The Times - UK (2022-06-11)

(Antfer) #1
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


  1. 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
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