When it comes to providing health insurance to pastors and clergy, churches can feel out of options. You want to take care to make their pastor and staff, but are not often able and / or qualify for a traditional group health insurance. 
So what are the options?
First, to understand health insurance options for pastors, it is important to note the difference with denominational and independent churches. A denominational church belongs to a large national or international organization with a central organization office. An independent church is one that works on its own or in a loose connection with other churches of similar faith. Independent churches are not part of a hierarchical structure.
By this purchase in mind, denominations that do offer health insurance to their pastors usually through a group plan from the headquarters of the denomination. But more and more, denominations covered health insurance for their pastor.
Therefore, independent churches (and many religious churches) are usually leave their own health insurance for their pastors to find, clergy and staff.
2 core health insurance options for Pastor
There are two core options for health insurance.
1. A traditional group health insurance plan purchased
The first option is a group health insurance through an insurance broker. This is a traditional route for health insurance, but also smaller churches that have only a priest or a few employees want to cover issues often and / or qualify amount for a plan. And, as we will discuss below, a group health insurance is usually not the best or cheapest health insurance option.
2. Reimburse the pastor for individual health insurance
The second option is a premium refund plan, where the church the pastor reimbursed for individual / family health insurance. With this approach:
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The Church defines how much they can contribute to health insurance, and who will be considered (eg: a pastor, all full-time employees, etc.).
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The Church is a reimbursement plan to give eligible employees a monthly allowance to (ex: $ 150 / month for pastors).
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The pastor (and other eligible employees) purchase individual insurance health and reimbursed tax-free up to the monthly amount.
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There is no minimum contribution requirements, so the Church can offer certificates that fit their budget
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There are no minimum conditions, so can the church the allowance only offer a pastor, or to other employees as full-time employees -. as long as the benefits are based on job-related employee classes.
This approach is called premium or refund contribution. To read more about why this works well for churches see:
FAQ :. You Pastors for Government Assistance Qualify?
, depending on their income, may qualify pastor for premium tax credits (which lowers acquired the cost of individual health insurance through the new health insurance marketplaces), or they may qualify for Medicaid if their income is low enough.
For example, if the household income of the pastor is of less than about $ 46,000 in 2014 (or less than about $ 95000 in 2014 for a family of four), they would for premium tax credits into account.
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