What's A Health Insurance Premium? 
A health insurance premium is a monthly rate that you pay for your health insurance coverage . The idea of health insurance is to protect yourself in the event of a catastrophic event -LRB- e.g. breaking a bone and having surgery to repair the fracture -RRB- . You 're , in short , pooling the risk so you 're not stuck with a massive bill should an extremely expensive service be needed . Other benefits such as routine preventative care are included in every plan as well to reduce the risk of needing more critical care services . 