I wanted to touch on a topic that I briefly mentioned in my post about pet insurance vs. personal savings or a credit card:

Accidents to pets of all ages can happen at any time.

I recently received an email from a pet owner who was hitting herself in the forehead (actually, the forehead of her husband) for not getting pet insurance sooner. The day after she got the insurance (and still under waiting periods, unfortunately) her 4 month old lab, CoCo, fell into a hole a broke her leg! Of course she had been telling her husband about pet insurance for months, but didn’t happen to get it until right when something bad happened! (Isn’t that how it always works?) So, $1500 later she tells me she was telling her husband off for not listening the first time around. Now husbands, let this be a lesson: us women are always right .

Kidding aside, she (even if unknowingly) holds a good point. Accidents can happen any time! And even expensive ones! If she had gotten the insurance a month ago (or even 6 days prior) the broken leg would have been covered.

This brings me to my next point. At what age should you consider pet insurance? Of course I would argue the younger the better, and this pet owner (and CoCo) are proof of that. Not to mention, and I’ll go back to CoCo’s story, anything related to this leg break would now be pre-existing, which as many of you would know (or could read about in my post about pre-existing conditions and pet insurance) are not covered under the majority of pet insurance policies. Statistically, it’s possible that most health conditions won’t occur until later in a pet’s life, but then aren’t you playing roulette? If you keep waiting and something happens tomorrow, it’s already too late because that condition or incident wouldn’t be covered and it would become pre-existing.

But, what do you think?

An interesting topic came up over the past few days under my post on Why do pet insurance policies have so many limits? about breed specific exclusions.

What are they?

Very simply, a list of coverage exclusions if you enroll a given breed. Fortunately for you pet owners, there is only one company that is doing this, that I’m aware of. The list is quite exhaustive, has just about every dog breed out there with at least 2 or 3 specific exclusions next to each. AND at the top of the list says “Please refer to your policy for a full list of exclusions that apply to all breeds, including mixed breeds”. So, buyers beware: this list isn’t even complete!

Well apparently, they have a similar list for cats! The pet owner I had been chatting back and forth with mentioned that she wasn’t even aware of the exclusions, and was shocked to find that her previously healthy kittens (as in cats who are still very young, and with few health problems) had so many exclusions. I wasn’t even aware of the list myself until she brought it up, which of course made me go do some research. It is much smaller than the dog breed exclusion list, but exists none the less.

The sad part about the whole situation, is that like Sandy, many pet owners aren’t aware of such lists until it’s too late. Now, unfortunately for her, her cats now have these pre-existing conditions so if she wanted to switch providers these things wouldn’t be covered.

I still think the whole thing is crazy. You don’t hear about “breed” specific exclusions in human health care. That’d be like saying people with fair skin won’t be covered for skin cancer because they might be more prone to it!

I’ll revert back to my mantra: if it sounds crazy, it probably is!

So now I want to hear more stories about people’s experiences with breed specific exclusions. Is there anyone out there that was aware of this list before purchasing the insurance?

I wanted to touch on the topic of the differences between having pet insurance versus putting money aside or using a credit card because I’ve seen a few comments from you guys about the topic. This is usually a highly disputed topic because about three years ago consumer reports made the suggestion that a person should open a savings account as opposed to buying into pet insurance.

Ok.

While maybe three years ago this *might* have been a good idea, look at where we are today. If you had happened to invest the money you were putting aside, it’s likely disappeared into dust, if anything. Also, in the past three years multiple pet insurance players have entered the arena to not only offer more options, but raise the bar for any existing companies.

Of course I am biased on the situation, but let’s think about this logically. If you start putting, say $20 away a month tomorrow, and if you have the self-discipline to do that then GOOD FOR YOU! What happens if you’re on a hiking trip this summer, say in June, and your trusted walking companion trips, stumbles down a hill and ends up breaking a foot. Traumatic for you, of course. Traumatic on your wallet – YES! The trip to the emergency room and treatment for a broken foot ends up costing you about $1,000. Yes, you might be happy to have the $100 you had put away at this point, but would probably be MUCH happier if you had put that $20 into pet insurance and instead of having to cover $900 of the bill out of pocket, you’d only have to pay maybe $100-$200.

The same would go for a credit card. If you put that $1,000 onto a credit card a paid it off, you’d have to worry about interest accruing and it would end up costing you more than the $1,000 trip to the vet. Now, if you feel like your pet is indestructible, power to ya for saving money! Just bear in mind that accidents (expensive and inexpensive ones) can happen any time.

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Two more common terms with pet insurance companies are congenital and hereditary disorders. If you’re looking into pet insurance you might be reading through one of the pet insurance policies, and it just might tell you that congenital and hereditary disorders are not covered. “What does that mean?” you might think to yourself, and more importantly, “What would that mean to my bank account?”

Let’s see if I can make this simple. A congenital disorder is one that is present at birth, whether or not signs are showing. Essentially, something happens during development to cause such an abnormality, but the pet may not show signs of this particular disorder until much later in life. A hereditary disorder is one that a certain breed is prone to. An example of a hereditary disorder would be intervertebral disk disease (back problems) with Dachshunds because of their long backs or Brachycephalic syndrome (breathing problems) in Pugs because of their short snouts. Of course these two examples are more commonly known problems, and more than likely, pet owners about to get a pug or dachshund are probably aware that they are a possible threat. There are plenty of hereditary or congenital disorders that are not commonly known, or easy to understand.

Hip dysplasia, for one, which is a common condition among some smaller, heavier dogs such as bulldogs, can be either a hereditary or congenital disorder. Confusing? Well, I think so. Oh, did I mention that these disorders can be extremely expensive. Hip dysplasia surgery can run around $8,000! And you’re telling me that this might not be covered?! How is a pet owner supposed to know if their pet has a hereditary or congenital disorder and why wouldn’t it be covered!?

What experiences have you had with this type of coverage? Would you be willing to pay extra to make sure that they’re covered or would you just assume that they should be covered?

In a nutshell, I’d like to sum up a story I heard from a friend of mine who were so proud of themselves for getting pet insurance and the optional wellness coverage.

“Ok, I was smart enough to get insurance and smart enough to get the additional wellness, now I’m in the clear. Or not? When I purchase the wellness add on I assumed that all of the basic routine care would be covered for my dog. I found out that this wasn’t the case when I got my dog’s teeth cleaned. The vet charged me $220, which I hear is about the going rate these days, and I submitted the claim expecting about $220 back. I was shocked when I only got $60!”

Of course this forced me to look into the issue (me working in the pet insurance industry, and all) and what I found was actually quite shocking! This particular company (whom shal remain nameless) has a fee schedule, that is a list of what they will reimburse you for and for how much, for routine visits. Now my friend, and I won’t dare question his intelligence, was unaware of this schedule at the time he purchased the insurance. I had a pretty easy time finding this particular payout schedule, then again researching other pet insurance companies has been my job for the past year or so;) I guess I’m curious at this point if this has happened to anyone else.

When comparing pet health insurance to our own human health care, you would expect to maybe pay the $10-50 copay for the dentist and the rest would be taken care of by the insurance company. Let’s just say, my friend was quite upset that he still had to fork out the $160 difference. Let me know what you’ve found with your wellness options. I’m hoping the rest of you have had a better experience…

Oh yes, and the picture is of my smiling Goldie, she’s got some pretty nice chompers, eh?

Most often when people hear of pet health insurance, they automatically compare it to their own human health care, naturally. And with human health care most of our routine shots, routine doctor visits, and regular dentist cleanings are all covered. So, one would expect those similar things to also be covered with pet health insurance, right?

Well, no, not necessarily. With pet insurance wellness coverage is either an add-on for extra money or will be included in a plan at an increased premium. In the research I’ve done, these wellness options can cost from $10 to $35 extra a month in addition to the premium. Do you think that that $100 to $400 a year justified? Has anyone saved money by using this program? Or has anyone found these plans to work against them?

I think when most people purchase pet insurance they trust whatever the company has to say. If the company says that accidents and illnesses are covered, they expect that when their pet gets sick or injured that it will be covered. Why then are there so many confused and angry pet insured pet owners?

If pet insurance is that easy, why is it so hard to find out what is and isn’t covered? I like doing research and staying on top of what other pet insurance copmanies are doing. The other day while reading through a policy I had to look up every other word in the dictionary. When I called to ask about what is and isn’t covered the customer service person seemed to dance around the issue. Even when I asked specifically “If my dog got cancer would it be covered?” It was followed by a string of questions. Why are so many pet insurance policies so difficult to understand?

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When it comes to pet insurance, one of the words that is heard the most is “pre-existing condition” and that they aren’t covered.

What is a pre-existing condition? In the simplest terms, it’s a condition that occurs before you get insurance on your pet. So, if your pet was diagnosed with diabetes before you got insurance, they wouldn’t be covered for any treatment for diabetes. Now, it’s my belief that many pet insurance companies may tend to take the ‘pre-existing’ clause a little too far. As I’ve heard many upset pet owners who don’t have a condition covered because the company deemed it pre-existing.

All to often I hear or read a story online about an angry pet owner who had paid into a pet insurance policy for, say, 5 years to have their pup fall ill and to not have the illness covered because the insurance company linked the illness to some small symptom that the dog showed as a 10 month old puppy.

Has something like this ever happened to you?

Welcome to The Pet Insurance and Health Care Blog, a collaborative effort by the makers of Dogster & Catster and Trupanion Pet Insurance.

The need for a blog of this type occurred to us recently when we were sitting around discussing pet insurance. An often disputed topic, we began looking around a bit, only to discover that despite all the information on the Internet there still wasn’t a single place dedicated to an open dialogue about pet insurance. So we decided to start this blog.

Our goal is to foster a discussion open to all topics concerning pet insurance. We aim to elevate pet insurance standards so that the pet health care industry better serves the actual needs of pets and their owners. By posting information about the state of pet insurance and health care, we are hopeful that readers will feel comfortable sharing their opinions and discussing their experiences with others. We encourage you to speak positively or negatively about any company, health care provider, website, or facet of the pet health care industry – all we ask is that you report factually.

The long-term purpose of this blog involves documenting pet insurance standards as they evolve over time and using what is shared and learned here to help make these practices better in the future.

We’re also happy to answer any general questions we can about pet insurance and pet health care.

So please check back with us regularly and feel free to comment, contact us and link to our entries.

Welcome aboard! We hope that you benefit from the information that is posted on this blog. If you’d like to subscribe to updates via RSS feed, you may do so here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with pet insurance, let me give you a quick background.

Pet health insurance began in 1982 in the US when TV’s famous canine hero, Lassy, was insured. Veterinary Pet Insurance, most commonly known as VPI, was the first company in the US and North America yet pet insurance in North America is still quite uncommon. About only 1% of pet owners have pet insurance today. This compared to some countries in Europe reaching insured levels of 40% of pets.

The North American pet insurance industry was up an estimated 21% in 2007 from 2006, with gross written premiums totaling $248 million. From 2003 to 2007 the market showed a total growth of 56%. Canada has shown somewhat faster market growth, growing their market share from under 9% in 2003 to over 15% in 2007.

There are currently 11 pet health insurance providers in the US and three in Canada, with some marketing more than one brand name. All of these companies combined write about 850,000 to one million policies. As the ‘pets as family members’ trend continues to grow, so is the expected pet insurance industry. The more the people value their pets, the more effort goes into improving veterinary services, the more sophisticated and thus higher costs of treatment become available. More and more companies are entering the market place each year, which will undoubtedly force each company to create better products. That coupled with the down turning economy will most likely prove to make pet health insurance more popular.

Pet insurance is somewhat different from human health insurance, in that you can use any veterinarian you choose, you have to pay the bill of front, then you submit the claim to the insurance company for reimbursement.

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