If you have any pets it would be worthwhile considering taking out a Pet Care Insurance policy, as it pays for the veterinary costs if your pet should become sick or suffer an injury in an accident of any kind. Policies can also pay out if your pet dies, or if it is lost or stolen.
Benefits of Pet Insurance
However the main reasons for us buying pet care insurances are to remove or reduce the cost and help lesson the heartache that pet guardians will have to endure whenever something happens to their pet. If you’re not covered you may face paying an unexpected and very expensive veterinary bill. Pets are more often regarded to as part of the family nowadays and their owners are less likely to want to let them go if they do suffer illness or injury. And so because of veterinary medicine becoming increasingly expensive it has become imperative (if your pet is important to you) that we take out some sort of insurance that will cover the high cost that are incurred by the vet.
Insurance policies in the UK will usually payout 100% the fees incurred by the vets for the treatment to your pet. Where as policies in the USA usually only offer to pay about 80-90% of the costs minus a $50-100 charge which is deductible depending on the insurer and their specific policies. Usually the pet guardian will pay the full amount for the treatment directly to the Vet itself, and then send in a claim form to their insurer to reclaim what is owed to them, which with some companies and policies are limited according to their own schedule of necessary and usual charges. If there is a situation where the bill is very high, some veterinarian practices will allow the owner to be able to delay the payment of their bill until their claim to the insurance company is processed and paid. Some providers such as Direct Line Pet Insurance will also arrange to pay veterinarians directly on behalf of customers.
What Does Pet Insurance Cover?
It used to be that most pet insurance plans did not pay for preventative care such as vaccinations or elective procedures such as neutering. However some companies in the UK and US (i.e. Pet Plan & Direct Line Pet Insurance, in the UK, and VPI, in the US) are now offering routine care coverage as well in their policies.
In addition, companies often limit coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, thus giving owners an incentive to insure even very young animals who are not expected to incur high veterinary costs while they are still healthy.