Hellobee Boards

@loki: Pacific Blue Cross is known to cover Mum/babe until 32 weeks when travelling to the States, where are you travelling and how far along will you be?

Pacific Blue Cross was the insurer with the "million dollar baby" but I think the issue was that the insurance coverage expired before the baby was actually born (since why would you buy 8 weeks + of travel insurance past your expected return home date).

@loki: yeah her water broke in Hawaii and she was on bed rest for 6 weeks or something before the baby was born!

Definitely look into PBC. Chances are you don't need it, but you'll be glad you had it if you need it! (Fingers crossed you won't!)

@loki: do you have benefits through work? Usually work benefits include travel insurance. Whether you do or don't, make sure you call the benefits providers and ask exactly what the cover and what they don't - they record the calls so if there's ever a problem, you can rely on what they said. Typically policies cover you for pregnancy complications prior to 32 weeks, unless you've been diagnosed as a "high risk pregnancy". Write down the time and date of the call, and the details of what was said about the coverage, and store it until after your trip.

@loki: oh yeah, no you're overthinking! Call your work benefits, then call the credit card benefits. They won't tell you there's no guarantee, they'll just tell you what you are and aren't covered for. It's way better for you in the case of a denial that you called and gave them details of your trip and your pregnancy than if you didn't. And if they say you're not covered, then you buy secondary insurance. The CC travel insurance is always shitty though - you might have coverage issues if you were just relying on that. Work benefits insurance tends to be amazing beyond your wildest dreams. We had a claim when we were just out of province and they choppered us back, lol. Insurance is different here that it is in the States, and that million dollar baby lady had a different insurance problem than the normal. And if it really was the case that they dug up a ficticious pre-existing condition, they'll end up paying for that million dollar baby anyway.

Your work benefits should cover you until 32 weeks as long as you don't have complications from a pre-existing condition while you are there.

@loki: Who is your benefits provider?

I think it's worth getting if you are going to be that far away. We went to Hawaii with my grandfather a few years ago and he ended up coming down with bacterial meningitis. He ended up in a coma and on life support for awhile...after two weeks in a coma, life support was removed and he went into hospice... however, he somehow made a miraculous recovery and came out of the coma. I had to go home, but my parents ended up having to stay in Hawaii for 2 months while he was in a rehab hospital until he was strong enough to take a commercial flight home. We didn't have travel insurance and medical evacuation would have been 50k.

I am looking into insurance for a trip in a couple months, but a lot of the policies I am seeing exclude preexisting conditions and I'm assuming that's how they would classify pregnancy? I will have to look into Pacific Blue Cross.

@loki: I traveled around the same time and bought insurance while I was staying in Canada - just to make sure I was covered EVERYWHERE just in case. It wasn't expensive and gave me peace of mind.

I'm going to look up the website - it had different plans to compare and then I called to ask all the questions, just to be sure I was choosing the right one.