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Short-Term Health Insurance

From Kelly Montgomery, for About.com

Created: January 19, 2006

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

If you have recently lost health coverage, but are expecting to get new coverage within a year, a short-term health insurance plan may be right for you. Read on to learn more.[/]p

What Is Short-Term Health Insurance?

Some insurance policies offer policies designed to tide people through short lapses in health insurance coverage. These policies are called short-term or temporary health insurance policies.

While it may be possible for you to find a short-term health insurance policy that will cover you for up to 36 months, most of these policies are limited to 12 months of coverage or less. Short-term policies are ideal for healthy people who are going through some kind of transition - for example, recent college graduates waiting for health insurance benefits at their first job to begin. The operative term here is "healthy" - short-term health insurance policies are underwritten, which means that the insurance company must be satisfied that you are not likely to make many claims for the duration of the policy.

Read on to find out more about short-term health insurance, including how much it costs and what it covers.

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