Your Questions About Health Insurance Plans With Maternity Coverage

Brad Selers answers:

Unfortunately you are seeking a plan of coverage that no insurer is likely to offer. Maternity related medical expenses can be huge and the only way an insurer will cover those costs is by spreading the costs over many non-pregnant policyholders.

Since some people choose to go without maternity coverage (due to expense or inability to have children for example) many insurers make such coverage optional. However they cannot allow you to add such coverage on little notice. It just doesn’t make business sense.

A few plans I have dealt with allow adding maternity coverage with at least one year’s elimination period – you have to pay the added premium for at least one year before any maternity coverage would go into effect. Ask an independent insurance broker for details about such plans.

Depending upon your income level you may be able to receive assistance with maternity expenses through a state medicaid plan. Qualifying income leves are different for pregnany women.

Brad Selers answers:

Any maternity coverage with an individual plan is more of a pre-payment plan than insurance because the insurance company knows only people who are planning on becoming pregnant will get it. If you do the math with the waiting period and extra premium you’ll find that you’ll be better off paying cash for the delivery. You can save the extra premium money in a savings account or, if you have an HSA qualified plan, into the HSA account. Almost all individual policies will cover complications of pregnancy, such as a c-section, even if you don’t have maternity coverage so you’ll be protected on most plans.

Brad Selers answers:

It is different for each insurance plan, your husband will just have to ask his new job how their insurance plan works. There usually are probation periods when starting a new job. If it takes longer than you want to wait you can be covered through M.A. For everything related to pregnancy, no matter what your situation is or how much your household income is. A friend of mine was covered through M.A. During her pregnancy and she was really suprised to find out there are no limits to who they will cover. It was something that I was worried about for the future when my husband is no longer in the military and we won’t be covered through them anymore.