Availability of short-term health insurance in Kansas

Yes. As of August 2025, the Kansas Department of Insurance noted that seven insurers were licensed to offer short-term health insurance plans in Kansas.²

Kansas state law limits short-term health insurance to terms of “six months or 12 months, based upon policy design.”³ (The Kansas Insurance Department clarified that the distinction between six-month and 12-month plans was up to the insurer. From a regulatory standpoint, the maximum term was 12 months.)

But Kansas statute also limits short-term policies to a maximum of one renewal, meaning no more than 24 months in total duration if a 12-month policy is renewable.³

There are some policies available for purchase in Kansas in 2026 that are advertised as having a total duration of 36 months, but these are multiple policies issued back-to-back (which may have separate medical underwriting), rather than a renewal of a single policy.

Both chambers of the Kansas legislature passed a bill (SB199) in 2022 that would have eliminated the “six months or 12 months” language, as well as the one renewal limit. But Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the legislation.

If it had been enacted, the bill would have aligned the Kansas rules for short-term health insurance with the federal rules that the Trump administration implemented in 2018 (i.e., initial terms of up to 364 days, and total duration of up to three years). Those rules were in effect through August 2024, when they were replaced with a Biden administration rule limiting short-term policies to a total duration of no more than four months.

That rule was no longer being enforced as of August 2025, but Kansas statute has not changed: A short-term policy cannot be renewed more than one time in Kansas.

Short-term health insurance in Kansas is defined in Kansas Statute 40-2, 193.

Kansas has a minimum loss ratio requirement of 60%. But under the terms of Kansas Statute 40-2, 193, this only applies to short-term coverage if any monthly administrative fees are excluded from the medical loss ratio calculation.

Short-term health insurance in Kansas can only be renewed one time, so the maximum allowable duration for a single policy is 24 months, now that the Biden administration rule (limiting short-term policies to four months) is no longer being enforced.

Short-term health insurance in Kansas can be purchased by residents (individuals or families) who meet the underwriting guidelines of insurers. In general, this means being under 65 years old and in fairly good health.⁴

Short-term health medical insurance plans typically include blanket exclusions for pre-existing conditions, so these types of plans are not adequate for someone in the Sunflower State who needs medical care for a chronic ongoing or pre-existing condition.⁴

If you’re trying to enroll in health insurance in Kansas outside of the annual open enrollment period (November 1 to December 15), first check your eligibility for a special enrollment period that would allow you to enroll in an ACA-compliant major medical plan. 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 Kansas.

Marketplace plans are purchased on a month-to-month basis, so you can enroll even if you only need coverage for a few months before another policy takes effect (with a premium subsidy if you’re eligible).

From Colby to Wichita, there may be situations when a short-term plan might be an attractive option, such as:

• If you missed open enrollment for ACA-compliant individual-market coverage (i.e., Obamacare) or your employer’s healthcare plan, and do not have a qualifying event that would trigger a special enrollment period.
• If you’re switching jobs and have a waiting period until you can be covered by your new employer’s health insurance plan. (But if you lost coverage when you left your previous job, the loss of that coverage would also trigger a special enrollment period during which you could buy an ACA-compliant plan in the Kansas Marketplace. This is true even if you’re offered the option to continue your prior coverage with COBRA.)
• You will soon qualify for Medicare and don’t have another coverage option in the meantime.
• If you’re not eligible for Medicaid or a premium subsidy in the exchange, the monthly premiums for an ACA-compliant plan might simply not be affordable. This includes people caught in the coverage gap that Kansas has created by refusing to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid. It also includes undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for Medicaid or Marketplace coverage. And as of 2026, people with household income above 400% of the federal poverty level are ineligible for Marketplace subsidies, regardless of how much they have to pay for their coverage.