I'm pregnant - will you cover me?

Congratulations!

A babymoon is a lovely way to relax and celebrate before baby arrives, but will travel insurance cover pregnancy?

The other good news is that you’re automatically covered for the first 20 weeks of your pregnancy, as long as you don’t have any pregnancy complications (or other pre-existing conditions).

We consider pregnancy complications to be pre-existing conditions. If you have any, you’ll need to declare them along with any other medical conditions you have, by completing a medical assessment online when you apply for a policy. You must also tell us if you develop any pregnancy complications after you’ve bought your policy but before you leave on your holiday.

Once you’re more than 20 weeks pregnant, you can still travel with us, but your cover is limited.

• ‘Holiday cancellation & changes’ cover is limited to $20,000 per policy for any claims relating to your health, including accidents or injuries.
• ‘Emergency medical’ cover is limited to $20,000 per policy for any claims relating to your health, including accidents or injuries. This reduced limit only applies to you (and no one else on the policy), and only if you have a ‘Comprehensive’ or ‘Essentials’ overseas policy.

See “More than 20 weeks pregnant and on holiday – FAQs” for more.

We don’t cover you for “everything” to do with your pregnancy or baby.

Common pregnancy symptoms such as breast tenderness, constipation, fatigue or nausea, and regular antenatal care, are not covered as they’re not unexpected.

There’s also no cover for childbirth at any time during the pregnancy, or for the health and care of a newborn. You should know that costs overseas for the birth and care of a premature baby can run into more than a million dollars!

Your unborn child is incredibly precious, so if you’re going to be overseas past the 20th week of your pregnancy, we urge you to seriously think about whether this policy, or even if travel at that time is right for you.

What you must do.

Before you buy:

You must tell us about any pregnancy complications when you apply for a policy by declaring them in an online medical assessment.

Before you go:

If you already have a policy and you become pregnant or develop pregnancy complications before your holiday starts, you must let us know so that we can advise you of your options.

Is my pregnancy complication covered?

It’s easy to find out, anytime. Just get a quote, enter travellers’ details and then you’ll be asked if you have any pre-existing conditions. If you have a pregnancy complication, or any other medical condition that matches our description of a pre-existing medical condition, then you must select ‘yes’. Then all you need to do is enter the name of each condition, and answer any questions that pop up.

Once you’ve completed the medical assessment, we’ll confirm if we can cover your conditions, and if we can – what the additional cost is. Then you can decide if you want to buy a policy. If you’re not sure, then you can get your quote emailed to you, including the cost of cover for your pre-existing conditions, so you can come back later when you’re ready.

What if my pregnancy complications (or medical conditions) aren’t covered?

Sometimes we can’t offer cover for your medical conditions because your overall health risk is beyond what we’re willing to cover, or we’re unable to assess your risk because you have undiagnosed symptoms.

You can still buy a policy but only with modified terms, which means your cover will be limited at all times (not just after the 20th week).

A policy with modified terms means:

• Your pre-existing conditions are not covered.
• ‘Emergency medical’ cover will be limited to $20,000 for claims relating to your health, including accidents or injuries but excludes cover for all pre-existing conditions.
• ‘Holiday cancellation & changes’ cover will be limited to $20,000 for any claims related to your health, but excludes cover for all pre-existing conditions.

If you choose to buy a policy with modified terms, your certificate of insurance will list any medical conditions that are covered or excluded.

If you complete a medical assessment and your pre-existing conditions are not covered, we would like you to think very carefully if our policy will meet your needs, before you buy.

But airlines will let me travel up to 35 weeks pregnant or more!

That’s great, but airlines don’t take responsibility for covering your medical bills if something happens while you’re on holiday, or on their plane! Our medical cover is “unlimited,” which is a very big number.  Quite simply, our risk is different from that of the airline industry.

Whilst we would love to be able to insure everyone for everything, we can’t – or at least our prices would be too high if we tried to cover “everything”. So unfortunately, sometimes the risks are just too high to cover certain situations – like childbirth.

That’s why we’ll still cover you when you’re more than 20 weeks pregnant, but we limit your cover as described above.

Other insurers don’t tell me there’s a problem!

Other travel insurers may say it’s fine for you to travel with their policy after the set number of weeks they cover your pregnancy for (they all have a limit), but the ‘fine print’ in most will tell you that if there are any pregnancy related costs, you’ll have to pay for those. That means if you’re 30 weeks pregnant and happen to be in a car accident, they will ‘split the bill’ with you. They’re likely to cover the costs for your injuries like a broken wrist from the accident, but draw the line at anything involving your pregnancy or your baby. In a situation like that, the costs for prenatal care are likely to heavily outweigh the costs of care for the other injuries you suffered. After a traumatic incident at an already scary and stressful time, extra financial pressure like that is about the last thing you would want to worry about as a new parent.

We want you to know about all of this upfront. So you can understand exactly what you’re covered for – and precisely what you don’t have cover for when you’re pregnant, especially when you’re over 20 weeks pregnant.

We think medical treatment that you and your baby might need in an unexpected event is is vital when you’re pregnant – so we’d prefer to discourage you from buying our policy at all if you will be more that 20 weeks pregnant on your holiday. We’d rather have less customers than one mum-to-be who’s over 20 weeks pregnant, and has an unexpected event that leaves her stuck with a huge medical bill.

However, we still provide some cover for you once you’re over 20 weeks pregnant. We cover you for all medical costs including pregnancy-related costs up to a limit of $20,000, provided you don’t have pre-existing medical conditions that we’ve excluded from your cover. If you do have any medical conditions that we cannot cover, we tell you before you buy the policy, and also advise you of any other limits to your cover. So no matter what your circumstances are, we’ll tell you what you’re covered for before you buy. And if anything changes after you’ve bought but before your holiday starts, let us know and we’ll confirm what you’re covered for before you go away.

What if my pregnancy was medically assisted, such as through IVF?

If you’re pregnant through IVF, and you have pregnancy complications, you need to tell us about the complications when you apply for a policy so we can assess your total health risk with an online medical assessment. The same ‘rules’ apply, whether your pregnancy was ‘medically assisted’ or not.

For details about cover if you get pregnant through IVF after you purchase your policy, please read “What if I’ve just become pregnant – will travel insurance cover cancellation due to pregnancy?”