[1]On this Father’s Day [2], we celebrate the Dads in our lives and complete category seven in our insurance files [3]. Woo hoo!
You may have finished this category already depending on the special health policies you hold.
Since I have three policies and two of them are stem cell preservation policies, I dedicated last week’s post to our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy [4], and this week I will cover stem cell preservation policies. We have one policy for child #2 and the other for child #3.
Stem Cell Preservation Policies
These special health policies are optional and quite expensive. In fact, the reason we have two policies and not three is due to the cost. When our son (child #1) was born, we did not have the finances to bank his cord blood.
We had just finished building our home when we found out we were pregnant. Excited and wanting the best for our baby, we scrimped and saved for the delivery costs, but we did not have the extra $1700 for this policy.
Knowing we missed out on this opportunity helped us prepare for our future additions. When our girls came along, we chose to bank their stem cells and keep their policies within this ninth file opening [3].
Defined
Stem cell preservation is storing the umbilical cord for future uses. Per Cryo-Cell International’s web site [5]:
Umbilical cord blood is the blood that remains in the vein of the umbilical cord and placenta at the time of birth. Cord blood is rich in stem cells and Cryo-Cell’s umbilical cord blood service collects, processes and cryogenically preserves these cells for potential medical use. Umbilical cord blood stem cells have been used to treat nearly 80 diseases with over 25,000 transplants worldwide.
Benefits
If our children get an illness that needs pure stem cells, then we have perfect matches for our girls and a high chance that our son will match one of them.
With these policies, we can get the stem cells within 48 hours without cost to us. We do pay annually for the storage, but at our time of need, we will not incur transportation costs for the stem cells.
Since transplanting the cells will exceed our budget, we carry our critical illness and cancer protection policy [4]which will pay in one lump sum supplying the needed funds for a transplant.
Documents
For these policies, I keep the following documents organized by the client number in this ninth file opening of our insurance file box:
1. Summary Page (one for each policy)
This one-page document [6] lists the procedure to follow should Paul and I pass away together.
Since these policies belong to our daughters, Cryo-Cell will need to appoint a guardian (per our wills) on behalf of our girls. When each daughter reaches age 21, she will own her own policy and continue paying for the storage fee annually.
Having this information in writing will aid our executor should Paul and I pass away together. I’ve planned for the future because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.
2. Enrollment Application
Printouts of the offer, price, and services including the 7-page clinical application document remain stapled together.
3. Policy
4. Delivery Confirmation Notices
Since we had to arrange for pickup of the kit, we kept all the instructions and air bills for confirmation.
5. Preservation Certificate
Confirmation of the cord blood received, processed, and preserved with Client ID number.
6. Receipts
With an annual storage fee, I keep our receipts showing payment received.
These documents are paper clipped together into two bundles and housed behind our Critical Illness and Cancer Protection Policy [4] in this seventh category of our insurance documents.
Though you may never consider harvesting your child’s cord blood, you might have alternative therapy or a chiropractic policy which need similar paperwork. By planning your file to accommodate these policies, you will save energy and time by filing them directly than creating a new slot. Happy organizing!
Question: What do you think of cord blood preservation?