ST. PAUL — Health insurance premiums for Minnesota residents buying coverage through MNsure or directly from providers will increase by as much as 49 percent on average next year, state officials announced Thursday, a major jump that the state’s top insurance regulator said calls for additional reforms to control costs.

The 2016 cost increases range from 14 percent for enrollees on a Medica plan to 49 percent for customers on Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, the state’s largest insurer. All eight companies selling insurance on the individual market posted double-digit percentage rate increases for next year.

Most Minnesotans won’t feel the hit — less than 6 percent of residents buy insurance on the individual market, compared to more than 80 percent who are covered through employers or on public programs. But the individual market is at the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care law and the health insurance exchanges such as MNsure it gave way to.

Minnesota Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman called the increases “unacceptably high.” He said they were driven by a smaller, higher-cost pool of consumers than initially projected — a sentiment echoed by health care experts and the insurers themselves who have suggested prior years’ rates were too low.

“We had rates that were not appropriate,” said Danette Coleman, Medica’s senior vice president for individual business. “Rates that we’re starting to see now really are more reflective of the risk that exists in the individual market.”