Travel insurance & pregnancy

[kchynes]

hi all

I've just been through a huge struggle with travel insurance. But I've solved the issues and managed to find some good insurance and I wanted to record here some info, to help anyone who might have a similar problem in future.

If you are pregnant and travelling overseas there are a few questions that you will need to ask your travel insurer. Don't just ask them "I am pregnant, will you insure me?" as their answer will invariably be "yes" but what they won't tell you is that their insurance probably won't cover you for some of the scarier risks.

The first thing is that most insurers won't cover you if you are more than 26 weeks preggers. Although some (eg Columbus Travel Insurance) will cover you up to 30 weeks. Most of them will also exempt you from cover if you have had complications in your pregnancy, are having a multiple birth, or had IVF or other assisted fertility services. So ask these questions, particularly if you fall into any of these categories.

The next question to ask is whether their medical coverage is limited or unlimited. What this means is whether there is a maximum amount of money they will pay on your medical bills. I recommend you try and get unlimited medical cover. This means no matter how expensive it is, they will pay if you make a successful claim. It gets really important if you need to be evacuated etc etc or if you are going to a country where medical care is really expensive (eg USA).

The next question you ask is whether they cover pregnancy-related medical expenses. They probably won't cover things like routine doctors visits, but you need to check if they will cover things that go wrong in with your pregancy. I had one insurer really helpfully say "yes we cover you if you are pregnant" but then go on to tell me "but we will only cover you for your health issues, not the pregnancy." when I pointed out that it was a bit hard to separate the two, he couldn't understand my problem!

The final question you should ask is whether they cover premmie births and the care of the baby in the event of a premmie birth. This is the tough question, and a really important one! Not many insurers will cover this, and they expressly exclude it from their policies - but my experience is that they won't tell you this unless you ask them directly.

My experience is that its really hard to find an insurer who covers all these topics - but I did find one - Columbus, mentioned above. Because my pregnancy is a healthy one, they didn't charge me any extra for the cover for the baby. So I am pretty happy.

I haven't been on my holiday yet, and fingers crossed I never have to find out how good they are as insurers, but at least there's someone out there willing to protect me AND my baby.

Anyway, just wanted to record this in case someone needed some help in the future :)

cheers
kc

[Annabella]

Hi I'm off o/seas in a month and found Columbus were the only one as well (altho its not unlimited medical is it?). I can't believe most of them don't cover if the baby is born prem! I was kind of like, well thats one of the main reasons I want the cover!!! So if I go into labour at 28 weeks and the baby is in the NICU, its covered...der!!!!

I was starting to get really bitter actually coz, being my 3rd child, natural conception, uncomplicated etc etc, there is such a small chance something will go wrong (or I wouldn't go), then there are all the 18 yr olds doing the party circuit, being drunk or hung over most days/nights, doing high risk things like skiing, watersports whatever, that due to being pregnant, I can't do, yet they can be covered and I can't!!!! So annoying! Thank god for Columbus, who were also the cheapest even tho I'm pregnant! (I feel like I'm on an ad now!!)

[kchynes]

Hi Annabella, thats a good point - columbus don't provide unlimited medical cover (sorry if I misled on that point!) I think its capped at something like $12M which I reason will be hopefully enough to cover me. If it was capped at something like $20,000 there's no way I would take out the insurance.

And I totally agree with your point about people throwing themselves down ski slopes and raging around on drunken party binges - I could hear the implied message from the insurance people "well YOU shouldn't be travelling, should you? just go home and knit some booties". I was pretty annoyed by the end of the process - enough to make this post!

I also totallly agree with your point about the Premmie cover - I was like, what's the point?? That's the main risk here!! So something goes wrong, I go into labour, the baby survives... and you aren't going to cover me??

I am not sure if Columbus is the only insurer that would cover premmie, but it was the only one I could find. Hopefully there are other insurers out there that look after pregnant women! but I won't hold my breath... even the ones that advertise that they do (eg insurance direct) exclude Premmie cover. how is that protecting pregnant women?

oh feels so much better to get that off my chest :ecomcity:

hope you are a great trip and good luck with no.3!

[mummabec]

I used to work for one of the big insurers and they bought out Travel insurance while I was working there and they dont cover pregnant women or babies under 1 mth old. I questioned this during training as to why when cover ppl with actual illnesses/diseases and noone could answer the question! Not even the head of travel insurance!
Absolutely ridiculous!
I always made pg women aware of this as soon as they said they were pg I explained exactly what we would would not cover!
But can I also say that its a good idea to be this thorough with ALL types of insurance as sooo many ppl get caught out thinking they are covered for something they are not!!
READ YOUR PDS'S PPL!!!!

[BenW]

Just to add to this. IHI / Bupa based in Denmark cover up to 36 weeks and advised that they cover most of the above issues. As we were returning past 30 weeks, no cover available from Columbus direct. IHI triple the price, but the only one I could find that covered Australians past 30 weeks.