The concept of offering refund guarantee packages of IVF cycles started a few decades ago in the US. The fact that the fertility market in the US is the most expensive globally and consists of almost 75% of the world’s annual turnover for IVF made these programmes very attractive in North America. Fertility patients would rather share the risk of failure with the clinic to bear the high cost of treatment, knowing that they will get their money back if they don’t get pregnant and have a baby.
Clearly, since the US market has been highly commercial and the leading players in the industry have been corporations of big clinic chains, those players started offering refund guarantee packages on their own, taking the refund risk.
Expanding Into Europe
A few years ago, the American concept of refund guarantee IVF started to immigrate into Europe, initially through the UK. However, as the IVF landscape in Europe is very different, clinics were reluctant to create and offer such programmes on their own. The main reason was the fact that clinics were not commercial enough, as they are in the US. In addition, most European clinics are small and run by medical doctors, who focus on their medical work; they are risk avert and avoid commercial development by nature. This reality developed a niche in the market for independent providers of refund guarantee IVF programmes that collaborate with clinics to share the risk of IVF with fertility patients.
Refund Guarantee IVF in Europe
Since the concept of insurance is not new in most European countries, soon it has generated interest. Initially, it grew in the UK for a couple of years, but as demand increased, the supply of such packages developed further by growing new independent suppliers of refund guarantee programmes. Furthermore, new suppliers started to enter and educate new markets in Europe. However, in contrast to the US, where fertility patients were already educated on the existence and importance of such programmes, in Europe, this must be developed gradually, as patients had no experience or recollection of such schemes.
Today, refund guarantee IVF programmes are on offer in almost every European country, and patients are searching for them, which makes clinics look for independent suppliers of these plans to respond to this growing demand. Countries such as Ireland, France, Netherland, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and almost all Scandinavian countries are already familiar with a refund guarantee concept, and fertility patients in those countries are looking for such offers.
The demand for these schemes and the success of the plans made specific clinics that are slightly more commercially focused than others, or they have formed big corporation chains interested in offering these programmes on their own.
Benefits of Refund Guarantee IVF
The main benefit for patients is that they know from the beginning how much it would cost them to have a baby, and if for any reason they don’t achieve the desired outcome, they are sure they would get their money back. This insurance concept is becoming more and more popular because of the uncertainty of success in IVF. However, there is a benefit in choosing an independent provider of the refund guarantee, such as Redia IVF, because it acquires a stake in the patient’s success chances. Therefore, independent providers look for the best clinics with higher success rates to partner with to maximize their profit margins. In addition, they offer a choice of locations of clinics so to make sure patients get the most of their fertility journey.
