Finalized federal rule reduces total duration of short-term health plans to 4 months
HHS rule will apply to short-term limited duration insurance (STLDI) plans sold or issued on or after September 1, 2024
A finalized federal rule announced by the Departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Labor on March 28, will impose new nationwide duration limits on short-term limited duration insurance (STLDI) plans.
The rule – which applies to plans sold or issued on or after September 1, 2024 – will limit STLDI plans to three-month terms, and to total duration – including renewals – of no more than four months.
A “renewal” will include a new policy issued by the same insurer (or another insurer in the same controlled group, meaning they’re treated as a single employer) within 12 months of the effective date of the first policy. So a person will not be able to purchase multiple consecutive policies – a practice known as “stacking” – from the same insurer or an affiliated insurer. This part of the rule helps to avoid scenarios in which consumers enroll in multiple STLDI policies without realizing that it isn’t comprehensive coverage.
Why did the federal government implement this rule?
The changes are designed to ensure that short-term coverage is used to fill a temporary gap between two comprehensive policies, rather than serving as a long-term coverage solution. Since STLDI is “excluded from the definition of individual health insurance” and is thus not regulated by federal rules such as the Affordable Care Act, the No Surprises Act, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, etc., the federal-level consumer protections for STLDI enrollees are limited.
The rule is also intended to make it easier for consumers to distinguish between ACA-compliant individual/family health insurance and STDLI and thus reduce the number of people who inadvertently purchase short-term coverage when trying to buy comprehensive coverage.
STLDI plans sold on or after Sept. 1, 2024 will need to include an updated and comprehensive disclosure notice that highlights the major differences between STLDI and ACA-compliant individual/family health insurance sold through the Marketplace.
The disclosure, which is illustrated on page 102 of the final rule, must be displayed on the first page of the policy/contract and any associated marketing or enrollment materials.
How does the rule affect STLDI plans currently in effect?
Under the new rules, there is no change to STLDI policies that are already in effect, or policies that are sold and issued before Sept. 1, 2024. The current rules continue to apply to those policies.
This means policy durations of plans that are sold and issued prior to Sept. 1, 2024 are up to the states and the insurers as long as the policies don’t have initial terms of more than 364 days or total duration of more than 36 months.
How many people have short-term health insurance?
It’s difficult to pin down the exact number of enrollees, as data reporting of STLDI coverage is not consistent across states. The final rule cites a 2023 report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which indicated that 235,775 people were covered by short-term health plans at the end of 2022.3
But, as noted in the final rule, that doesn’t include people who had STLDI for only part of the year, nor does it include people with association-based STDLI coverage, which is a significant portion of the market.
The final rule (see page 163) also notes that the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation had previously estimated that as many as 1.5 million people might be enrolled in STLDI. But the rule also clarified that was before the ACA’s premium subsidies were enhanced by the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act – legislation that made Marketplace coverage more affordable and perhaps reduced the number of people who opted for STDLI.
Will people with STLDI have a special enrollment period to switch to individual/family coverage?
No. The final rule (page 68) notes that while there is already a special enrollment period (SEP) for group health insurance when an STLDI policy terminates, there is no similar SEP for individual/family health coverage. That will continue to be the case under the new rule.
States that operate their own health insurance Marketplaces are allowed to establish SEPs that differ from those available through the federally run Marketplace, HealthCare.gov. But HealthCare.gov, the Marketplace platform in 32 states, will continue its current protocol of not allowing a SEP due to the termination of a short-term health insurance policy.
However, as we’ll discuss below, the timing of the new rule is designed to ensure that people can purchase a STLDI plan that can continue through the end of 2024 (assuming they’re healthy enough to enroll in STLDI and assuming that insurers in their state offer STLDI with the maximum allowable four-month duration). By then utilizing the open enrollment period for ACA-compliant coverage, the consumer would be able to transition without interruption in coverage to an individual-market policy that starts on January 1, 2025, if they choose to do so.
What can people do when their short-term policy terminates?
The current maximum duration limit for policies sold or issued before September 1, 2024 varies by state, and it’s also important to understand that insurers can further limit their short-term policies beyond what state or federal rules allow. (An insurer can, for instance, cap total policy durations at six months, even if state and federal rules allow for 36 months.)
If a person enrolls in a new STLDI plan on or after September 1, the plan will be allowed to cover them through the end of 2024, as that will be no more than four months away. But again, four months will be the maximum allowable duration, not the required duration. Insurers will be able to offer, for example, a three-month policy that isn’t renewable. For this reason, consumers need to be well-informed about their policy details.
Assuming a person purchases a policy with a four-month duration that starts on September 1, they will be able to select a non-temporary major medical plan for calendar year 2025 during open enrollment for individual/family coverage which will be effective as early as January 1, 2025. Open enrollment begins on November 1, 2024. This will allow them to avoid having a coverage gap.
If a person chooses to purchase or renew an existing longer-term STLDI policy before the end of August 2024, their plan termination dates will vary depending on the plan they choose. For example, a policy purchased while the current rules are still in effect might last for six months (i.e., into early 2025) or it might last for 36 months. This is where consumers will need to be vigilant in understanding the implications of what they’re purchasing.
If they buy a six-month, non-renewable short-term policy that takes effect August 15, 2024, it will terminate in mid-February 2025. At that point, open enrollment for ACA-compliant 2025 individual/family coverage will be over.
The person will not be able to switch to an ACA-compliant plan unless they have a qualifying life event that triggers a special enrollment period (note here that some special enrollment periods are only available if the person had prior minimum essential coverage, and STLDI is not considered minimum essential coverage.)
Under the terms of the final rule, consumers will still be able to buy another STLDI policy from a different insurer after their policy ends.
But this will depend on their health status, as the new insurer will be able to use medical underwriting.
History of federal short-term insurance rules
From the late 1990s until October 2018, short-term limited-duration health insurance was allowed to have a contract length of “less than 12 months” unless a state imposed stricter limits.5
New regulations took effect in 2017, limiting short-term plan durations to 90 days and prohibiting renewal of short-term policies.6
Under regulatory changes finalized in 2018, the allowable initial term of a short-term plan was lengthened to 364 days. And insurers could offer policy renewals that would keep a policy in force for up to three years, as long as this didn’t conflict with stricter rules imposed by a state.7
The rule change for policies issued on or after September 1, 2024 is largely a reversal of the 2018 rule. But it doesn’t revert entirely to the rule that took effect in 2017, as it allows for renewals and a total policy duration of up to four months, instead of the three-month limit and renewal ban that took effect in 2017.
This article can be found at: https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/finalized-federal-rule-reduces-total-duration-of-short-term-health-plans-to-4-months/
