Short-term plans, and the trade-offs nobody mentions

A short-term plan is medically underwritten, time-limited cover. It usually costs much less than a major-medical premium because it can ask about your health, exclude what it finds, cap what it pays and decline to renew.

That is a fair trade for a genuine gap — a month between jobs, a wait for group cover to start. It is a poor trade for a household with ongoing prescriptions, a planned procedure or anything that would look like a pre-existing condition to an underwriter.

• Pre-existing conditions are usually excluded, not merely priced
• Essential health benefits are not guaranteed: check maternity, mental health and drugs
• It does not open a special enrolment period when it ends
• Losing job-based cover does open one — often at a subsidised price