Effectively Compare Pet Insurance Policies
December 11th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
Effectively Compare Pet Insurance Policies
If you are shopping for pet insurance it really isn’t any different that shopping for car our personal health insurance. You will want to get a couple of quotes from more than one company, look at their benefits and packages and make sure you get the best coverage for you and your pets specific needs. When you are comparing pet insurance companies there are a few specifics that you will want to take into consideration.
Go With the Best Company
A comparison of pet insurance plans can not be complete without researching the company that is looking at itself. The pet insurance industry is still fairly new and there are not yet many laws around the certification of companies offering these policies like there are for other types of insurance. This being said, it is important to make sure that you go with a reputable company so that when you are looking for a claim payout they company is there. A lot of people have been cheated on the policies because they didn’t’ take the time need to make sure that the company was trustworthy or stable.
One good gage is to remember that the pet insurance industry really started growing in the early to mid ‘80’s. If you find a company that has been around since then they are probably a good candidate to underwrite your pet insurance policy. This is one comparison besides benefits and price that you should pay attention to when choosing the company that you are going to use for your insurance policy on your animal.
What Does Your Vet Think?
I would also suggest that when you have a short list of companies that you are considering that you give your vet a quick call to see what they might know about them. If your vet has not heard of them then there is a good chance that they are not a good company and an even better chance that your vet won’t accept them anyway. Make sure you ask your vet what policies they take and if they would be willing to join a new policy that you might have found.
Take a look at the vets in your area that the insurance company works with. Are they reputable? That will tell you a lot about the trustworthiness of any pet insurance company.
Why Were Pet Health Insurance Companies Started?
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Why Were Pet Health Insurance Companies Started?
In 1982 a company called Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) got the pet insurance industry started when they offered a pet insurance policy that was designed to protect the welfare and health of one of the most recognized pets in the world, Lassie. Pet health insurance companies started showing up as a result of pet owners not being able to afford to pay for treatments on their animals for curable conditions and had to opt to have their loved pets put to sleep. As a response to this a group of 700 vets banned together to form the first pet health insurance company known as VPI. It really wasn’t that far fetched of an idea, after all, people do consider their pets to be members of their families and people have health insurance so why shouldn’t our pets?
The first years for the pet health care industry were tough. It was hard to convince pet owners that it was actually beneficial to invest in their pets’ health. But eventually it did catch on, not only in the United States, but in England as well. Initially, the idea caught on with some of the larger insurance underwriters in the world and they started to offer pet insurance policies to their clients. One of the largest, the Fireman’s Fund, tried to sell pet insurance for a while but then proceeded to close their pet insurance division in 1994 because they were only able to sell about 10,000 policies in a 3 year period. At this time, the only company that survived was Veterinary Pet Insurance. They actually managed to survive when everyone else was closing their doors.
Procter & Gamble Gets Involved
After the collapse of most companies in the pet health insurance industry, Procter & Gamble decided to leverage their pet food division, Iams and they used it to get involved and support the pet health insurance industry. In 1997 Rhona Sutter started the Pet Protect Company and Russell Smith III started the Hartville Group. These two companies were founded by individuals with extensive knowledge and experience in the insurance industry and they utilized low key marketing strategies to make their companies a success. The idea of insuring your pet was soon catching on and spreading like wild fire throughout England and the USA.
Pet Protect eventually closed its doors in 2006 as VPI and the Hartville groups were quickly increasing their market share. In the past 30 years, very few companies have attempted to sell pet health insurance with many opening and closing their doors. However, today these companies are thriving and now more than ever pet owners see the significant value in making sure that they pets are covered with an adequate pet insurance policy.
Choosine the Best Pet Insurance for Your Cat or Dog
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How to Choose the Best Pet Insurance for Your Dog or Cat
Are you looking to get the best pet insurance for your animal, but don’t know where you need to begin? When you are trying to choose the best insurance plan for you pet you will need to compare and research several companies so that you can make sure that you are getting the optimum coverage for your money and you’re pet. With many of the pet insurance companies offering their services over the internet, this has become a simple process that you can accomplish without leaving your home.
Things to Look For
When you are looking for the best pet insurance for you pet and the money that you want to spend there are few key things that you will want to be aware of. First, you will want to decide whether you are looking for a policy that reimburses you for fees that you pay to your vet at the time of service or one that takes care of paying your veterinarian directly. Most people don’t realize that both types are available.
If you decide that you want a pet insurance policy that takes care of paying your veterinarian for you then you will want to make sure that insurance company that you choose is accepted by your veterinarian clinic. With a quick phone call you will be able to find out what programs your animal’s doctor participates in.
Another thing that you will want to be aware of when you are shopping for the best pet insurance plan for you is that some cover just illness and some cover both illnesses and accidents. The reason this is important is you need to know what types of situations your pet will be covered under the policy. A pet insurance plan that only covers accidents will do you no good if you animal gets sick.
Personally, I think that the best pet insurance policies are the comprehensive plans. These will cover your animal for bother illness and injury. Besides illness and injury you will be able to get benefits it your pet is lost or stolen. Some will even help you pay for any property damage claims that might be cause by your pet. Most pet owners do not know that under certain laws they are liable for any damages that they pet causes to anyone personal property. A comprehensive plan will make sure you are covered in these scenarios.
Buying pet insurance does not need to be a difficult process. It is very similar to insurance that you probably have for yourself and your family. As always, make sure you get as much information as possible and make sure that you get the best pet insurance policy for you money.
Banfield Offer Your Pet Insurance and Piece of Mind
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Pet Insurance and Piece of Mind From Banfield
If you are a pet owner, you are surely aware of Banfield Animal Hospital and some of the services that they provide. Their hospital is a huge success story and a unique business that provides a valuable, easy to access service to all pet owners. Banfield’s pet insurance policies come from the animal hospitals desire and commitment to pet owners to make sure that their animals stay healthy through the use of regular scheduled preventative visits for your pet. Banfield pet insurance is not something that you buy, rather a way for you to monitor you pet’s health and ensure that they live a long and healthy life.
In 1955, Banfield Animal Hospital was founded in Portland, Oregon. It immediately became recognized for the devotion to pet and their owners. Banfield has an impeccable reputation in this area. Over time the hospital become well known for its ability to treat pets and communicate effectively with their owners. They also were able to control the expenses involved in helping pet owners make sure their animals stayed healthy through preventative care. They were soon known as the premier pet care in the country.
Banfield Animal Hospital Expands
While their reputation was being built and people began recognizing Banfield its high quality pet care big, national companies and organizations begin watching them. It didn’t take long before Petsmart approached Banfield and asked that they team with them to provide quality animal care throughout the country in their stores. Banfield seized this opportunity began opening animal hospitals throughout the country.
Banfield is now opening almost 80 pet hospitals a year and they do not appear to be slowing. Pet owners love the service and the quality of care that their pets receive. If you are looking to a great alternative to traditional veterinarian care at a low cost, please check out Banfield Animal Hospitals superior service at your local Petsmart. Your pet and your wallet will thank you.
ASPCA Pet Insurance Plans
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ASPCA Pet Insurance Plans
The ASPCA was established in 1866. It was created to serve as a humanitarian society. The main goal of the ASPCA is to protect animals against a number of cruelties and injustices. These include:
- Abuse
- poisoning
- animal rescue
The ASPCA has also been the top organization of veterinary care for the past 150 years. Recently, the ASPCA has begun offering a pet insurance plan. This plan is quite different from most of the other plans and policies available to pet owners today.
Things to Consider
The pet insurance plans offered by the ASPCA offer one of the highest reimbursement rates on the market. Their policy offers nearly 80% coverage on all claims that involve veterinary care and expenses. They also offer one of the simplest claim filing procedures. The entire process is done by simply filling out an online form and they payment is sent to you. The pet insurance policy offered by the ASPCA covers pet owners in the US or Canada on any visit to any licensed vet. Another great perk that the ASPCA offers to its pet owner is a 10% discount if you enrollment multiple pets in your household.
ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Plans
The ASPCA offers a number of excellent plans that can accommodate any pet owner. Their pet insurance policies have increasing levels of coverage that can be customized to fit your needs. The ASPCA is so serious about providing you the optimal pet insurance coverage that it actually conducted a number of research project before they designed these plans. This research provided them with the information they needed to make sure that they could satisfy every type of pet owner’s special needs. A great example of this one of their basic packages, the Safety Plan which simply covers your pet from costs that any accident might cause. It also covers your animal against poisonings as well. It is designed as a safety precaution for all cats and dogs regardless of their breed, age or existing health conditions that they may have.
Another plan that is offered is the Primary Plan. This plan will cover your pet against accidents as well illnesses. This plan adds on the Safety Plan by extending coverage to your pets with a number of medical benefits like:
prescription medications, diagnostic procedures, surgical intervention, hospitalization, x-rays, lab tests or dental services
The ASPCA also offer what they call the Sterling Plan. This plan is the most expensive pet insurance plan that they offer. This plan extends on the previous two by including coverage for long term health problems as well. This can protect your animal later in life.
Finally the Advantage Plan. With the Advantage Plan your pet is protected with the injuries and routine wellness check ups as well. This includes your pets recommended yearly check ups as well as tests and heart worm diseases.
Benefits of AKC Pet Insurance
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Benefits of AKC Pet Insurance
Most people look to the AKC as an authority when it comes to their pets. It is no different with insurance plans for pets either. Similar to a health insurance policy that you may have for your and your family, policies underwritten by the AKC will have many options that you can choose. This will let you customize your policy to make sure you are getting the benefits that are important to you. As with other types of insurance programs the price that you will pay will be determined by the options and types of coverage that you choose.
Essential Plan
The Essential Plan may be the just what you need if you are just looking to obtain the most basic level of coverage. This means that your pet will be covered for any “unplanned” events.
Examples of these “unplanned events” include:
- Injuries
- Illness
- Accidents
Regular checkups and general wellness care on your dog at your vet are not covered under this policy. The essential plan also carries of deductible of 10%. That means that you will be required to pay 10% of the bill before your benefits will be applied.
Essential Plus
The Essential Plus plan is offered by the AKC as an add-on to the benefits that they provide under their insurance benefits. It has a deductible of $125 per year. This means that you will have to pay the first $125 of bills from your pocket before the insurance policies benefits will be applied. The Essential Plus does not carry any wellness coverage with it. So like the Essential Plan, regular check-ups and office visits to the vet are not covered.
Wellness Plan
The Wellness Plan offered by AKC Pet Insurance offers the dog owner a higher overages for the incidents covered under the Essential Plan. Like the Essential Plus plan it carries a yearly deductible of $125.
Wellness Plus
The Wellness Plus policy covers everything that the Wellness Plan policy does and includes a benefit to cover charges to get your dog spay or neutered.
Pet Insurance Comparison
The Essential Plan covers $1500 less than the Essential Plus plan. This means that if your pet is injured badly you will receive more money from your pet insurance plan.
The Essential Plan has a $125 per incident out of pocket deductible, where the Essential Plus pet insurance plan has $125 per year deductible. This can make a huge difference in your costs if you have an accident prone dog like I do.
On the other hand, if we compare between Wellness Plan and Essential Plan, we can see that Wellness Plan offers more benefits including yearly physical health checkups, vaccinations and boosters, heartworm testing and management, yearly parasite and de-worming management, annual dental cleaning as well as flea and tick management.
Wellness offers $3,500 and $2,000 more coverage per incident and policy term respectively. However, Wellness Plan costs more compared to Essential Plan. If we compare between Wellness Plan and Essential Plus plan, we can see that Wellness offers $1,500 and $2,000 more coverage on incident and over policy term respectively. But the deductible and co-insurance value are just same for each plan.
The Wellness Plus policy gives the owner the same coverage as the Wellness Plan but adds the benefits of being able to spay or neuter your animal. If you have a dog that you don’t plan on having that done to, then just go with the Wellness plan.
Make sure that you choose the plan that fits your lifestyle, budgets and needs or your dog and you. There are many great pet insurance plans offered by the AKC.
