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have you ever considered pet insurance? has it crossed your mind and you’ve simply said to yourself, “no way – it would be WAY too expensive!” have you ever thought about the worst case scenario for your pet and asked yourself, “how much is it worth paying to save this guy’s life?” – especially if it was something curable? it was just a broken leg? a slipped disc? an ACL?
the first time I shelled out $5,000 for my dog woody I was flabbergasted – AT MYSELF. I had never once thought that I would be the kind of person that would spend THAT MUCH MONEY on a DOG! but he was my everything – and I’d do it all over again if I could. but the good news is, you don’t have to! there’s a reason they make pet insurance, and it’s for scenarios just like that.
so what are the top 5 things to consider when looking at pet insurance?! let’s have a look!
1 – what is the age of your pet?
so here’s the catch here – THERE IS NO AGE THAT IS TOO OLD! when I insured woody, he was 14 years old. YES! you read that correctly – he was my old man. he had back surgery when he was 9 years old and he DID NOT have insurance then and I was stupid not to insure him immediately after that. but I assumed all pet insurance was out of my budget so never considered it until FIVE YEARS LATER! was he more expensive to insure versus my puppy of 6 months and my 4 year old golden retriever at the time?! – YES!! of course he was. but there are TONS of options you can consider when insuring your pet of ANY AGE! and that’s the beauty of it. for him, to make it cost effective for me, I simply did not have him on any wellness plan (we’ll talk about those in a few!), gave him a higher deductible so that his monthly payments were manageable and that was that! he was insured! just before his first year of coverage came to a close, he was diagnosed with bone cancer in his spinal column. in his June 2016-2017 policy, he maxed out his maximum of $10,000 that was paid by our pet insurance. TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! The following year – his June 2017-April 2018* – he maxed out AGAIN. my pet insurance, that started insuring my dog at the age of 14 years – paid TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to help me give him the best life possible. age should NOT be a consideration when deciding to insure or not – it should just be a factor on HOW you insure – which plan you should get and how to make it work best for you, your pet and your pocketbook!*you’ll notice that his 2nd policy was not a full year – this is because woody passed in april of 2018. Embrace, being what I believe to be one of the kindest insurers out there, stopped his payments in april when he passed and I did not pay for his remaining 2 months on his contact. they didn’t add insult to injury and I simply cannot thank them enough for that – one of the many reasons I recommend them personally.
2 – what type of insurance do you want?
this is critical. there are companies out there that have a ton of various options. and you need to understand what those look like. the first pet insurance type plan I ever had for my pets was through Pet Smart – Banfield Pet Insurance. and it was 100% only a wellness plan – but I had no idea. so when woody was diagnosed with a slipped disc at the age of 9, I found out the hard way that none of that would be covered AND of course Pet Smart had no specialty doctors that would take care of that.when I started doing my research about pet insurance, I learned that there are usually two types of plans – wellness plans and insurance plans. wellness is exactly what it sounds like – any normal vet visits that you do on an annual basis are covered. vaccinations, flea and tick medicine, heart worm, fecal – anything that surrounds wellness can be covered in a wellness plan. and then the insurance plan – this is where illness, accident and other such is covered. illness can run a gamut of ways – from ear infections to cancer – that would all fall under illness. accident is just that – this could be a torn ACL from running around like a crazy dog (I have hazel now and boy – I won’t be shocked if this happens in her lifetime!) all the way to the unimaginable of getting hit by a car… I don’t even want to think about that. but this is where it is very much like human insurance (but not NEARLY as complicated!!!!!) there is a deductible that you have to meet and depending on the cost of that will drive your monthly cost. and then there is a max that the insurance is willing to pay – again something usually you can control. the more that they pay, the more your monthly rate will be as well.
and the beauty is you do not need BOTH if you don’t want both – you can do one or the other with most plans. with my plan through Embrace, this is exactly how we do it. and they break out the charges for you so you know exactly what you’re paying for your wellness plan as well as for your insurance plan so if you want to change either one of them, you can adjust them to fit what you can do on a monthly basis!
3 – what do you want covered?
this is SOOOO important. you need to seriously take a step back and ask yourself, “if my pet gets X, what will I need to protect them?” just like in the real world, sadly, there is such a thing as preexisting conditions. if your pet has previously had any of these and you’re looking for coverage, RESEARCH THE HECK OUT OF THEM to see if they can be covered. and regardless of a preexisting condition, make sure that any factor you consider to be important for your pet is covered such as breeds that are prone to specific issues. ASK QUESTIONS! these insurance guys want your business and you want to make sure that if you need to use the insurance, there isn’t a surprise when you aren’t prepared for it! with Embrace, I had to get all the dogs (I’ve had 3 total insured through them) to pass their orthopedic exam. oddly enough, my golden ended up getting a weird infection during the time I was working on getting her cleared for this and she had a weird limp. at the end of the day, she failed her ortho exam and wasn’t allowed to be covered on her front left limb because of it. this was a complete fluke and did not dissuade me from using Embrace, but if that was something that was incredibly important to me, I would have researched some more. remember – this is what is best for YOU, YOUR PET and YOUR POCKETBOOK! make sure it has the coverage for the illness/accidents that YOU CONSIDER IMPORTANT!4 – how do you want reimbursed?
this is also important – and something I didn’t even think about when doing my insurance. everything has worked out with Embrace, but when you’re faced with paying am upfront bill of $6,000, that can sometimes be hard to stomach! research how the different pet insurances will pay you back – some are upfront and some are not – and some are both. for woody’s surgeries (he had a total of 2 back surgeries to remove the bone cancer tumor), I had to pay upfront. $6,000 was not an easy thing to put onto a credit card to say the least, but it was the fastest way to get him the surgery he so desperately needed. depending on the surgery, some insurances will allow the doctor to send in estimated costs and they will pay that to you directly or a portion of it – everyone is different. others will simply read the doctor’s notes once the surgery or treatment is complete and will then get a copy of the invoice (they will need both doctor’s notes and the invoice and we’ll cover who submits that next) and will then evaluate, send you an explanation of benefits (EOB) and then pay you directly – either by check or direct deposit. and going back to bullet point #3 – sometimes they don’t pay everything. just like in human insurance, things get “coded” a certain way and some things will fall under wellness and others will fall under illness/accident and so you need to be sure that you know what to expect. while I can’t speak to all insurances, Embrace Pet Insurance will walk you through the entire EOB if needed and answer any questions you may have about why something was or was not covered.5 – who submits the paperwork?
this was another thing I learned in weird ways!! bottom line is this – if your vet submits the paperwork, it’s a heck of a lot easier!!!! talk with your vet – sometimes they already have insurance companies that they work with. BEWARE THOUGH – they might have a “preference” and will suggest that or only have brochures for a specific company of pet insurance, but they’ll do A LOT OF OTHER COMPANIES TOO! I know my vet recommends one that I do not use, but they have all of Embrace Pet Insurance forms for my pets on file. when I pay for any wellness visit or illness/accident visit, I ask them immediately to submit it into their insurance/billing department to then submit to Embrace and they take care of it. I keep an eye out in my email inbox to get the note from Embrace that the wellness/insurance claim has been submitted and once I see that, usually we are good to go – every once in a while I will need to call the vet to have them submit it again. I keep an eye out for the claim to process, double check it (ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK YOUR EOB!!!) and then have the money directly put into my checking account. and that is that! J but do not get sucked into insurance that your vet is promoting if you do not like it for any reason! do your research and pick the company that again, works for YOU, YOUR PET and YOUR POCKETBOOK!I hope that helps! in the lifespan of my 3 dogs, I have had 2 that have unfortunately crossed over the rainbow bridge. both of them used insurance claims. both of them maxed out their insurance claims – one of them maxed out twice. what that means in laymen’s terms is pet insurance has paid out $30,000 for my pets. I can promise you that while I love my pets to death, and i would do anything for them, I without a doubt never want to make the decision of affordability of a surgery or their life. I will always pick their life over affordability – however, with pet insurance, I do not have to even consider that. it’s always, always, always life.
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