HOOK UP WITH FRIENDS: pet insurance
Showing posts with label pet insurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pet insurance. Show all posts

The Importance of Pet Insurance Comparisons To Help Get The Best Plan

It is important to do pet insurance comparisons if you are looking to purchase coverage for your family pet. Every company that offers pet insurance has basic and premium packages to choose from. The deductibles will vary between packages and within each company. The total price of the insurance plan will vary depending on the features, the deductible, the breed, the age, and the overall heath of the pet. Usually a full feature plan will cost less than $100 a month, and a bare minimum plan can cost around $10 a month.

If you are shopping for a top of the line insurance plan, you can expect the monthly payment to be around $80 a month. And in some areas this plan usually has a $100 deductible that will cover accidents and illness. The insurance carrier will usually pay 80% of the costs including, preventive care, vaccinations, yearly check-up, dental care, and spay and neutering. The benefits of a premium plan are that they do not consider chronic-illness to be a "pre-existing" condition and does not exclude the pet from any coverage.

If you are looking for a less costly pet insurance plan, you can usually find a plan that has a $50 deductible for injury and illness. These plans usually pay 100% of the costs up to about $15,000. They also pay out for other things that are not included under injury or illness such as, the cost of placing a lost pet ad, compensation if you cannot find your pet, and kennel fees.

A more practical plan is one that costs about $25 a month, and has a $125 deductible for all injuries and illness. Once the deductible has been met, the owner will only have to pay 10% of the bill. For just a few more dollars a month, you can have a $50 deductible with the same coverage, and can add cancer coverage for an additional fee.

The least costly pet insurance plan will cost you about $6 a month and only covers accidents that may happen to your pet, illnesses are not covered. The carrier will usually pay 80% of the cost, and there is a $200 deductible. So as you can see, the lower your monthly payment the higher your deductible and the less percentage that the carrier will pay.

With these pet insurance comparisons, you can see that coverage for your pet varies just like coverage for your family. You can customize any plan to fit your specific needs. You can either compare them online, or you can ask your veterinarian if they recommend a certain insurance company.

Owning Dog Liability Insurance Is Essential If You Enjoy Keeping Your Assets

How much thought have you given to dog liability insurance? If you own a dog breed that is notorious for aggression like Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, Dalmatians, and others, there's always the possibility that something could happen...no matter how well trained you think your dog is.

Having dog liability insurance could mean the difference between getting caught in a legal and financially straining mess and having peace of mind.

While the usual homeowner's policies cover most dogs and the problems that come with them, many of them exclude the breeds mentioned above, as well as some others. By owning these dogs and not being protected from devastating bites, digging, and even unprovoked attacks, you could be leaving yourself very vulnerable to devastating lawsuits.

In this article you will learn why having dog liability insurance is so critical, what the costs are, and where you can go to get the cheapest and most comprehensive insurance for your loved one.

Don't leave yourself exposed...

It's a fact that many apartments don't even allow you to own certain breeds while living in their complex. These breeds include Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, Doberman Pinschers, wolf breeds, Akitas, and sometimes Dalmatians, some Terriers, and others.

Even mix breeds of these dogs aren't allowed. The reason for this is simple - these dogs are a liability because of their aggressive nature. They don't want to be sued by other tenants or even people walking through where they get into a skirmish with the dogs.

The owners of these dogs can swear up and down about how well they've trained them or how nice they are, but ultimately, the dog's instincts can kick in and within a few seconds disaster can happen. Sometimes it's beyond our control.

That's also why homeowner's insurance policies don't cover these breeds. By owning these dogs you expose yourself to costly lawsuits...this is the plain and simple truth, no matter how much you feel otherwise.

How much does it cost?

Typical dog liability insurance can run anywhere from $8 to $12 a month. They, of course, can be higher depending on how dangerous they consider your dog, where you live, and what the local laws are. If your dog actually has bitten someone in the past, thus raising the dog's liability, then in some cases insurance could cost as much as $85 a month. This is the exception so the lower amount is a good estimate to shoot for.

You can expect to be covered for most types of dog aggression such as dog bites, and emotional damage by unprovoked attacks. The coverage can reach up to $100,000 and higher with deductibles as low as $1000.

Considering the cost of a potential lawsuit, getting dog liability insurance is a very smart investment, especially if you know that your dog has aggressive tendencies and you want to protect yourself.

Where to find the cheapest insurance...

There are many places where you can find low cost dog liability insurance, but you also don't want to get sucked into a seemingly good deal and wind up paying too much for a small amount of coverage.

If you do an online search, you'll be able to find websites that offer the best price comparison on this specific type of coverage (you have to remember that this is a specialty coverage and many companies don't even offer it).

You'll be able to find decent prices and will be able to compare things based on your location, your dog's breed, your dog's history, and other things. Consider the fact that, while as unfortunate as it is, people are sue-happy, especially if they can get someone in a "dangerous dog" suit. Make sure that you're protected with dog liability insurance so you can have peace of mind and be able to enjoy dog ownership to the fullest.

Affordable Pet Insurance: Is It Available and Is It Worth It?

Finding affordable pet insurance can be a painful process, especially if you don't know where to look. You know as a pet owner that insurance is important because of how expensive emergency vet visits can be...as well as regular checkups. Yes, those can accumulate very quickly right under your nose, and when you tally up the year's expenses they can be very surprising.

In this article you will learn exactly why getting pet insurance is a smart investment and where you can go to get it for very affordable prices.

Don't put yourself in this position...

If you've been in the unfortunate position of having to choose between saving your pet's life and paying for their medical expenses, then you know all too well what I'm talking about. This is a terrible decision to have to make, especially when your kids are crying and you know that you don't have the money to pay over $1000 in vet bills for a necessary or even emergency operation.

What do you do? Do you explain to your kids - and to yourself - that it's just the pet's time and that this is what's supposed to happen, or do you pay the bill and sacrifice in order to save your pet's life? This shouldn't have to be such a dramatic and moral decision.

<>There's a much better option...

This option is finding affordable pet insurance. You see, just like health insurance for people, insurance for pets works the same way. It protects them for possible diseases, accidents, and necessary operations - you know, the unfortunate and unpredictable - that come up beyond our control.

It does cost money, but far less than what you'd expect to have to pay to protect your pet's life.

How much does it cost?

You can find affordable pet insurance. In fact, most of them range from $8 to $20 a month depending on your pet's breed, age, gender, health history, and a few other factors. Just so you know, dogs are usually the most expensive animal to insure, as expected by their activity levels and their size.

You can expect to pay co-pays when visiting the vet for regular check-ups. You can also expect to pay a deductible when going for emergency visits and scheduled surgeries. Just like regular health insurance, the lower the co-pays and deductibles, the higher the premiums.

This is something you will ultimately have to decide on when price comparing. How much would you be willing to pay upfront in case of an emergency? This will help you get a lower price when you are ready.

Where can I find the most affordable pet insurance?

I've personally asked my vet and looked all over the internet for the best deals and have found very affordable rates for my small dog. She's a mixed breed, small, and hasn't gotten really sick, so I don't have to spend more than $10 a month to cover her. But I may have had to if I didn't do my research.

Luckily there are sites online where you can compare prices among quite a few different insurers. It's easy to put in your dog's criteria, your location, and the range of co-pays and deductibles you're comfortable with, and to get instant quotes right on your screen. You can then get in touch with the insurers you are the most interested in. It really made my search a breeze.

I have to admit that I was the type of pet owner that believed my dog would never get sick and that I didn't have to pay attention to finding affordable pet insurance. But after I had a friend who's dog died because they knew they couldn't afford the vet bill, I decided that I wasn't going to let that happen to me. Get pet insurance and give your family some peace of mind.
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Why Your Veterinarian Doesn’t Recommend Pet Health Insurance

OK, so that’s just a salacious title. Your veterinarian may well recommend pet health insurance. I do, so that makes … um … two of us. 

Okay, maybe I exaggerate. It’s clear that veterinarians increasingly buy into pet health insurance. When faced with very sick patients whose owners hold insurance policies for them, we breathe a sigh of relief. In our experience these clients more readily accept our recommendations to treat their pets. More and more of us see pet health insurance as a positive influence on patient care — not to mention out bottom lines. Yet even those of us who wholeheartedly endorse it tend to tread lightly on the subject, as if we’re well aware that we should be careful what we wish for. Heaven forbid that blue genie in the bottle should turn around and bite us in the butt once he’s freed.

Pet health insurance is something veterinarians have plenty of cause to contemplate; it’s just that the pet health insurance industry wishes we would do so more frequently and with greater dedication. They would have us recommend specific plans, carry brochures in our waiting rooms, dedicate a staff member as the "insurance rep," ask about insurance each time an appointment is scheduled or a client arrives, etc. So says a much-anticipated report issued this past January — just in time for the veterinary behemoth that was the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando.

My schedule being what it is, I just finished reading it this weekend. Titled, A Veterinarian’s Guide to Pet Health Insurance: How pet insurance affects the practice, the client and the patient, it does a pretty good job of explaining why pet insurance improves our patient care and props up our sagging bottom lines, all the while strongly insisting that pet insurance absolutely does not usher in the specter of managed care.

Back to that blue genie … managed care is what veterinarians fear. More than a new parvo pandemic or a feline form of bird flu, veterinarians in small animal practice shoulder extreme anxiety over the possibility that pet health insurance will one day approximate human HMOs and PPOs in their design. Where did we get this idea? When was the last time you waded through the human healthcare system with impunity? The authors of this report at the NCVEI (National Commission on Veterinary Economic Issues) absolutely refute this possibility. They swear up and down in a four-point list that pet health insurance, like dental insurance, will never go HMO. And if the dental model hasn’t gone to managed care, why should the veterinary version?

The possibility that the human healthcare model might ride in on a Trojan horse that looks on the surface like dental-slash-auto insurance is what many of us continue to fear. At least that’s the common excuse for effectively steering clear of pet health insurance as an exam room subject. But there are more issues. Even those of us who’ve gotten past the managed care melodrama have cause to consider the following points:

a) It’s not my job to push insurance — how tacky is that?


b) I’m not an expert in insurance so how can I advocate any one plan?

c) It’s the purview of the pet health insurance companies to market this stuff — why should I do their job for them?

d) If I do recommend a plan and my clients aren’t happy, how will that reflect on me?

e) Why should I take time out to discuss insurance when I get nothing for it?

f) All of the above.

I’m down with points a) through f). I get it. I struggle with the same rational arguments. But I still actively recommend pet health insurance. Why? My take is that if I believe that pet health insurance is something that, on balance, helps my clients access better care (which this publication helps make plain with its helpful data and parallels to the human dentistry model), then as a veterinarian it’s my duty to raise the issue.

Still, I recognize that my U.S. colleagues are extremely reluctant, far more so than in other countries. And, given this finding, it really does seem to be the HMO model that keeps veterinarians wringing their hands with angst. Yet it’s also clear to me that pet health insurance will never break into the mainstream within the next decade without the assistance of veterinary professionals. That’s why I welcome this publication. In spite of its suspiciously glowing spin on pet health insurance, its impressive recommendations for veterinary practice intervention and its pet insurance industry backers, I have to concede that in the end, if it’s legitimately investigated, independently written, and thoroughly credible, it’s one more real-world tool for helping veterinarians get past the managed care "ick" factor.

For now, however, the standoff between veterinarians and the pet health insurance industry continues unabated. This saga’s got more nuances than a Henry James novel. But, optimist that I am, I see a happy ending evolving somewhere within three to five years. That’s my prediction. And you can hold me to it.
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