Small businesses across the state are braced for premium hikes and benefit changes as they renew health coverage under the new rules put in place by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But even as some express cautious optimism, they are short on the answers they need to make plans for next year.

Most insurance companies in New Jersey responded to the changes in the law by scrapping their old small-employer plans and designing new ones. In addition, the law changed the method of calculating premiums, which are just beginning to be released.

That leaves a lot of uncertainty surrounding a major business expense. And with only two months to go until new policies start for companies that renew coverage on Jan. 1, premium information is still in short supply.

"We got a letter from our insurance provider in February, saying: 'Your current plan will be discontinued in January 2014,' " said Claire Zweig, co-owner with her husband of Glenbrook Technologies Inc. in Randolph. The letter didn't give any other options, she said. "And I still don't have an option."

She needs to know her choices "so I can present them to my employees, so they can decide what they want," she said. "This kind of benefit is a major part of our budget — major!" The company, which manufactures X-ray equipment, has traditionally paid the full premium for its employees.

"Where are the 2014 rates?" asked her broker, Jeffrey Ingalls of Stratford Financial Group, an insurance consulting firm in Wayne. "We need to make this decision." Insurance carriers are waiting until the last minute to release their premiums amid the turmoil in the industry, he said.

Companies like Glenbrook, with fewer than 50 workers, are not required to offer insurance under the law popularly known as Obamacare. But as they have in the past, many will continue to do so, to attract and retain valued employees.

Next year, however, under the law, each policy must include coverage of 10 "essential health benefits," such as prescription drugs, mental health, and pediatric dental and vision, which means adding benefits to the plans that have been sold up to now in New Jersey. And the effect of the new rating scheme — which calculates each employee's premium separately and adds them together, instead of developing an average premium for the group and multiplying it — is hard to predict.

"Small employers in New Jersey are finding that they cannot keep their policies," said Christine Stearns, vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. Premiums for most are rising, she said, in part due to the law.