan G is a Plan G no matter whose name is on the envelope.

Here is a plain-English look at which letters someone new to Medicare can buy in Virginia today, how a Medigap policy fits with Original Medicare and a Part D drug plan, and the state resources that can help you compare.

What Medigap actually does

Original Medicare (Part A hospital and Part B medical) pays most of your covered care, but it leaves gaps: the Part A hospital deductible, the 20% Part B coinsurance with no yearly cap, and a few other cost shares. A Medigap policy is designed to pick up some or all of those gaps.

Two things to remember:

• Medigap only pairs with Original Medicare. You cannot use it with a Medicare Advantage plan.
• Medigap does not cover prescription drugs. For that, you add a separate Part D plan.

The letters you can buy in Virginia today

Federal rules standardize Medigap into lettered plans. In Virginia — as in most states — someone newly eligible for Medicare can choose from:

A, B, D, G, high-deductible G, K, L, M and N.

Plans C and F still exist, but they can only be bought by people who became eligible for Medicare before January 1, 2020. If that is you, you may still qualify.

Each letter covers a different mix of the gaps. For example, Plan G is popular because it covers almost everything except the Part B deductible; Plan N has lower premiums but asks you to pay small copays for some office and ER visits; the high-deductible version of G has a lower monthly premium in exchange for a yearly deductible you pay first. None of that makes one letter "best" — it depends on how you use care and what you can budget month to month.

Massachusetts, Minnesota and Wisconsin standardize their Medigap plans differently, but Virginia follows the federal letter system.

How Medigap and Part D fit together

A typical setup for a Virginia Beach resident who wants predictable costs looks like this:

1. Original Medicare (Parts A and B) as the base. 2. A Medigap policy (one of the letters above) to help with the cost sharing. 3. A stand-alone Part D plan for prescriptions.

For 2026, Part D has a maximum deductible of $615 and a new $2,100 annual out-of-pocket cap on covered drugs. The old coverage gap, or "donut hole," was eliminated in 2025, so Part D now has three phases instead of four. If your drug costs are lumpy, you can also opt into the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan, which spreads your out-of-pocket drug costs across the calendar year in monthly installments.

Higher-income enrollees pay an IRMAA surcharge on Part B and Part D; for 2026 that starts above $109,000 in income for a single filer.

The timing rules that shape your choice

Two windows matter most:

• Your Medigap open enrollment period. This is a one-time, six-month window that starts when you are 65 or older and enrolled in Part B. During this window, insurers in Virginia must sell you any Medigap plan they offer at their standard rate, regardless of your health history.
• Guaranteed issue rights. Federal law also gives you the right to buy certain Medigap plans without medical underwriting in specific situations — for example, if a Medicare Advantage plan leaves your area or you move out of its service area.

Outside those windows, Virginia allows insurers to use medical underwriting, which means your health can affect whether you are accepted and what you pay. Some states have added a "birthday rule" or other extra switching rights; Virginia has not adopted a broad birthday rule, so before you drop or switch a policy, confirm your rights with the State Corporation Commission's Bureau of Insurance or the Virginia Insurance Counseling and Assistance Program (VICAP), the state's SHIP.

Also worth knowing: the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (Oct. 15 – Dec. 7) and the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (Jan. 1 – March 31) are for Part D and Medicare Advantage changes. They are not Medigap enrollment windows.

How to compare insurers in Virginia Beach

Because every insurer must sell the same standardized benefits for a given letter, the differences between two Plan Gs come down to price, the insurer's rate history, customer service and how they set premiums (by age at issue, attained age, or community rating). Virginia Beach is in Virginia Beach city, where the plan lineup follows Virginia's statewide Medigap rules.

To see who sells what in your ZIP code:

• Use the Medigap policy search at Medicare.gov — enter your ZIP code and you will see every insurer licensed to sell each letter in your area.
• Check the Virginia Bureau of Insurance Medigap rate guide for a side-by-side look at premiums filed by insurers in the state.
• Call VICAP, Virginia's free SHIP counseling service, for one-on-one help.