Best Travel Insurance when pregnant and when to buy it?

[TravellingToad]

I'm currently 4 (!) weeks pregnant and we are about to book a longhaul holiday for when i'm at the end of the 2nd trimester.

(3rd pregnancy and we aren't flying economy so i'm happy with how i'll be on the flight)

What I want is a really great insurance that will cover if for any reason I'm unable to fly (pregnancy becomes high risk etc) we can get a refund, and one that covers costs if I gave birth abroad it would pay for care for the baby and get us all home.

Do I book the holiday, and then get insurance, or do I get this insurance and then book the holiday? And should I tell the insurars about the pregnancy at this stage (bearing in mind realistically i might not even have found out at this stage)

Just trying to work out which way i have to do it all as it's costing us a lot of money and i want to make sure we're covered!

There was another thread on here recently where the OP found a good one that covered premature birth (most don't)
Most cover a normal pregnancy but I guess the gamble is if something gets identified at a scan e.g. low lying placenta, you might not get cover / fit to fly, so I'd personally get insurance before booking, especially if it's expensive. Or wait until your scans and book then.

I have travel insurance with my bank account and I rang them to check about pregnancy because I'm off on holiday soon at 13 weeks. They said I am covered for anything pregnancy related unless I have been advised by a doctor not to fly. I am not covered for birth but at 13 weeks that is not going to be an issue for me.

I'm travelling to US at 22 weeks and home at 24 weeks. I'm booked with Insure & Go and you are covered for all pregnancy complications up to 32 weeks.

You book your holiday and then you book the insurance straight away as you have your holiday dates. You can also then show that you didn't book the insurance as you knew there were complications if that makes sense.

Thank you for all these helpful posts. I'll look into the places mentioned.

Anyone else got the name of anywhere I could try?

I booked with World Nomads for two trips, they cover pregnancy-related complications up to 28 weeks as long as you have a fit note from a doctor. No point booking unless you have your travel dates confirmed, so you can be sure you are covered for the entire period. They do not ask if you are pregnant when you book, all you need to do is look through the fine print and check that they will cover you.

I'm not sure if any policy will cover you fully for birth abroad, but at the end of second trimester that's a fairly slim possibility. If you can get an appointment close to the date of your trip (even if you have to do a private one) they can tell by the length of your cervix whether or not you are at risk of early labor. I'm being seen routinely every 4 weeks (not in the UK and have a health issue) and the doctor looked at this for me the week before I flew.

We went on holiday with Thomas Cook recently and we added Flexible Terms to our booking, it's £20 per person, but it meant that if necessary we could postpone the holiday if need be (I think they need a month's notice or something) if for some reason I wasn't able to fly. (We'd previously had a holiday booked a few years ago prior to finding out I was pregnant, and I would have been too far gone to fly and my insurance wouldn't cover me to cancel, they said pregnancy wasn't an illness. They actually said that no company would cover me for this, so interested to see that actually there are some companies out there who would.)

When exactly are you travelling? A lot of insurance companies have decent cover if you are less than 28 weeks when you are travelling. I am going away at 35 weeks and got specialist pregnancy insurance with Ravenhall www.ravenhallgroup.co.uk/pregnant-travel/

It has excellent coverage for later weeks where most other insurance companies only cover 'complications of giving birth' e.g. C-sections etc. They'll cover you for normal childbirth too and cover your baby if it needs medical help

I used insure and go, they covered everything up to 32 weeks so long as not multiple borth or complications. I got annual cover, they cover the baby after birth too which good.

I have just found www.mamatob.co.uk I think its the same product as the Ravenhall one, but they seem to cover everything you would need and seem to specialise in pregnant travel insurance.