How to Save Money on Health Insurance — It’s Not Insurance
If you’re a healthy person or a healthy family paying hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance you barely use, there’s an alternative worth knowing about. It’s called a healthshare. It’s not insurance. It works differently. And for the right person, it can cut your monthly healthcare costs dramatically. We break it all down in our companion video.
What Is a Healthshare?
A healthshare is a community of members who contribute monthly to help share each other’s medical expenses. It is not an insurance company. It’s not regulated like insurance. It doesn’t operate like insurance. And it doesn’t use the same terminology.
Instead of a premium, you make a monthly contribution. Instead of filing a claim, you submit a sharing request. Instead of a deductible, you have an Initial Unshareable Amount (IUA) — the amount you pay toward a medical need before the community begins sharing the cost. The community shares eligible expenses based on member guidelines, not an insurance contract.
The healthshare model has existed since the early 1980s. Today there are multiple organizations across the country. Some are faith-based. Some are not. Zion HealthShare, the one we’re affiliated with, is not faith-based. There’s no religious requirement to join. It’s a nonprofit organization. Contributions go toward sharing member medical expenses, not shareholder returns.
How Zion HealthShare Works
You become a member and make a monthly contribution based on your age, household size, and IUA level. As of early 2026, individual memberships start as low as $114 per month. Family memberships start around $295. Compare that to $700 or more for an unsubsidized marketplace plan.
Zion offers three IUA options: $1,250, $2,500, or $5,000. The higher the IUA, the lower your monthly contribution. It works the same way conceptually as choosing a higher out-of-pocket responsibility in exchange for a lower monthly cost — except the IUA is per medical need, not per year.
When you have a medical need — an injury, illness, surgery, or hospitalization — you submit a sharing request. You pay your IUA for that specific need. Once it’s met, the community shares 100% of remaining eligible expenses based on the member guidelines. There is no annual or lifetime maximum sharing limit built into the program guidelines.
If you have a second unrelated medical need, that’s a separate sharing request with its own IUA. But Zion caps it. No household pays more than three IUAs in any rolling 12-month period. That puts a ceiling on your annual exposure.
Once your IUA is met for a specific need, you don’t pay another one for that same need unless you’ve been symptom-free for 12 months.
What Else Is Included
Preventive care. Certain preventive services like annual provider visits and screenings are eligible for sharing without meeting your IUA first, subject to the member guidelines.
Telemedicine. Members get unlimited access to virtual primary care visits.
Mental health. This is important to understand. Expenses related to mental health treatment and medications are not eligible for sharing through the community. Members may have access to acute counseling sessions through Primestin Care, an additional virtual care service.
Prescription discounts. Zion offers a discount program called Zion RxShare for Direct members, with savings on generic, brand-name, and specialty medications.
No network restrictions. You can see any doctor, any hospital, any specialist. No referrals required. But because a healthshare isn’t insurance, some providers may ask you to pay upfront. You then submit the expenses for sharing afterward.
Who This Is a Good Fit For
Healthshares are not for everyone. But for certain people, the savings are significant.
Healthy individuals and families who rarely use the healthcare system. If you’re paying $700 a month for a plan you barely use, a healthshare can cut that cost dramatically while still covering major medical expenses.
Self-employed individuals and small business owners buying on the individual market without employer subsidies. A healthshare can reduce your monthly cost by hundreds of dollars.
People between jobs or in transition. Unlike marketplace plans, there’s no open enrollment window. You can join year-round.
Families with young children who are generally healthy. A family paying over $1,000 a month for marketplace coverage they rarely use beyond well-child visits could see meaningful savings.
Who This Is NOT a Good Fit For
A healthshare isn’t designed to replace health insurance for everyone. It’s an alternative model that works extremely well for some people and poorly for others.
A healthshare is not insurance. It does not come with the same regulatory protections. There’s no guarantee of sharing. Healthsharing as a model has been around since the early 1980s, and Zion has been operating since 2019 with a growing membership base. But this is a voluntary arrangement, not a contractual obligation like an insurance policy.
If you have significant ongoing medical conditions, traditional health insurance may be a better fit. Zion shares eligible expenses for pre-membership conditions, but there’s a phase-in period. Year one is a waiting period — nothing is shared. Year two, sharing is limited to $25,000 per sharing request. Year three, $50,000. Year four and beyond, $125,000. The maximum resets each membership year.
If you receive substantial marketplace subsidies, the cost difference may not be as dramatic. Run the numbers for your situation.
If you want the legal protections of traditional health insurance, a healthshare isn’t that. It’s a different model.
State Requirements
There is no federal penalty for not having health insurance. Most states have no individual mandate either. However, a few states — including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island — still penalize residents who don’t carry what’s called Minimum Essential Coverage. A healthshare is not considered Minimum Essential Coverage. If you’re in one of those states, check the exemption rules or talk to a tax advisor before making the switch.
A Healthshare Is Not Insurance
This bears repeating. A healthshare does not meet Affordable Care Act requirements. It does not guarantee payment of medical expenses. Sharing is based on member guidelines and the availability of community funds. Review the guidelines carefully before enrolling and make sure you understand what you’re signing up for.
See the Numbers for Yourself
If you want to see what your monthly contribution would look like, check out our Zion HealthShare page. It takes about 30 seconds to plug in your household information and see the numbers. If you want to compare it against traditional health insurance, that’s the right way to think about it — compare the numbers and decide what works for your household. Zion also has a live chat on their site if you have specific questions about how the membership works.
And if you’re the kind of person looking at a healthshare, you’re probably also the kind of person who should be looking at an umbrella policy, or making sure your rental properties and entity structure are insured correctly. We’ve got videos on all of that on our channel. Check out our Google reviews to see what our clients say.
