Occasionally, we help clients find short-term policies. What a short-term policy is, is a plan that literally has a short term. The maximum amount of time a person can be on a short-term policy is six months.

These policies were created to help people transition (sometimes they’re called transitional plans) to transition from one company to the next. As they transition, there’s usually a new hire waiting period, and so the client or the new employee goes without insurance for several months.

Well now these policies are being used for other reasons. One is if people can’t afford health insurance through the marketplace, or through qualified plans. Some clients are using short-term policies to help that.

A point of note though, these plans are non-qualified and if a question comes up, they technically do not have health insurance and they could be subject to the fine of not having health insurance for the current year.

On another note, these plans are very affordable. They’re basically like accident plans, which means they’ll cover accidents down to a very low deductible, and they’re very affordable. They don’t cover preexisting conditions, prescriptions, or doctor visits. But for someone who’s looking for coverage for maybe some future event, like an accident or something they do not foresee happening, short-term policies are really good in that situation.

This post was written by Tim Jackson, a Health Insurance Specialist.

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