Every Launches a Startup Health Benefit That Isn’t Quite ICHRA

Every, an all-in-one back office platform for startups, launched a new health benefits product on July 14 that it says can save a 100-person company about $125,000 a year. Employees keep the exact same group carrier and network they already had. That is a different mechanism from the individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement, or ICHRA, that has been credited with inspiring products like it.

ICHRA adoption has climbed more than 1,000% since federal regulators created the benefit in 2020, according to the HRA Council, the industry group that tracks it. Every’s launch is timed to that boom. The product it actually built, though, looks more like a slimmed down group health plan with a rebate attached than the individual market tool now reshaping small business benefits.

What Every Actually Rolled Out

Who Built It and Who Is Paying for It

Every operates as a combined payroll provider, banking partner, benefits administrator, and licensed insurance broker for early stage companies. It was founded by Rajeev Behera and Barry Peterson, and the San Francisco company has raised $32 million in venture funding, including a $22.5 million Series A backed by Y Combinator and Redpoint.

Barry Peterson, Every’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said the new product only works because the company already handles payroll and banking for its clients.

This is the kind of product you can only build if you’ve already built the rest of the back office. Payroll, banking, and benefits running as one system is what makes the model work.

He made the comment while describing the launch of Every Benefits, the company’s new offering.

What It Promises to Save

The mechanics are straightforward. An employer pairs a lower premium tier with employer funded reimbursement instead of buying a Platinum plan outright. Employees enroll in the cheaper Gold or Silver plan and get reimbursed for deductibles and other out of pocket costs, which the company says brings their effective cost down to zero in many cases.

Because the employer only pays out reimbursement money when employees actually file a claim, unused funds are never spent. Every says a Silver plan can end up feeling like a Gold plan to the employee, and a Gold plan can feel like Platinum, while the carrier and provider network never change.

The company frames the savings against a steep baseline. It cites KFF’s Employer Health Benefits Survey showing premiums have climbed 24% over five years, and estimates a typical 25 person startup on a Platinum PPO now spends more than $261,000 a year on coverage. Every projects its model could cut that by roughly 12%, or about $31,000 in a typical year, with a 100 person company saving close to $125,000 annually. The company notes actual savings shift with location, plan choice, and how much care employees actually use, and that the product currently rolls out in select states rather than nationwide.

Is Every’s New Benefit Actually an ICHRA?

No. Every Benefits keeps employees on an employer sponsored group plan with the same carrier and network, just at a cheaper tier, then wraps a reimbursement arrangement around the gap. A true ICHRA skips the group plan entirely: the employer hands employees a fixed monthly allowance and sends them to buy their own policy on the individual market.

An ICHRA lets an employer of any size reimburse workers, up to limits it sets itself, for the cost of an individual market health plan they choose on their own, rather than a company sponsored group policy. Nowhere in Every’s own launch materials does the word ICHRA appear. What the company describes instead, a reimbursement layer bolted onto an existing group plan, matches what benefits administrators usually call a Group Coverage HRA.

• Group Coverage HRA (GCHRA): An employer funded reimbursement arrangement that wraps around an existing group health plan, letting a company buy a cheaper tier and reimburse employees for the gap, without sending anyone to shop on the individual market.

The distinction is not academic. ICHRA and a group plan wraparound are governed by different rules, and a founder who assumes the two are interchangeable can end up promising employees something the plan does not actually deliver.

The Choice That Actually Costs Founders Money

Lay the two models side by side and the practical differences show up fast, from how much choice employees get to how much paperwork the employer signs up for.

Group plans, including a slimmed down tier like the one Every uses, commonly require most eligible workers to sign up before an insurer will write the policy. ICHRA carries no such floor, which is part of why the HRA Council calls it an on-ramp for employers that could never clear a group plan’s participation bar in the first place.

ICHRA Adoption Has Grown More Than 1,000% Since 2020

Every’s launch lands inside a much bigger shift. The HRA Council’s latest annual report aggregated growth data from fifteen member organizations and found the trend still accelerating five years after the rule took effect.

• More than 1,000%: cumulative growth in ICHRA adoption since the benefit became available in 2020, according to the HRA Council.
• 34%: year over year growth in ICHRA adoption among large employers from 2024 to 2025, with the 100 to 199 employee segment up 49%.
• 83%: share of employers offering ICHRA or QSEHRA in 2025 that had never previously offered any health coverage at all.
• About 1 million: people receiving ICHRA benefits by 2026, a new record high, according to a SureCo analysis.

Separate research from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker backs up how fast this is moving among smaller employers specifically. Among firms with 10 or more workers in 2025, nine percent of firms without existing coverage now fund individual plans for at least some employees, a share that held roughly steady from the year before.

Insurers Are Chasing the Same Shift

Health insurers have noticed the same numbers. Centene, one of the country’s largest health insurers, and Oscar Health, which sells plans on the ACA marketplace, are both marketing ICHRA directly to employers, particularly in the small group market, as growth in their traditional fully insured group business slows. Fully insured enrollment in the large group market fell from about 46 million people in 2013 to around 38 million in 2023, and small group enrollment dropped from roughly 17 million to about 10 million over the same stretch, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, as reported by Healthcare Dive.

Alan Silver, president of Centene’s ICHRA business, put it plainly to Becker’s Payer Issues: “The ICHRA era begins now. I say that cautiously, but at the same time, rather boldly.”

ICHRAs were created by regulation rather than congressional legislation, which the HRA Council itself has warned leaves the whole framework exposed to future rule changes.

Built on a Regulation, Not Yet a Law

That exposure is not hypothetical. Congress has tried twice in the past year to lock ICHRA into statute, and both attempts stalled.

1. 2019: The Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services departments finalize the rule creating ICHRA.
2. 2020: ICHRA becomes available to employers of any size for the first time.
3. May 22, 2025: The House passes the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with language that would codify ICHRA under a new name, the CHOICE Arrangement.
4. July 4, 2025: President Trump signs the broader bill into law after the Senate strips out the CHOICE Arrangement language entirely.
5. December 17, 2025: The House passes a second bill, the Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, again proposing to codify ICHRA, by a vote of 216 to 211, according to PeopleKeep by Remodel Health.
6. Early January 2026: The Senate has not taken up a vote on the bill, according to the most recent reporting available.

States are not waiting. Mississippi has built its own ICHRA tax credit program, capped at $1 million a year and distributed to employers first come, first served. Similar bills introduced in Arizona, Georgia, Connecticut, and Wisconsin in 2026 did not pass.

How to Compare Offers Before Your Next Renewal

A founder staring at a renewal quote now effectively has three paths: keep the full group plan, adopt a wraparound product like Every Benefits that trims the plan tier and reimburses the gap, or move the whole team to a true ICHRA and let people shop individually.

• Map current spend, including premiums, deductibles, and the hours someone already spends administering the plan each month.
• Ask a licensed broker to model at least three paths side by side: the current group plan, a wraparound product, and a true ICHRA.
• Check network access and plan variety where the team actually lives, since rural zip codes often carry far fewer individual market choices than cities do.
• Give employees real advance notice and time to ask questions, especially if a change affects which doctors they can keep seeing.

Either path beats renewing the same Platinum plan without asking a single question.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between an ICHRA and a QSEHRA?

A QSEHRA is limited to employers with fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees and carries an IRS dollar cap on reimbursements each year. An ICHRA has no employer size limit and no single universal dollar ceiling, since each employer sets its own monthly allowance.

Can an employer offer both a group plan and an ICHRA to the same employees?

Under current rules, generally no. Employers can offer a group plan to one class of workers and an ICHRA to a different class, but not both to the same class at the same time, a restriction the stalled CHOICE Arrangement proposal would have loosened.

Can a very small startup, even a five person team, offer an ICHRA?

Yes. Any employer with at least one employee can offer an ICHRA, and unlike group plans, there is no minimum participation requirement for it to take effect.

Is Every Benefits available everywhere?

Not yet. The company has said the product is currently available only in select states, with wider rollout expected to follow.

What happens to ICHRA money if an employee leaves the company?

The employer’s reimbursements stop, but because the underlying policy belongs to the employee rather than the company, the individual market plan itself is fully portable and can stay with them after they leave.

Disclaimer: This article is for general information only and is not tax, legal, or insurance advice; confirm current figures with Every, the HRA Council, or a licensed broker before changing your company’s health benefits.