lifetime maximum benefit (or maximum lifetime benefit)

Lifetime maximum benefit – or maximum lifetime benefit – is the maximum dollar amount a health plan will pay in benefits to an insured individual during that individual’s lifetime.

The ACA did away with lifetime benefit maximums for essential health benefits. Policies issued on or renewing after September 23, 2010 are required to have no lifetime benefit maximums on any essential health benefits covered by the plan.

Grandmothered and grandfathered plans do not have to cover all of the ACA’s essential health benefits, and neither do large group plans (in most states, “large group” means employers with 51 or more employees, but in Colorado, California, Maryland, New York, and Vermont, it only includes employers with 101 or more employees). But for essential health benefits that are covered by these plans, there cannot be any dollar limits applied to the total lifetime benefits.