FAQs

You start IVF by paying Gaia an insurance premium upfront that represents a fraction of the cost of your treatments. Throughout your treatments, Gaia will handle all your invoices, paying your clinic in full, and give you access to continuous support.

When you have a child, you pay back for your treatments monthly, for up to 8 years. If you don't have a child at the end of your plan, you don’t pay back any of your treatment costs. You insurance will cover the cost your treatments.

Start by requesting a personalised plan. We will ask you a few questions about you (and your partner, if your choosing to do IVF with a partner). As soon as your request is submitted, your plan will be available on your account within 2 working days.

The normal process will usually take a week. But if you are starting treatment soon, we can onboard you as fast as 1 business day. Just create and account to get your personalised plan and contact us at hello@gaia.family to let us know when you need to start soon.

We make money by keeping a portion of the premium that you pay at the start of your IVF rounds. The rest is pooled together so that we can afford to pay for our members who aren’t able to have a child after their insured rounds.

We also keep a small portion of the interest rate that’s part of the repayment plans of those who have a child. So that we can keep making IVF accessible for more people.

A round is any egg collection + transfer or frozen embryo transfer (FET).

For example, if you do 1 egg collection, with one fresh embryo transfer and two subsequent frozen embryo transfers, this would equal 3 rounds.

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We cover all essential procedures for IVF. This means: your nurse consultation, monitoring scans, monitoring blood tests, egg collection, sedation, fertilisation, blastocyst culture, fresh or frozen transfer, embryo freezing, 1 year of storage, and medication. We do not cover treatments where there is limited evidence by the HFEA of impacting your success, you can find a list of those treatments here.

There are many factors that may impact what clinic you choose, such as location, price, success rates and personal preferences. There is no right answer of how to make a decision. If you want to get more information on the process of choosing a clinic, we have more detailed information on our clinics page.

You can go to any HFEA registered clinic in the UK and select clinics abroad.

Yes, you can always request a Gaia Plan without having completed your fertility check. But the more we know about your fertility history the better we will be able to assess your chances of success, and the more likely we will be to be able to give you a plan.

If you do get a Plan without having had a fertility check, before you become a Member, you will need your test results and the treatment quote from your clinic, so that we can validate your plan.

Yes, just because you’ve done your fertility check or IVF round(s) at one clinic doesn’t mean you have to continue there. If you want to change your fertility clinic, but are unsure of where might work best for you, have a look at our clinics page to find out more about choosing a clinic.

We insure you up to 6 rounds of IVF.

To create a Gaia Plan for you, we measure your chances of success over several rounds of treatment, using data from over 1 million past IVF treatments. This data only records up to 6 treatment rounds per patient, so we can't measure chances or insure you above that number of rounds.

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We would never force you to continue treatment if you wanted to stop. However, if you decide to cancel your Gaia Membership before you either had a child or completed the rounds you are insured for, then you would have to pay back the cost of the treatments you had.

This is to make sure the cost is stable for other members in the community. However, if your doctor says it is medically necessary for you to stop your treatment and provides proof of this, then you would not have to pay anything back.

Start paying insurance premiums at the beginning of each IVF round. If you don’t have a child by the end of your insured rounds, the sum of the premiums is all you would pay. If you are successful (and only once you are discharged from the hospital following birth) you pay Gaia back the fixed cost of the IVF treatment that you went through.

The repayment of your IVF treatment can be paid in monthly instalments for up to 8 years. Our plans also include a £1 per month admin fee which you pay until you give birth.

Your premium normally represents around 20-30% of your clinic treatment cost, and  would never be more than 40%. Premiums can be paid in 5 monthly instalments or in a lump sum.

Your premiums are calculated based on your chances of success, the type of treatment you're having, and your clinic’s treatment costs.

Prices listed by the clinic are the base prices for IVF and most often do not include the other necessary costs that you will incur as you go through your IVF journey. Through extensive research, we have calculated the entire cost of an IVF round at each and every UK clinic. The price we have listed for your IVF treatment includes your clinic's base cost of IVF treatment, in addition to other necessary treatments and medication that you would be charged for throughout your IVF round.

This includes: HFEA Fee, monitoring blood tests, monitoring scans, sedation for egg collection, blastocyst culture, pregnancy scan, embryo freezing and storage of any extra embryos to up to 12 months, and medication. The cost we give is all inclusive and fixed, so that you know exactly the full price of your IVF treatment, giving you full visibility of the total cost of your IVF journey and so you don’t have to make a single payment to your clinic throughout your IVF treatment.

The cost varies a lot. One complete round of IVF treatment (including egg collection) can cost between £4k and £12k. Important to bear in mind that clinics’ packages also vary in terms of what is included. Medication is most often an extra cost. If you want more information on the cost of IVF, have a look here.

There are 4 main distinctions between Gaia and Access:

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1. No full upfront costs. You pay a premium to start every round, and only pay back the full cost of your IVF monthly, once you have given birth.

2. All inclusive. We include medication in our plans so that you do not have to pay a single invoice to your clinic.

3. Only pay for what you need. We are not a multi cycle package, which means if you have a child after 1 round of IVF, you will only pay back the cost of that 1 round.

4. Membership support and services. Gaia supports you throughout your entire journey, with access to membership support, a medical advisor, 12 sessions of counselling, and in person and online events.

Your interest rate is personalised and will be communicated to you after you apply to your plan. Gaia will cover all the interest during the treatment and pregnancy, saving you potentially thousands of pounds against comparable loans.

On average, our members repay £235/months over 8 years.

Your repayment amount will depend on your clinic and the treatments you will need to have a child. You can see all the scenarios detailed in your personalised Gaia Plan online and in your membership agreement. In the most expensive scenarios, your loan is capped so you never have to repay an unaffordable amount, Gaia will cover the rest.

Our default repayment period is 8 years, but you can decide to pay in a shorter period of time.

Yes. Once you have a child you can pay back the loan in one lump sum or make overpayments on your loan at no additional cost.

The administration fee is £1 per month. This fee is just for us to maintain your account and ensure that your financial account is still active.

If you choose to go ahead with your Gaia Plan, we will ask you to confirm your identity, credit and affordability score. We also give you the choice to use Open Banking, to help us have more accurate and up-to-date financial information – this is particularly helpful in case you don't pass our affordability threshold with the information you shared with us.

At this stage we do what's called a 'soft' check, so it won’t affect your credit score.

Once you’re ready to sign your membership agreement we will then run a ‘hard’ check. This means other credit lenders will be able to see that a company looked up your score. They won't be able to see that it was Gaia specifically.

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We use Open Banking to make an affordability assessment on you. It is optional and uses your banking transactions to have a more accurate and up-to-date financial information in case you don't pass our affordability threshold with the information you shared with us.

Fintern Ltd is the FCA regulated partner we work with to provide you with the loan that supports your IVF journey. You’ll see their name on your loan documents but will only have to deal with Gaia.

Your Annual Percentage Rate (or APR) is what we are legally required to provide so you can compare the total cost of your credit and associated services. Your APR is higher than your interest rate as it will also include your Insurance Premium. You can find all the details in your loan agreement.

In order for us to provide support services to you and our community, the £1 monthly admin fee is required for all our members.

We can insure you for Standard IVF, IVF+ICSI, Shared Motherhood (or Reciprocal IVF), Sperm Donor or Egg Donor IVF treatments.

To make sure that our Gaia Plans are fair and affordable for you, and that your premium isn't too expensive, we have a couple of eligibility criteria. We are required to keep our premium percentage below 40%. We have to take in consideration BMI of the embryo carrier - currently below 35. And we also need to run credit and affordability checks.

As a relatively new company we are bound to the limits set by our underwriters. But we hope to continually develop our model to make our plans more accessible to more people.

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Our eligibility criteria currently takes into account your BMI. This is a requirement from our insurance underwriters based on NHS guidelines. We understand the impact of BMI on fertility is disputed, and we are currently collecting more evidence so we can widen our eligibility constraints.

If your complaint is about Gaia services, please contact:

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Gaia Fertility Ltd

65 Alfred Road

London W2 5EU

members@gaia.family

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If your complaint is regarding your insurance policy, please contact:

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Beazley Furlonge Ltd

22 Bishopsgate

London

EC2N 4BQ

Tel No: +44 (0)20 7667 0623

Fax No: +44 (0)20 7674 7100

Email: beazley.complaints@beazley.com

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In the event that you remain dissatisfied and wish to make a complaint, it may be possible in certain circumstances for you to refer the matter to the Complaints Team at Lloyd’s. Their address is:

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Complaints

Lloyd’s

One Lime Street

London

EC3M 7HA

E-mail: complaints@lloyds.com  

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7327 5693

Fax: +44 (0)20 7327 5225

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Ultimately, should you remain dissatisfied after Lloyd’s final response, you may, if eligible, refer its complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The Financial Ombudsman Service is an independent service in the UK for settling claims between consumers and businesses providing financial services.

If you complete the number of rounds insured by the Gaia Plan and do not have a successful outcome, then Gaia will issue the claim immediately and you do not pay any more. You can always contact us at:

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Name: Gaia Fertility Ltd.

Address: Great Western Studios, 65 Alfred Road, W2 5EU

Email: members@gaia.family