[Cost-carrying responsibility in unsuccessful extracorporeal fertilization]

In-vitro fertilisation has been practised for a number of years, but the results have not always been successful. However, even unsuccessful attempts are expensive and have to be paid for. Legal proceedings had been initiated some time ago at the Provincial High Court at Nuremberg-Furth, West Germany, to determine whether a private insurance company would be compelled to bear the cost of an unsuccessful extracorporeal fertilisation of a women patient holding a sickness insurance policy. On 3 April 1984 the court took the stand--and passed a verdict to that effect--that this was an insurance case in accordance with the terms of insurance in so far as the patient's childlessness could be considered as an illness liable to sickness insurance compensation and that by now in-vitro fertilisation was generally recognised and accepted as a scientific therapeutic method. The judgement, which is not yet final, decreed that the insurance company was liable to bear the expenses of the unsuccessful fertilisation amounting to DM 8706,70.