Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Requesting Infertility Insurance

I recently read an article that said Infertility Insurance will cost a company $1.71 extra per month. This was sited in a study conducted by an insurance company. So why is this not covered in the company I work at? Or all companies?

I wanted to know!

Then it clicked, why not ask? If I approach this correctly this could be a great thing for many people who work at the company I do. I wrote up a nice, quick email to my Human Resources department with my question:


"My husband and I have recently run into our current health benefits not covering Infertility. Is there a specific reason this is not in our insurance coverage? Also Is there a way that we can request that this be part of our benefits package for 2012? Or can this be offered as an extra option for us to pay a higher premium for?

Per this article (http://www.fertilitycommunity.com/fertility/infertility-insurance-costs-utilization.html),  IVF out of pocket will cost us $14,500 per cycle, with insurance it would be close to half the cost to us and this company. After lots of reading on the internet it appears that adding infertility insurance to most premiums should only cost $1 per month and can cut down on un-needed surgeries that are covered by insurance.

Thank you for your time, Christine"


Some states do have laws about insurance coverage for Infertility. If you would like to check out yours, click here. In Ohio, testing for Infertility is required to be covered but not IUI or IVF.

After a month I finally received an email back from our Human Resources department:

"I would be happy to forward your request on to the Benefits Team that makes these decisions and see if they would consider this when reviewing the benefits plan for 2012"

Not the worst answer I could have received but I still expected much more. I'm hoping that *maybe* this just wasn't something that was looked into because no one had ever requested it before. I do know that this is something your insurance company has to add on to their package.

I'm not holding my breathe or our plans to move forward with IVF on this maybe but it is promising. If you do not have Infertility Insurance, have you asked your company why it's not covered?

**Resolve's website has a great sample letter to send to your employer**

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Bravo Christine for taking that step. So many employers are willing to listen to different suggestions like yours, especially when given the backup material as you did. I hope your employer makes good of their response.