Kaiser Permanente Health Insurance Blog
New Life Agency is aware that many insurance companies do not cover surrogacy. The benefits booklet must state surrogacy is covered. Some insurance companies benefits put leans on the compensation to the surrogate or flat out exclusions. Insurance companies can over turn claims years after the delivery has taken place.
Please read the information below retrieved from Kaiser's website. http://kaiserhealthinsurance.us/blog/page/8/
Please view the information below.
Surrogate Pregnancy Upon occasion, we get asked about surrogate pregnancies. Couples that have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a baby, often seek out someone to become a surrogate parent and carry their baby for them. The question then becomes, Is this surrogate pregnancy covered?
So is it covered? We get many questions around this issue. If we are already Kaiser members, would the pregnancy be covered under our plan? Do we have to purchase a plan for the surrogate mother who is going to carry the baby? However, in either case, the surrogate pregnancy is not covered. A customer recently asked, On an individual plan would Kaiser cover a surrogacy pregnancy? We do not have good news for those looking to undergo a surrogate pregnancy. Kaiser covers neither the process (fertility issues) of the woman becoming pregnant, the prenatal visits, nor the birth of the child.
Why not? Kaiser Permanente does not cover surrogate pregnancy most likely due to the financial risk. When you buy any type of insurance, you are buying a hedge against possible risk. The more likely you are to cost the insurance company money, the higher your premiums will be for that insurance. Health insurance prices go up as people get older because of the simple fact that older people tend to use health care services more often. If a woman tries to apply for health insurance while pregnant, she will almost always (or perhaps always) be denied coverage. The risk to the health insurance company is extremely high that they will have to provide health care services for prenatal visits and the birth of this child. Similarly, surrogacy pregnancy creates a situation where the medical insurance company is very likely to incur a financial loss. The premiums paid for the health insurance are likely to be less than the value of the health care provided for the surrogate pregnancy.
Will other carriers cover surrogate pregnancy? For the reasons listed above, most carriers will not cover surrogate pregnancy. For more information on surrogate pregnancy, visit http://www.surrogateparenting.com.
Posted: January 5th, 2009 under California.
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