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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