When Deana Sdao took a fertility test in 2020, she learned she had low levels of the hormone associated with egg production. She looked into freezing her eggs as a back-up plan for when she and her partner are ready to have a child, but “it was astronomically expensive.”
“It was divine timing,” said Ms. Sdao, 33, who lives in Toronto. “It was huge. I’ve heard of this from employers before but I’d never experienced it and honestly it gave me peace of mind.” The costs of using assisted reproduction can be dizzying. In-vitro fertilization can run up to $20,000 per round – though women in Ontario and Quebec have access to one province-funded round – plus roughly $5,000 in IVF fertility drugs per cycle. Surrogacy expenses begin at $60,000.
The type of coverage, not just the dollar amount, makes a significant difference. Ms. Wood said that while an unreleased Conceivable Dreams survey shows roughly 25 per cent more employers are offering some type of coverage compared to two years ago, the organization hasn’t seen much movement in the number of benefits plans that cover both drugs and treatments.
Some of Canada’s largest companies, including the Big Five banks, Telus Communications T-T and Cisco Systems CSCO-Q, have rolled out fertility coverage in the past few years with lifetime coverage amounts between $10,000 and $50,000. Snap Inc. SNAP-N, the parent company of social media app Snapchat, has a lifetime limit of $65,000 for fertility and adoption-related expenses, and $130,000 toward surrogacy expenses.
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