Insurance Cover for Pregnancy - Germany

My fiance is 5 months pregnant and we are due to fly to Malaysia on Christmas day. We have had this flight booked since before we got pregnant and it is looking increasing likely that we will not fly. At the moment we do not have any insurance on our flight because we got a super cheap deal (no refunds or change of booking allowed). Do you think there is any insurer who will cover us for a cancelled flight with the knowledge that we already know we are pregnant?

The airline has told us that we can claim the VAT back on the flights which is 600€, but for this we need to get insured for the flight. I am not sure that any insurer will cover this flight knowing that we are already pregnant. Any information on this would be great because at the moment it is looking likely that I will lose all of my money.

Thanks.

a lot of times you can get travel insurance up to a few days before the flight. if you cancel because your wife is pregnant, they might ask you at the time of claiming the money back how many months she is. they probably will contest it. if you have to cancel because you are sick, you must get a docs attest to provide with making the claim.

(i will not rant about you attempting to commit fraud, however).

Are you cancelling because you don't want to fly or because the airline won't let her fly?

Our Doctor has told us that she will not give us a letter to say that we are Ok to fly (I guess she doesn't want to be sued in case something goes wrong on the holiday). The pregnancy is fine at the moment, there are no complications, but she will not provide the letter, so is it reasonable to think she can provide a letter to say that we should not fly so that this can be submitted to the insurer?

The trouble is, if I pay for the insurance cover now and then they ask us how pregnant we are and we say "7 months" then they will know that we knew about the pregnancy before the insurance claim.

We are cancelling because my fiance is not sure she wants to fly. It is very difficult, because a lot of her family is out on Malaysia and we really want to go but she already thinks that she is quite big and will be 33 weeks by the time we are due to come back. The airline doesn't have a problem with us flying, but we need a note and the Dr won't supply one either which doesn't help.

I think flight cancellation insurance needs to be booked at the time of ticket purchase otherwise people would be changing their minds all over the place if they happened to find a cheaper flight. But if you got a super cheap ticket with no refunds or changes allowed, which is often the case if you book online, then you're probably stuck with it.

You're free to go to any other gynecologist in Germany to get a note for your wife. The question is whether they'll do it or not. 33 weeks coming back is pretty late and your wife might not be feeling her best. Not to mention that if there were any complications you'd end up paying the doctor/hospital fees yourself.

That is why we are not sure about flying, because we will be 33 weeks upon return which as you say, is pretty late. There are insurance companies who will insure us after we have booked the flight as, like I say, we would only be claiming back the VAT and not the whole ticket price. It is just my concern is that I get the insurance and then find out that they won't cover us because we knew about the pregnancy before we got the insurance cover.

That's a tricky one. So you've already approached insurers and asked them without revealing the pregnancy, or what? I'm sure they all have fine print somewhere stating what's covered and what isn't and when it comes into effect.

Insurance companies work on the principle that there is a possibility of the event for which one is insured occuring is rare. For example, you can insure your car. But the insurance company will collect money from you because there might also be a chance that you might not end up with an accident and thats how they earn their money.

For an eventuality, in your case a certainity, why will insurance companies come forward to pay? i.e., you are going to pay then 10€ for the insurance and tomorrow claim back 1000+€ flight expenses? Try convincing them you didn't know that she was pregnant till today, thats a different case.

My fiance hasn't spoken to them yet, that is what I want her to do, just to phone some up randomly and ask what documents they need to see when putting a claim in for cancelled flights due to pregnancy. We just got some online quites which didn't cover the smaller detail. I am sure they will not cover the VAT of the flights if they know we are already 5 months pregnant.

That's exactly what will happen. There is no way you can buy travel insurance and then try to place a claim 6 weeks later because your fiance is 7 months pregnant. Your claim will definitely be denied on those grounds.

Having said that, if you've found a company that will sell you travel insurance at this late date, there's no reason why your fiance's pregnancy has to be the reason for you canceling the trip. You could come down with a serious bug several days before you're due to leave (swine flu, anyone?), which would be covered. As long as you have a doctor who will write you an attestation, the company has to pay. They never even have to find out she's pregnant (nor would I advise you to volunteer this information).

EDIT: I just noticed that Elfenstar mentioned this in the second post. But since you didn't get it, it obviously bears repeating.

Long-haul, yeah, I did think that maybe I should try and convince them we didn't know about the pregnancy but then they will surely just ask to see all the medical documents from the Dr which will of course put a spanner in the works because we have already had 3 scans and are well into the pregnancy!?

I am loving the swine-flu idea!! That is a very good point, there is no reason why I have to declare the pregnancy to the insurer. That might be a viable option. Cheers!

You're probably just going to have to put this one down to experience.

You should still be able to get travel insurance that would cover any doctor or hospital fees, surely some companies cover pergnancy. So you could still go, provided you had decent travel insurance (may as well make sure it covers cancellation, in case you do get sick)