average health insurance cost per month was a number I never once looked up for the first six years I had a job. It came out of my paycheck before I ever saw it, so to me it basically didn’t exist.
Then I spent a fall sitting at my kitchen table with two plan summaries and no idea which one was cheaper, and I realized I’d been picking health insurance the way I pick a checkout line. Open enrollment is coming up fast, so I pulled the real figures from the people who collect them and put them in one place. I’m also going to show you the cheap plan that ended up costing me $416, because that’s the part that changed how I budget for this.
The average health insurance cost per month, depending on where you get it
There isn’t one average. There are two very different markets, and which one you’re in decides almost everything.
- Through your job, single coverage: the average worker pays $120 a month ($1,440 a year).
- Through your job, family coverage: the average worker pays about $571 a month ($6,850 a year).
- On the ACA marketplace in 2026: the average person paid $178 a month after tax credits, up from $113 in 2025.
The employer numbers come from the KFF 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey, which is the survey benefits people everywhere quote. The marketplace number comes from KFF’s May 2026 tracking of actual enrollment.
One honest caveat. The employer survey for 2026 hasn’t come out yet as I write this in late September; it usually lands in October. So the $120 is last year’s average health insurance cost per month for a worker on single coverage. Premiums rose 5% for single coverage between the last two surveys, so if you want a rough 2026 guess, $125 or so is reasonable. That’s my arithmetic, not KFF’s.
What employer health insurance really costs (most of it is invisible)
This part changed how I read my pay stub.
The full average premium for single coverage at work is $9,325 a year, or about $777 a month. You pay $120 of that. Your employer pays the other $657, every month, whether or not you ever see a doctor.
For a family plan the full premium is $26,993 a year, around $2,249 a month. That’s more than a lot of people’s rent. KFF’s own news service compared it to buying a new car, every year.
Why should you care about money you don’t pay directly? Two reasons:
- It’s part of your pay. When you compare two job offers, $657 a month of health coverage is real compensation. A job paying $3,000 more a year with no coverage can easily leave you worse off.
- It’s what you’d face if you left. Quit, get laid off, or go freelance, and the COBRA letter asks you to pay the whole thing plus a 2% fee. That’s the moment people discover the $777.
Small companies are rougher. At firms with 10 to 199 workers, 29% of covered employees are in a plan where they pay more than half of the family premium themselves. At bigger firms it’s 5%.
Why the average health insurance cost per month jumped on the marketplace
If you buy your own coverage on HealthCare.gov or a state exchange, 2026 was a rough year, and it wasn’t anything you did.
The extra premium tax credits that had been in place since 2021 expired on January 1, 2026. KFF tracked what happened next:
- The average monthly payment after tax credits went from $113 to $178, a 58% jump.
- The average deductible went from $2,759 to $3,786, more than $1,000 higher per person.
- Bronze plans went from 30% of enrollees to 40%, as people traded a lower premium for a much bigger deductible.
- Enrollment fell by roughly 4.8 million people, from 22.3 million to an estimated 17.5 million.
That 58% understates the hit for a lot of people. It’s an average across people who switched to cheaper plans or left entirely, so the people who kept the same plan often saw more. The drop was steepest for adults 18 to 34, which is a lot of you reading this.
If your marketplace bill doubled in January, check the date before you blame yourself. The tax credits expired that morning.
What I pay, and the cheap plan that cost me $416
I’m on a plan through work. It takes $62 out of every paycheck, and I’m paid every two weeks, so that’s 26 deductions, or about $134 a month. A little above the national average for single coverage, and I’m fine with that.
I’m fine with it because of the year I got clever.
Three years ago my employer offered two plans. The cheaper one took $24 less per paycheck, which is $624 a year, and I felt very smart picking it. It had a $3,000 deductible. The other had $1,000.
In April I rolled my ankle on a curb outside a coffee shop. Urgent care, an X-ray, an MRI because it wasn’t healing, then six weeks of physical therapy. My share came to $2,300, all of it inside that $3,000 deductible. On the other plan I’d have paid the $1,000 deductible plus 20% of the rest, about $1,260. That’s $1,040 less, minus the $624 I’d saved on premiums. Net, my “cheap” plan cost me about $416 more than the expensive one would have, and I put the bill on a credit card because I hadn’t set anything aside.
I learned more from that ankle than from any benefits guide. Everyone compares the monthly premium, and on its own it told me almost nothing. If the bill does land on you, negotiating medical bills is worth a phone call, and it worked for me more than once.
Open enrollment dates for 2027 coverage, checked today
These have moved around in the last couple of years, so I read them straight off HealthCare.gov’s dates and deadlines page on September 23, 2026. For the federal marketplace:
- November 1, 2026: open enrollment starts. First day to enroll, renew, or switch.
- December 15, 2026: last day to pick a plan if you want coverage starting January 1.
- January 15, 2027: open enrollment ends.
- February 1, 2027: coverage starts for anyone who enrolled between December 16 and January 15.
If your state runs its own exchange, its dates can differ, so check there. And workplace open enrollment follows your employer’s calendar, not these. Mine is a two-week window in early November, and HR sends one email about it.
If you’re on the marketplace, don’t just let it auto-renew this year. Your plan’s price and your tax credit both reset, and auto-renewal is how people end up on a plan that got much worse without noticing.
How to budget the average health insurance cost per month before you enroll
Here’s the process I’ve used for the last three open enrollments. It takes one evening, and step two is the one that would have saved me that $416.
- Write down both numbers for every plan, not one. The yearly premium you pay (per paycheck times the number of paychecks) and the deductible. Put them side by side.
- Add them together to get your bad-year cost. Premium plus deductible is roughly what a year with one real medical event costs you. Compare plans on that total, not on the monthly premium.
- Be honest about what kind of year you usually have. Regular prescriptions, therapy, a planned surgery, a baby on the way? Lean toward the lower deductible. Healthy, no regular care, and money set aside? The higher deductible can make sense.
- Give the premium its own line in your budget. If it comes out of your paycheck, your take-home already reflects it, so just note it. If you pay the marketplace yourself, it’s a fixed bill like rent, and it goes near the top.
- Fund the deductible separately. Most people skip this one. I keep a health line in my sinking funds and put in $60 a month. If your plan is HSA-eligible, an HSA does the same job with a tax break attached.
- Put a reminder on your calendar for next fall. Plans change every year. Last year’s good plan isn’t automatically this year’s.
My opinion, which I know isn’t the popular one: for most people in their twenties and thirties, the lowest premium is only the smart pick if the deductible is already sitting in a savings account. If it isn’t, you’re betting on having a boring year. Sometimes you win. I didn’t.
A bad-year worked example, and the mistakes that cost most
To make step two concrete, I ran the averages through the same math. Each row takes the average premium a person actually pays and adds the average deductible, which is roughly what one ER visit or MRI year can cost you before your coverage fully kicks in:
| Where your coverage comes from | You pay per month | Premiums per year | Average deductible | Bad-year total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employer plan, larger company | $120 | $1,440 | $1,670 | $3,110 |
| Employer plan, company of 10 to 199 | $120 | $1,440 | $2,631 | $4,071 |
| ACA marketplace, 2025 | $113 | $1,356 | $2,759 | $4,115 |
| ACA marketplace, 2026 | $178 | $2,136 | $3,786 | $5,922 |
Look at the last two rows. The monthly premium went up $65, which sounds manageable. The bad-year total went up $1,807. The monthly number hides that gap completely.
Three mistakes that cost the most
- Picking by premium alone. That’s my $416 story. A plan that saves $50 a month and adds $2,000 to the deductible only wins if nothing happens.
- Letting a marketplace plan auto-renew. Your tax credit is recalculated every year, and the plan you’re renewed into can cost a lot more than something better next to it.
- Treating the deductible as a someday problem. If it isn’t in savings, it ends up on a credit card at 24% interest, which is how a sprained ankle turns into four months of payments. An emergency fund that covers at least your deductible is the cheapest insurance on top of your insurance.
Cozy tip: before open enrollment, grab your current plan’s deductible and divide it by twelve. Start setting that amount aside this month, even if it’s just $25 to begin. The free monthly budget printable has a fixed-costs section with room for your premium and a sinking-fund line for the deductible right next to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is health insurance per month for one person?
Through an employer, the average worker pays about $120 a month for single coverage, based on KFF’s 2025 survey, while the employer pays roughly $657 more. On the ACA marketplace, the average person paid $178 a month in 2026 after tax credits. Your age, state, income, and plan level can move that a lot in either direction.
Why did my marketplace premium go up so much in 2026?
The enhanced premium tax credits that had been in place since 2021 expired on January 1, 2026. KFF found the average payment after tax credits rose 58%, from $113 to $178 a month, and average deductibles rose by more than $1,000. Insurers also raised their underlying prices for 2026.
When is open enrollment for 2027 health insurance?
On the federal marketplace, open enrollment runs from November 1, 2026 to January 15, 2027. Enroll by December 15 if you want coverage to start January 1. States with their own exchanges can set different dates, and employer plans follow each company’s own calendar.
How much should I budget for health insurance each month?
Budget your monthly premium plus one twelfth of your deductible. On a $134 premium with a $1,000 deductible, that’s roughly $217 a month set aside. Once the deductible fund is full, you can drop back to just the premium.
Is a high-deductible plan cheaper overall?
Only in a year where you use little care, or if you already have the deductible saved, ideally in an HSA. Add the yearly premium and the deductible for each plan and compare those totals. A lower premium often saves a few hundred dollars and adds a couple thousand to your worst case.
If you’re looking at your fixed bills all at once, the average car insurance cost breakdown is the sister post to this one. I also keep a running set of budgeting statistics from primary sources, and everything on the budgeting side of this blog is built around the same idea: give every big bill a name and a line before it surprises you.
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