Health Insurance (Maternity)

If you are planning on bearing children in Hong Kong, or any major city in Asia for that matter, you can budget around US$5,000-20,000 up, even for a routine birth. In our observation US$15,000 would be the cost of a typical pregnancy in HK. If there are complications, the cost could run to US$100,000. With numbers like these, people focus on the cost of birth, but in the process lose sight of the ever-present risk of bearing a child with congenital defects, like a hole in the heart, hydrocephalus (water on the brain) etc. Birth costs could easily be dwarfed by the costs of a lifetime of medical bills. In our view, comprehensive maternity cover should only be purchased from a company that guarantees renewal and which guarantees to accept the child from birth. If you are needing IVF, you will find some companies help with reimbursement to the point of diagnosis and others will assist with the actual treatment. In any event, if you are successful in becoming pregnant this way, very few companies will give unqualified cover to the child. The reason is that statistically a child born through such conception is believed to be more at risk of facing birth problems. Most commonly the waiting periods are 12 months, but you will find instances where the wait is as low as 8 or 10 months or as high as 21 months.