Pet Insurance Explained

To many families, a pet can bring love, companionship, and security to a home. With this relationship comes a responsibility on behalf of the pet owner to provide for their pet's proper veterinary care; whether it's a routine check up or emergency care. That's where pet insurance comes into play.

In fact, we're going to talk about two types of pet insurance that all pet owners should seriously consider: pet health insurance, and pet liability insurance. We're also going to discuss each of these two types of pet insurance policies separately, and for a very practical reason. Pet liability insurance is often included as part of your homeowners insurance policy. Pet health care insurance carriers specialize in the medical care / veterinarian segment of the insurance industry.

Pet Health Insurance

Additional Resources

Regardless of whether you've purchased your pet from an expert breeder or adopted from a local center, all pets should see a veterinarian for an initial examination. These initial visits can run anywhere from $50 to $250 depending on where you live, and the extent of the medical services provided.

Most pets will then require regularly scheduled follow up visits to a veterinarian as part of a well-care program that includes vaccinations, immunizations, as well as routine medical examinations. The point here is that the cost of providing routine pet health care can add up. If you add to this the unplanned costs that can occur from accidents and illnesses, then you quickly realize why there is a steady and growing demand for health insurance that covers pets.

Pet Health Care Coverage

To protect themselves from the high cost of pet care, many owners are turning to pet health insurance plans or pet health care coverage. These insurance plans cover both the costs of routine health care as well as the cost for medical care administered due to illness.

Typical health care coverage for your pet contained in this type of insurance includes:

Routine and emergency veterinarian office visits
Pet hospitalization
Prescription medications
Diagnostic medical tests
X-ray examinations
Surgeries
Heartworm protection
Spaying and neutering
Laboratory fees
Vaccines and immunizations

Selecting Pet Insurance

Whenever you're considering buying insurance, you need to make sure you read all the fine print when comparing policies. As is the case with other types of insurance, pet health care insurance policies typically include:

Annual Spending Caps - while some health care policies carry lifetime maximums, or caps on payments made, pet insurance often carries annual spending caps.
Deductibles and Copayments - you'll find that pet insurance typically comes with deductibles or copayments that are higher than you might be used to seeing with an HMO. For example, pet health care insurance carriers may charge deductibles in the area of $50 per visit.

You'll find that the best pet insurance carriers will clearly spell out the terms and conditions of the policies they have to offer. Make sure you understand the details of any policy before you start paying your monthly premiums.

Pet Health Care Insurance Cost

If you think pet health care insurance is too expensive, then you might be pleasantly surprised to find the monthly insurance premiums are very reasonable. A quick stop to VPI pet insurance allowed us to obtain health insurance quotations for both a dog and a cat.

Example Pet Insurance Costs

Costs will vary according to the plan selected, but typical health insurance premiums for a dog will be around $25 per month, while health care insurance premiums for a cat are in the range of $20 per month.

Keep in mind that these premium quotes are for what's assumed to be a relatively young and healthy dog or cat. It may be expensive or impractical to obtain health care insurance for animals with pre-existing health conditions.

Pet Liability Insurance

The second type of pet insurance we're going to discuss has to do with pet liability insurance. Every pet owner, especially dog owners, needs to carefully consider purchasing liability insurance for several very good reasons.

The first and foremost reason for considering this type of insurance has to do with the simple fact that dogs do bite. Each year, nearly five million people in the U.S. alone are bitten by dogs. The liability payments associated with these accidents approaches one billion dollars annually.

The second reason for carrying this type of pet insurance is because it helps to protect those that are around the pet most frequently. That means protecting friends and relatives from the expense associated with a dog-related injury.

Finding Pet Liability Insurance

In the past, it was pretty easy to find pet liability insurance. Typical renters and homeowners insurance policies provided victims of dog bites with $100,000 in coverage. However, the insurance industry has been slowly moving away from providing this type of pet insurance automatically within a homeowner's policy.

Today's new insurance policies may actually exclude bites and injuries caused by dogs, while other insurance carriers are beginning to eliminate this coverage from their existing policies. In addition, a more common tactic of an insurance company might be to identify certain breeds of dogs that have been associated with these types of injuries and excluding them from coverage.

The bottom line here is that pet owners, especially dog owners, should make sure their insurance policy provides them with the protection they need. If you own a dog, and your existing insurance policy explicitly denies this liability coverage, then you may want to switch to an insurance carrier that does provide you with this coverage.

Finally, we're going to finish up with the same warning we gave earlier when talking about pet health care insurance policies. Read your policies so that you have a good understanding of what's covered, and what's not covered. You don't want to be surprised when you're filing an insurance claim.

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