What was the first health insurance company in America?

The answer is the New England Health Insurance Company of Connecticut, which was incorporated in May of 1846. I found a copy of the documents incorporating and dissolving the company online, but I can’t find it anymore. Luckily, I contacted the Connecticut archives to ask if they had any more information on the company, and they emailed me the same thing I already found online. Here’s a picture of the first page of it, in the hopes someone can locate it online, then edit my answer to include the link there someone located it online, and it can be found here:

That book has the acts incorporating the business in May 1846 and dissolving it in 1853.

The whole document is 7 pages long and includes a LOT of potentially interesting information about how the company is to be constructed and dissolved, but it is pretty dry to me. If anyone is interested in it, I can email it to them, or potentially screenshot the thing (maybe upload the PDF?), if I can do that please explain how.

I was also able to find out what the first health insurance policy was in the 21 July 1846 NY Post:

TLDR: they paid 4 dollars a week if the person is incapacitated due to injury or illness. It says that the insured will share in on the profits of the companies. And in a brief article in the American Republican and Baltimore Clipper, dated 1 August 1846, the premium was an annual $5.

Here’s that article entirely:

I also find several mentions of the company behind a paywall on Newspapers.com, here, none of them tell the specifics of the enterprise, just that it was incorporated. And you can read how many nearby papers marvel at the new concept.

Now, a few caveats. The New England Health Insurance Company did not invent the concept of health insurance. The Odd Fellows can probably lay claim to that in modern America. The Odd Fellows were a mutual benefit society that started in the late 17th century (possibly earlier, but there seems to be debate there). And, interestingly, in the 18 September 1845 edition of the Indiana State Sentinel an advertis*m*nt for an Odd Fellows lodge touts itself as a “mutual health-insurance company. The TLDR of the last link is that you pay $20 initially, then $7.50 annually, to become a member of the Odd Fellowship (at the entry level), and the benefits you get from this is that if you fell sick or were injured and unable to work, not only would you receive $5 a week in compensation, you would have members of the guild come and tend to you if you did not have a wife or family who could. Also, if you died, your children would be educated and your widow cared for. They also had convalescent homes for when the Odd Fellow aged. The Odd Fellows are still around today.

Another interesting point is that this 1845 advertis*m*nt occurred right after Francis Neison calculated the Odd Fellows would go under (they did not), and before actuarial science had fully matured. These early health insurance companies lacked the formulas and figures needed, so most failed shortly after being founded. If you search “health insurance” on the online Chronicling America collection (I linked it more towards the top) and use some cunning on the papers you choose to more closely inspect (i.e. recognize when “health” and “insurance” are together) you will find several before the Franklin Health Assurance Company, and maybe one or two other prior to the Massachusetts Health Insurance Company of Boston, most of which you will read failed shortly after. By conducting this search on your own you can read how companies tried new rate plans, and offered multiple rates. Companies that predate the MAHAC would be the one mentioned here and the Lowell Health Insurance Company.

To wrap up, if anyone is interested in the more detailed version of how the stocks are to be divided up comment below, and I will try to add the PDF, if not I can screenshot them and add them. HOPEFULLY, someone can find the online copy of the book on the Connecticut archives website.