Private Health Insurance for Childbirth

[LondonLady30]

Hello lovely people,

Can I ask anyone if they know of any health insurance for Brits that covers a private labour or use of private midwives?

Bupa International used to do it but in October they just changed from 10 months as a minimum sign up before use of the policy to 24 months. The cost has also increased hugely.

Ive had a quote from Allianz but its around 9k for the year.

Many thanks.

Not aware of any that do cover in the UK but may be wrong. Pregnancy is only covered in mine if there is a pregnancy related illness and I have the top level with PPP.

I think it's only international policies that cover childbirth (when I say 'international', the policy may be taken out in the UK but it is one that gives you worldwide coverage, or at least across Europe). In my experience they are very expensive. I used to have AXA PPP Gold cover (I think that was what it was called) and had my first private birth almost fully covered on that. We ditched it though as it was just getting too expensive (especially once we had to add kids onto the policy).

The cost of a private, consultant led birth will probably be no less than £12k (including obstetrician and hospital fees), so a £9k policy might make sense if you can indeed just take out the cover for a year.

HTH

Thanks very much ladies. Very helpful.

I think we've decided to just put money aside each month to save for it ourselves - could take us just the one month to get preggers that is the usual minimum insurance time (10 months in total for BUPA and Allianz) or it could take us a year. I think I'd feel stressed if it was taking months and months so having it in an investment where we could get hold of it and/or use any excess for other things seems sensible.

Many thanks both!

Good idea. One thing to bear in mind though is that each night will be charged at around £900. The hospital fees only include a one night stay, so if you end up having to stay longer, it can quickly escalate the costs. An induction would probably be two nights. If you've had complications during the birth it could be a longer stay.

I checked with my Obst (as I'm also self-paying this time) re what would happen if it was a proper lengthy stay and he said they would/could move me across to the NHS side. But if it was 'just' a week or so, I wonder if they would expect you to stay on the private ward - I don't know. Also, I'm not sure how it would work at the Portland which doesn't have an NHS hospital attached.

I don't want to scare you, but I just thought I'd explain a bit more about how it works as it's the kind of thing you don't know about until you've been there!

Anyway, you could always talk through these issues with the Obstetrician you are looking at booking before you commit. On that point, it is best to have a couple of Obst's in mind ahead of time as the big names get booked up pretty quickly. Ideally you would be in a position to ring up and book him/her as soon as you get a positive result. First step is to choose a hospital as most Obsts work at only one or two hospitals. Sorry for rambling!

If you are wanting a private midwife you might find the midwife cheaper then the year of private health insurance so it might be worth speaking to a local one.

Sweetpea, thanks v much for that. We did the lansdell for our first so i do recongise a lot of what youre saying.

Hazchem, we have started looking in to private midwives also- do you know of any gooduns in the london area?

We might be too late for insurance now anyway as realised im 4 weeks pg last week! The best laid plans...

You could have a look at neighbourhood midwives but a good for London midwives should bring up a few.

Oh and congratulations how exciting.