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Pet Insurance
Quid
Definitely not a bananaRegistered User regular
Definitely not a bananaRegistered User regular
We just got our dog back from the vet with a nearly 500 dollar bill. We can easily afford it but it's gotten me to look in to the possibility of insuring our pets. So, a couple questions:
Is it a good idea? I've had zero experience with the concept and don't know how well it works out in practice. We do, however, consider our pets family and I'd really, really hate to put either down simply because at the time we couldn't afford a sudden thousand dollar bill.
If so, who would you recommend? I got a quote through VPI and it came out to under fifty bucks a month for both pets, which seems decent enough for the coverage.
Is it a good idea? I've had zero experience with the concept and don't know how well it works out in practice. We do, however, consider our pets family and I'd really, really hate to put either down simply because at the time we couldn't afford a sudden thousand dollar bill.
If so, who would you recommend? I got a quote through VPI and it came out to under fifty bucks a month for both pets, which seems decent enough for the coverage.
Quid on
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I do recommend them, though. My last dog had a couple of emergency room visits, and VPI paid out a significant percentage of it all.
Generally our routine checkups, cleanings, shots and such are done on a military base vet clinic so prices aren't that terrible but in case of an emergency, like today, we have to go to the 24/7 vet clinic in town and emergency fee + meds + exam + treatments + any lab work add up quick.
Which is where the savings came in before we even got the dog.
But neither of us have ever had pet insurance on our pets and neither did our parents so we're not entirely sure what the best route to go is.
it pays for itself if you get a big expense. more so than if i had set aside money i feel. Especially if your dog is a chewer and is likely to get a stomach obstruction.
When you do do a plan comparison, check out the annual and lifetime maximum benefits. If you can afford it, you may be better off self insuring. Obviously a big benefit of pet insurance would be the availability of network providers at a negotiated discount(if this is even done).
VPI doesn't have a network, and there's no negotiation as far as I know. The healthcare provider doesn't deal with the insurance company at all - you submit your claims for reimbursement after the fact.
they do have higher plans available that do cover vaccines etc.
My only annoyance with them so far has been that they don't cover a problem that my dog has that is extremely common (he has a luxated patella). I just find that annoying since the only reason I can see that they don't cover it along with every other mundane medical problem is because it's so prevalent and they don't feel like paying for it. Other than that they've been fine and seem to cover a wide variety of ailments.
It's important to know that the coverage works based on diagnoses, not tests performed or treatments provided. When you fill out the form (or your veterinarian fills it out) they ask for you to list the diagnosis (or suspected diagnosis) along with the dollar amount that you've paid for treatment. You don't list xrays at $50, pain medication $20, you list fractured pelvis, total cost of care $540. They decide to reimburse based on that criteria. For instance, my dog had been pulling his leg up when he was running so I took him in for xrays. Based on the xrays, they found that he had the luxated patella. This wasn't covered by the insurance policy because the diagnosis was excluded from coverage. If the diagnosis had been something like a cranial cruciate ligament tear (which is covered) the xrays would have been covered by the policy. So to some degree it's a crapshoot about whether or not you'll get reimbursed for diagnostic tests to find out why your pet is sick or hurting. It doesn't matter so much to me because I would get it done anyway but if you're deciding whether or not to treat/diagnose a problem based on insurance coverage of the illness, it can get complicated.
I like having things like dental cleanings covered because it motivates me to actually get these for my dog, and that can significantly improve his health down the line.
It's good to sit down and think about where you draw the line with your pet's health care before an emergency comes up. This will help inform your decision about whether or not pet insurance is right for you. I would say it is best for people who really feel strongly that they would explore extensive medical treatment for their pet to prolong or improve their quality of life. For people who don't feel as strongly about treating their pet's medical conditions, it probably is not worth the money.
We've had one major incident, which was our male cat getting a urinary blockage last summer that required a stay in the local vet hospital for 4 days - ended up being roughly $3600 or so, 80% of which was paid by the insurance. Pretty much didn't have any hassle from them on it, I think we had a check on the way to the bank by about a week or so after submitting the claim. No real problems with them at all, although admittedly we don't submit claims very often
Before that, we had VPI, which was...not so great.
Experience spoilered for length and being a bit ranty:
To make a long story short, things rapidly went downhill from here, and we eventually found out that our kitten had FIP (http://www.dr-addie.com/WhatIsFIP.htm), running up about $800+ of vet bills for testing and attempted treatment, and submitting 4 more claims in the process for the work and the eventual euthanasia.
About 2 months after putting our kitten to sleep, we start getting mail back from VPI saying that all our claims were denied, due to the fact that our veterinarian tested for (but did not find clinical evidence of) toxoplasmosis, in a faint hope that the sickness was something curable. Despite this, someone at VPI saw that toxoplasmosis was not on their benefit schedule, and assumed that everything, including the death, was caused by it.
After receiving the denials, I contacted VPI's online customer service (who seem to communicate only through a library of fill-in-the-blanks form letters), and was told that I could submit the claims back for a dispute, along with info from our vet clarifying the whole situation. A few weeks afterwards, we had the info together, along with a detailed and personally signed letter from our vet, and sent everything off.
A couple weeks afterwards, we receive more mail from VPI rejecting the disputed claims because they're the same as the originals (?!). Obviously nobody had even looked at the supporting info we included, so I called to inquire about the status of the review...And was told by a representative that somehow our faxed documentation had gotten separated, but that he would find everything and send it back up for review - and that no decision would be made for another 30-60 days. I am more than a little ticked by this, but figure it's to be expected sometimes.
A couple more weeks after this, my wife calls again to set up a new policy for our next kitten, and asks in the process how the review is going - she is told by the rep that the process is almost complete and something should be sent out soon. A week later, we still haven't received any communication, so I call again, and get another rep who tells me that suddenly, complete documentation of every single vet visit for the kitten's entire life with us is required to continue processing. At this point we get 10 pages of documentation from the vet hospital (including notes by the vet herself, lab results, results of computer blood testing, discussions with my wife and I, etc.) and send it off. About 5 days later, I also receive another canned form-letter response back from VPI, completely ignoring my question about the sudden need for more info, and acting like we hadn't even started the dispute process yet.
I call customer service yet again to make sure nobody scattered our faxes again, and this time get a sleepy, barely audible rep who attempts to tell me that somehow all the new info we sent is not good enough, and makes a bizarre request for hand-written versions of all the printed treatment notes we sent. Owing to the fact that we are lucky enough to have access to a very modern veterinary hospital in a very urban area....There are no hand-written notes, everything is either typed in by the vet, transcribed to a typist, or produced directly by a computer.
About 5 or 6 rounds of chatting ensues after that, basically me being repeatedly asked for notes, and again saying that there were no notes.
I called again (and at this point I had canceled all our policies in disgust), and was told that they had finally completed processing...And we finally received 4 checks for a total of $453. About $240 in premiums and 6 months of hassle and waiting and arguing for slightly more than 50% of our costs.
If you don't feel like reading the spoiler, basically the root of the problem (besides the horrid customer service) is that they seemed to have a very unrealistic benefit schedule, unless you're using a vet that charges rather cheap fees.
If I remember correctly, I believe the founder of Pets Best was also the founder of VPI, who left because of where the company was heading.
So the dog's a bad example, but let's say you keep him 2 years without another incident necessitating a big vet bill, at 20 bucks a month (a more reasonable estimate) you'd have put away just shy of 500. Insurance is so good for humans because we're worried about one-time costs (emergency room, etc.) that will destroy us financially. Horrible things happen to pets and it runs us a few hundred dollars. His suggestion was that you could just take the amount you'd be paying anyways for insurance and set it aside, maybe even invested somewhere, and you're likely to come out ahead.
Any kind of surgery will be much, much more than that.
Now I understand that true internal surgery is probably much more expensive, but much more rare
You've been lucky that your pet did not require significant surgery - check out my post above. A cruciate ligament tear in a dog is $3500-6000 to fix. A round of cancer treatments is about the same. Bloat, requiring emergency surgery is a grand or two. Treatments for genetic problems with joints, spine, etc. are $Texas. Putting aside the $30/month my policy costs would net me only ~$1K every three years. A single one of the above (and we've been "lucky" to suffer through several) would cost you much more out of pocket.
And it really sucks to have to choose between your dog's life and money.
regarding illig's post, NYC vets are more expensive than elsewhere.
We live in Hawaii though which isn't much better expense wise.
Anyway, we've decided to go ahead and get some but we're researching companies first. VPI is out and right now it'll probably be Pet's Best if a couple others we check aren't much better compared by price.
For what it's worth, this year I switched from Pets Best to Petplan. I switched for a relatively trivial reason (they cancelled my fixed premium option with a B.S. explanation. Not a huge deal, but it really pissed me off). Anyway, it turns out that I liked the terms/prices at Petplan better anyway. I haven't had to make a claim with either, but I just wanted to throw it out there.
Skitters and Benny say "thanks!"
My dog had had a Cruciate Ligament tear two weeks ago. She was diagnosed last Sunday (~$800), had the surgery with overnight stay on Tues/Wed (~$3900) and just now had to go back for another overnight stay b/c one of the anti-inflammatory drugs she's been on caused a bleeding ulcer (~$1500). Tack on a followup visit and suture removal in 2 weeks ($200) and we're looking at about $6400 for one 'incident'.
Our insurance will cover 80% after a $75 deductible, so we'll end up paying less than $1500 total for this. And since we're getting married next week, that extra $5K would really hit us hard right now.
When we researched insurance plans, we passed on VPI due to too many coverage exclusions, and very low total payouts for some common procedures. As i mentioned before, we went with 24 Pet Watch and we've been very happy - as our dog has been less than healthy.
http://www.24petwatch.org/Home_Page.html
She's been mauled in a dog run (multiple puncture bite wounds requiring emergency care), she's had cancer (including removal of two lumps), and other minor stuff.
Oh, and i'd suggest you get insurance ASAP - don't wait b/c if your dog gets sick or the vet recognizes some hereditary condition, these will be excluded from almost any policy as "pre-existing conditions".
When she was younger and I got an employee discount it was a good deal. It was about $20/mo. and it covered roughly half of her vaccination, checkup, and flea control. So for $120/year I got back a little over $100 of her yearly $200 vet bill, and the security of knowing that if she was hurt I'd be able to afford to take care of her.
However, once she got older the price went up drastically and the benefits went down. When I canceled, my premium had gone up to $50 a month, and they'd changed their policy to only cover about half of six months of flea treatment.
I'm interested in 24petwatch, though, based on illig's post above mine.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I've been considering pet insurance for my dogs but I haven't been impressed. Pet Assure has a list of drugs that they cover and won't pay anything for drugs not on that list and looking over that list I am not impressed. I couldn't find any specific information on VPI's website or on 24 Pet Watch's website.