The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

the times | Saturday June 11 2022 59

Money

Every bit of our

money was going

into the fertility pot

Money Mentor

Online

How lenders treat child

maintenance payments

thetimes.co.uk/moneymentor

The costs of infertility

6 One round of private

IVF treatment can cost

from £3,500 to £7,000.

IVF involves hormone

treatment to stimulate

the production of eggs

which are harvested

and frozen or fertilised

in a laboratory. The

fertlised egg or eggs

are implanted in the

uterus. One treatment

round is about 3 weeks.

6 Some couples get

three free rounds of IVF,

depending on where

they live. Infertility

treatment cost the NHS

about £70 million in

2013. More than
      60 per cent of IVF is
      self-funded, according
      to the human
      fertilisation and
      embryology authority.

6 With almost a third

of embryo transfers

in women under 35

resulting in a baby,

three rounds of

treatment is often

recommended.

6 Couples can get

money off fertility

treatment if they agree

to donate eggs. The

London Egg Bank offers

egg freezing plus two

years’ free storage if

you donate half the

eggs collected during

treatment. Go to

londoneggbank.com

6 You can get

insurance to cover

the cost of IVF from

companies such as Gaia

and Access Fertility.

‘Trying for a baby cost us our savings’

time did they rush me

back. But normality for

me was work, even when

I couldn’t leave the

house.”

Acas, the Advisory,

Conciliation and Arbitra-

tion Service which works

to improve working life,

said that IVF pregnancies

have the same rights as

non-IVF pregnancies but

that there is no legal guar-

antee for time off work for

IVF treatment or related

sickness, although em-

ployers should treat these

the same as other medical

issues.

The campaign group

Fertility Matters at Work

said that fertility issues

affect as many as one in

seven people of working

age and that 69.5 per cent

took sick leave during

fertility treatment rather

than ask for time off. It said that 36 per

cent of those undergoing assisted con-

ception considered leaving their jobs.

There are also ways to make the

process less financially painful.

A new insurance product, Gaia, aims

to cut the cost of IVF. Policyholders pay

a premium of 20-40 per cent of the cost

of the treatment, and the rest in month-

ly instalments only if they have a baby.

Data from more than a million cycles is

used to determine the likely success

rate for up to six rounds. IVF at the

London Women’s Clinic costs £7,795 per

cycle or £3,015 for a frozen embryo

transfer. The Gaia premium is £2,090

for IVF and £810 for a frozen embryo

transfer. If the couple have a baby they

pay back the full cost of treatment at

£650 a month. If they don’t, they pay

nothing more.

Access Fertility offers an IVF refund

policy for women under 40, with prices

from £6,500 to £17,500. This will give

you a 100 per cent refund if you don’t

have a baby and is valid for up to three

cycles. Its Unlimited option for patients

aged under 38 costs between £9,000

and £20,500 and gives 100 per cent

refunds on unlimited rounds of IVF

within two years.

Nader AlSalim, the founder of Gaia,

said: “The fertility care model is broken

because it is designed in an unfair and

financially exclusive manner.”

Life for the Hartwells is now good.

Mrs Hartwell said: “Our daughter can

be a little madam, but she loves horses.

She’s happy.”

Couples can pay a

high price for IVF

treatment, but there

are ways to cut costs,

says Laura Miller

S

arah Hartwell, 54, dreamed of

being a mother. When it didn’t

happen naturally for her and

her husband Stuart, 58, they

turned to in vitro fertilisation

(IVF).

From 2010 to 2014, the couple from

Cirencester, Gloucestershire, spent

£25,000 trying to conceive. Ultimately,

in 2016, they adopted their daughter,

now nine. Stuart swapped his City job

to become a private hire driver so that

he could be around more as she was

growing up.

Sarah, a corporate sales manager for

a mortgage lender, said: “I was thinking

about writing a book. Everybody writes,

‘I went through IVF and now I’ve got a

beautiful child.’ No one writes, ‘IVF

didn’t work.’ ”

During the IVF process, the woman

is given hormones to make her produce

more eggs which can then be harvested

and fertilised in a laboratory. The side

effects can include mood swings, head-

aches and weight gain.

The couple’s experience highlights

not just the stress of infertility treat-

ment but also the costs involved.

The help you can get on the NHS

varies hugely depending on where you

live, so it often comes down to a post-

code lottery.

Guidelines from Nice (the national

institute for health and care excellence)

recommend that IVF should be offered

on the NHS to women under the age of

43 who have been trying to get preg-

nant for two years, or those who have

had 12 unsuccessful cycles of artificial

insemination, a cheaper fertility treat-

ment with a lower success rate. Nice

recommends three rounds of IVF on

the NHS for women under 40, one

round for those aged 40-42.

The final decision about who can

have NHS-funded IVF, and how much,

in England is made by local clinical

commissioning groups and their crite-

ria vary.

This is driving many couples to go

private, with the average cost of a round

of IVF starting at £3,500 and going up

to £7,000. Some clinics advise that a

successful pregnancy takes an average

of three rounds. Success rates have

tripled over the past 20 years, with

almost a third of all embryo transfers in

women under 35 resulting in a baby,

according to the fertility regulator.

After one failed IVF treatment Sarah,

then 42, was told that her endometrio-

sis, a condition of the uterus, meant that

she would never be able to conceive this

way so the couple then turned to an egg

donor, flying three times to a fertility

clinic in Barcelona.

The initial round of treatment cost

£7,000 and then once the donor eggs

had been frozen, subsequent treat-

ments were cheaper. The couple had to

travel to Spain, which added to the

costs, with some visits lasting a week.

Sarah said: “Every bit of our money

was going into the fertility pot. It

Mortgage trap for single parents

S

ome lenders are making it even

harder for single parents to get a

mortgage because they are ignor-

ing child maintenance payments when

it comes to deciding how much some-

one can afford to repay.

Even if parents have a legally en-

forceable child maintenance agree-

ment, where a partner has to make

regular payments towards a child’s

living costs, Yorkshire Building Society,

Chelsea Building Society and Accord

will only count half the income when

assessing borrowers for a mortgage.

Lloyds, Halifax and TSB will take 60 per

cent into account.

The lenders said they apply these

caps in case the child maintenance pay-

ments stop during the term of the loan.

Of 18 lenders contacted by Times

Money Mentor, ten said payments

would only count if parents had a for-

mal agreement, either through an as-

sessment made by the government-run

Child Maintenance Service (CMS) or

by going through the courts.

Many families have informal agree-

ments made without involving an

authority, while others have applied to

the courts for legally binding docu-

ments known as consent orders. Legal

fees can, however, be expensive.

In 2021, there were three million lone

parent families — 15 per cent of families

in the UK, according to the Office for

National Statistics (ONS).

Last year, a quarter of single parents

with dependent children owned their

own properties, according to the latest

English Housing Survey. Monthly rent,

which reached a record average of

£1,103 in May, is often higher than a

mortgage payment would be on the

same property.

House prices have gone up by 11 per

cent over the past year to an average of

£289,099, according to Halifax.

David Hollingworth from the mort-

gage adviser L&C said: “It’s more im-

portant than ever to make sure that as

much income as possible can be fac-

tored in to support the mortgage.”

Most of the lenders Times Money

Mentor spoke to wanted to see a three-

month track record of child mainte-

nance payments, but Virgin Money

wanted agreements to be in place for at

least two years.

Hollingworth advised single parents

to have evidence of any agreements

before applying for a mortgage: copies

of formal agreements and bank state-

ments to show regular payments.

Katherine Denham

Yes, you can have a better

rate (if you have £50k)

B

arclays has increased the rate on

its Everyday Saver for the first

time since the Bank of England

base rate started to climb — but you can

only get it if you have £50,000.

The rate went up from 0.01 per cent to

0.1 per cent on June 1, but if you have

less than £50,000 you get the old rate.

HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest and Santan-

der all pay 0.1 per cent on every £1 in

their easy-access accounts. Barclays,

which held £196.6 billion in personal

deposits at the end of March, was the

last leading high street bank to increase

rates. The base rate has risen four times

since December and is now 1 per cent,

its highest since March 2009.

Barclays’ standard mortgage rate is

linked to the base rate, so has increased

by the full 1 percentage point and is now

4.74 per cent. Anna Bowes from the

consumer website Savings Champion

said: “It’s an absolute disgrace that Bar-

clays has increased its rate by a pitiful

0.09 percentage points for only those

with £50,000. If you have money in this

account, you need to move it.”

Savers wanting easy access can earn

1.56 per cent from Virgin Money on sav-

ings of up to £25,000, but you must have

a current account with the bank.

Marcus Bank, which is owned by the

US giant Goldman Sachs, has put up its

easy-access account rate to 1.3 per cent.

The extra 0.15 percentage point rise will

not be added automatically: savers

must click to apply online.

Households had just under £990 bil-

lion saved in easy-access accounts at

the end of April, according to the Bank

of England.

George Nixon

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Sarah and

Stuart Hartwell

eventually

adopted their

daughter, who

is now nine

consumed me. I didn’t have a social life.

Every time we failed, I booked a holiday

to try to get over it.”

After four years Sarah became

pregnant, but then miscarried and after

that they decided to stop trying for a

baby.

She was signed off work with post-

traumatic stress disorder for six months

from her employer, the building society

Nationwide. Sarah said: “I got really ill.

I didn’t enjoy anything, I couldn’t en-

gage with friends. I thought my chance

of being a mother was over.”

She said that Nationwide was very

supportive. “I was really lucky. At no