Buying Travel Insurance When Pregnant – A Guide

Travelling and, importantly, travel insurance whist pregnant have hit the headlines recently, highlighting a need for a guide to buying insurance for pregnant travellers.

Firstly, discuss travelling with your medical practitioner (Midwife or Doctor) and discuss travel, if you are in the second or third trimester, ask them for a fit to fly letter as some airlines may need one and it confirms that you are able to travel, if things change it will help when making a claim.

Once you have decided to travel then it’s imperative to buy suitable insurance. There’re lots of travel policies on the market and the cover can be vastly different.  Some policies exclude pregnancy, some exclude pregnancy after a certain date, some don’t mention it at all and some don’t view pregnancy as an emergency medical expense regardless of whether it is pre term. You can see that it’s important to ask the question and, if it’s not mentioned, don’t take it for granted that you are covered.

If you buy your own policy and you’re sure it covers you in whatever stage of pregnancy you are, make sure you check that the policy covers your companions too!

It maybe that the wording of their cover excludes pregnancy related claims, not just pregnant people.  Obviously you want to be sure that if you do have a claim and you need to stay abroad or cancel your holiday and so on, that it’s not just you that can claim, but companions, be that partners, spouses or dependants can do the same. The best advice is; find a policy that covers you and name everyone who matters on it.

Check that the policy extends to cover the infant in the event of a birth abroad, it is important that the medical expenses cover mum and baby.

All insurance is complex, this is why we always advocate doing research and getting advice, the best advice is from a broker, the British Insurance Brokers Association have a list of brokers at www.biba.org.uk

Ravenhall are the UKs only Insurance provider specialising in Travel Insurance Products for Pregnant travellers and their companions, further info is available at www.mamatob.co.uk

For Press contacts call Neil Grimshaw 0113 3503330

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Notes for Editors

• Ravenhall Was founded in 2006 to provide bespoke solutions for insurance, to both commercial and personal customers
• Ravenhalls Pregnant travel speciality stretches back to 2007 before the update to the gender discrimination act.
• Since 2007 Ravenhall have been the UK’s only specialist travel insurance provider to the pregnancy travel market.
• MamAToB is underwritten by Tokio Marine Kiln
• Ravenhall Are Chartered Insurance Brokers, the gold standard of professionalism, they are head quartered in Leeds with an office in Belfast.