Availability of short-term health insurance in Illinois

No, short-term health insurance is no longer available for purchase in Illinois, due to legislation the state enacted in 2024.¹

Short-term health insurance is not available for purchase in Illinois.¹

If you need health insurance coverage in Illinois outside of the annual open enrollment period for ACA-compliant major medical plans (November 1 to January 15), you should check your eligibility for a special enrollment period that would allow you to enroll at that point.

There are a variety of qualifying life events that will trigger a special enrollment period and allow you to buy a plan through the health insurance exchange in Illinois. These plans are purchased on a month-to-month basis, so you can enroll in one (with a premium subsidy if you’re eligible) even if you’re only going to need it for a few months before another policy takes effect.

As noted above, Illinois no longer allows the sale of short-term health insurance, as of 2025. Short-term health insurance was previously available in the state, but Illinois rules were stricter than federal rules for several years.

Before September 2024, Illinois limited short-term health insurance policies to no more than six months in duration, and prohibited renewals. Starting in September 2024, federal rules began to limit short-term policies to terms of no more than three months (and the existing Illinois rules prohibited renewals). The new Illinois law banning the sale of short-term health plans altogether took effect in January 2025.²

The previous Illinois rules (limiting policies to six months and prohibiting renewals) were due to HB2624/SB1737, which was enacted in 2018. Former Gov. Rauner vetoed the legislation, but lawmakers overrode his veto and the new limits on short-term plans became law.

The 2018 legislation was quite extensive and addressed other insurance provisions in Illinois. Most of it, including the provisions relating to short-term health plans, took effect when the law was enacted (November 27, 2018), although it took a few weeks for the details to be sorted out and the insurers to stop marking longer short-term plans.

By 2019, all of the available short-term plans in Illinois were capped at six months in duration, and were not renewable; that continued to be the case until strict new federal rules took effect in September 2024, limiting short-term plans to much shorter durations