All employees in the United States are now required to either have benefits provided by their employer or purchase medical insurance themselves. Modernization of insurance coverage policies have produced many plans favorable to, or at least do not specifically exclude, surrogacy. However, the best plans are often not the ones your surrogate and her partner/spouse may find most feasible to meet their family needs.
Though often offering coverage for gestational surrogacy and more reliably available to a growing family, Covered California is a system with an extremely limited application “window,” called Open Enrollment. Surrogate applications for new coverage must be received and purchased within only a few months each year. Typically, between October and February, depending on the date your surrogate signed up for Covered California benefits, California residences are allowed to either enroll for the first time or switch between coverage plan levels (which may also result in switching between different medical insurance companies offering Covered California plans). These “open” and “closed” dates are established by the government in each state and are non-negotiable. That means your surrogate may be “stuck” out of the Covered California system or be unable to switch between different types of Covered California plans until the window opens again.
In some instances, it’s better for your surrogate to stay under her partner/spouse’s employee insurance plan rather than attempting to switch back and forth between Covered California plans.
Disclaimer: we are not highly trained insurance agents nor can we give you specific medical insurance advice. You will get all your questions answered by the insurance review conducted for your surrogate by an insurance expert as mandated by California surrogacy law.