What short-term cover is — and is not
A short-term, limited-duration plan is temporary health insurance for a defined gap: the months between leaving one job and starting the next, the wait before a new employer's cover begins, or the period after a move before a new plan is in place. It is sold as a bridge, and it should be judged as one.
What it is not is ACA cover. Short-term plans do not fall under the Affordable Care Act's rules, so they do not have to cover pre-existing conditions — they are medically underwritten and can turn an applicant down, or exclude a condition. They do not have to cover essential health benefits: maternity care, mental health and substance-use treatment, and prescription drug cover are often missing or thin. And they cannot be bought with premium tax credits, so the price you see is the price you pay.
How long it lasts
The federal position has moved twice in two years, and the current position is unsettled. A 2024 federal rule caps new short-term policies sold on or after 1 September 2024 at a 3-month initial contract term, with a maximum total duration of 4 months including any renewal. On 7 August 2025, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury announced they will not prioritise enforcement of that cap while a new rule is drafted — so in practice, state law now largely determines how long a plan can last, and durations vary widely by state: some states cap a plan at a few months, others allow a year or longer.
That uncertainty is itself a reason to read the policy's own end date before buying. A plan that can be renewed is not the same as a plan that will be renewed, and a plan that ends mid-treatment leaves the treatment uncovered unless another plan starts the same day.
30-day cover
A 30-day plan is a short-term plan bought for one month — the same product, the same limits, the same exclusions, on a shorter clock. It fits a gap measured in weeks: the days between a job ending and a new employer's cover starting, for example. The checks are the same as for any short-term plan, with one extra: confirm the exact end date, whether the plan renews, and what happens if the gap runs longer than 30 days. A gap that stretches past the plan's end is the point at which a short-term plan stops helping.
For a gap of a few weeks, also check the alternatives before buying: a special enrollment period on the ACA marketplace after a qualifying life event, COBRA continuation of the old employer's plan, or Medicaid if income qualifies. Any of those may cover more, for the same gap, than a 30-day short-term plan.
New York: short-term plans are not sold
New York is the clearest case of a state that does not allow the product at all. All individual health plans sold in New York must be guaranteed renewable, with limited exceptions such as nonpayment or fraud — and a plan with a limited term is, by definition, not renewable. New York also requires every accident and health policy that provides hospital, surgical or medical expense cover to be comprehensive and, for individual and small-group cover, to provide the essential health benefits. Short-term plans typically do not provide some of those benefits, so they cannot be sold in the state. After the first Trump administration's short-term rules took effect in 2018, New York clarified that it would continue to prohibit their sale.
If you live in New York and need cover for a gap, the routes are an ACA plan through the state's marketplace, COBRA continuation of an employer's plan, or Medicaid. A short-term plan bought in another state does not solve the problem: it is the sale in New York that is prohibited, and a plan that is not sold in your state cannot be your cover there.
New York is not alone — around 15 states ban or effectively block short-term plans, including California, Illinois and New Jersey — but it is the state where the prohibition is stated most plainly, and the one readers of this guide ask about most.
What it costs — and what it leaves out
Short-term plans are usually cheaper per month than an ACA plan, and the reason is the cover, not the market. A plan that can exclude a pre-existing condition, skip maternity and mental-health benefits, cap what it pays, and end after a few months costs less to provide — and the saving is paid for by the buyer in the form of gaps. The cheapest short-term plan is usually the thinnest one, so comparing on premium alone is the mistake the product is designed to invite.
Compare on total exposure instead: the premium, the deductible, the out-of-pocket maximum if there is one, the benefits the plan does not cover at all, and what a single uncovered event — a hospital stay, a new prescription, a complication of a condition the plan excluded — would cost you. No price is quoted here, because prices vary by age, term, deductible and state, and any single figure would be out of date before it was read.
Alternatives to a short-term plan
Before buying a short-term plan, check the three alternatives that cover more. An ACA marketplace plan through a special enrollment period, if a qualifying life event opened one — losing other cover is the common trigger. COBRA, which continues the old employer's plan for a limited time at the full premium plus an administration charge, keeping the same cover and network. And Medicaid, if income and household size qualify, which has no open-enrollment window. The enrollment and subsidies guide on this site walks through the ACA route, and the subsidy calculator estimates what a premium tax credit would do to the monthly cost. For a side-by-side look at marketplace options, the health insurance comparison tool on this site compares plans on premium, network and cost.
Worked example
Consider an ILLUSTRATIVE reader between jobs with a six-week gap before a new employer's cover starts. A 30-day short-term plan covers the first month but ends before the new cover begins, leaving two uncovered weeks — and if a condition is diagnosed in that first month, the plan's pre-existing-condition exclusion may follow the reader into the next application. The ACA special enrollment route, by contrast, covers the whole gap with comprehensive benefits, if the job loss opened a special enrollment period. The example's value is the comparison — length of the gap against length of the plan, and what the plan excludes — not any premium in it, and no real plan or price is named.
Illustrative example only — not a fact about any real policy.