Buy Maternity Insurance before Getting Pregnant
A couple of years ago I was unemployed, and my wife was working for herself as a personal trainer. We purchased our own medical insurance because it was much cheaper than paying the Cobra insurance premiums offered by the company that laid me off.
A few weeks after being laid off, my wife unexpectedly got pregnant. We were very excited! I then assumed I could call my insurance company and tell them to add maternity insurance to my policy for an additional few hundred dollars per month. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening! My insurance company, Aetna, didn’t offer maternity insurance, so I shopped around and soon learned that you have to purchase maternity insurance before getting pregnant. Also, many insurance companies require you to pay the premiums for 1 year before becoming pregnant. If you got pregnant before the 1 year period, the policy may only cover 50% of normal charges.
Being pregnant is considered a pre-existing condition and many insurance companies will not want to cover you. If they do offer coverage, your premium will be extremely high, possibly over $1,000 per month. The average delivery of a baby costs about $10,000, assuming there are no complications. The insurance companies are in business to make money. So charging you a few hundred dollars in premiums makes no sense, when they will be hit with an $8,000 bill, assuming you pay 20% of the cost.
So the advice here is to plan ahead. Before you become pregnant, make sure you have maternity insurance or it may cause you dearly. Unfortunately, my wife had a miscarriage very early into that pregnancy. By the time she got pregnant again, we had maternity insurance with my new employer.
Related Page: Compare Medical Insurance Quotes
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