What’s the best pet insurance?

Kittycool333

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I’ve been looking for pet insurance but it’s really overwhelming and I’m just wondering if any one has any good or bad experiences with a particular pet insurance
 

LTS3

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Pet insurance doesn't work like Human health insurance. You typically pay upfront for the vet bill and then submit the receipt to get reimbursed. Some services are 100% covered while others are only partially covered. Many pet insurance companies have a list of what they consider pre-existing health conditions and will not cover any expense if a pet is later diagnosed with one of the conditions on the list. Some won't even allow you to buy insurance if your pet currently has one of the listed conditions.

Take a look through these TCS threads for discussion on pet insurance, how to compare, which ones aren't good, etc: Search Results for Query: pet insurance

Some large employers offer pet insurance as an employee perk. Check with your HR department. It's usually a big name like VPI or Met Life.
 

suzeanna

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I got Nationwide pet insurance through my employer and had a very bad experience with them not covering my kitty's annual vet visit. I called and spoke to representatives several times, all of whom said it should be covered and that they'd help me challenge the rejected claim, etc., but it still kept getting rejected. Finally I spoke to someone who said the last 3 people were wrong and that it could never be covered. The issue was that they gave her a fluoxetine prescription as one outcome of the appointment so they said there was a behavioral diagnosis (except not really, it already existed), so the entire appointment "became medical" and none of it could be covered, not even the $100 exam fee. Finally they offered a refund of the last 5 months of the plan. It also took them literally 3 months to process the claim. I did a bunch of research and have Pumpkin now, and I will be submitting my first claim with them next week.
 

fionasmom

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I have ASPCA and have been happy with them. However, I was completely rattled by the most recent bill I had paid for my uninsured dog and when I found Jamie as a tiny kitten I instantly enrolled him. I have since enrolled two other cats, one being my avatar. I did not make an exhaustive search is my point.

A few point about pet insurance:

Enrolling an older animal will be more costly and the premium does sometimes go up with age regardless. Enrolling a young healthy animal is best.

It is not the ACA and all preexisting conditions are usually excluded. A few companies say they are not, but it is murky. Wellness, dental, and medical care may all be separate and so getting only medical will not pay for dental work or vaccines.

A little known point about pet insurance is that with most companies you need to stick with whatever your first enrollment was. If you call up, say a year later, and change the policy in any way it will usually create a new policy with exclusions of all the conditions for which your pet was treated. So, your pet was being treated for kidney disease but you now ask for a lower deductible which will now exclude kidney disease.

All pet insurance in the US is under the control of the state insurance commission and as such you can file complaints but that is no guarantee that you will win.

For me, it has been worth it. Jamie, who is only 4 and seemed the picture of health suffers from kidney disease and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The $500 I am getting back for all his ultrasounds has paid his premiums. Even if I had enrolled my old dog for the $100 per month that they wanted given all his conditions which would have been excluded, it would have saved me from the next big event which was cancer.
 

misterginja

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I got Nationwide pet insurance through my employer and had a very bad experience with them not covering my kitty's annual vet visit. I called and spoke to representatives several times, all of whom said it should be covered and that they'd help me challenge the rejected claim, etc., but it still kept getting rejected. Finally I spoke to someone who said the last 3 people were wrong and that it could never be covered. The issue was that they gave her a fluoxetine prescription as one outcome of the appointment so they said there was a behavioral diagnosis (except not really, it already existed), so the entire appointment "became medical" and none of it could be covered, not even the $100 exam fee. Finally they offered a refund of the last 5 months of the plan. It also took them literally 3 months to process the claim. I did a bunch of research and have Pumpkin now, and I will be submitting my first claim with them next week.
Hi suzeanna, would you be willing to share an update on how the process went with Pumpkin insurance? I was thinking to sign up with them this week but am so confused with who to finally choose, as each company has features I like and don't like. This has been harder than choosing insurance for myself!
 

suzeanna

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Hi suzeanna, would you be willing to share an update on how the process went with Pumpkin insurance? I was thinking to sign up with them this week but am so confused with who to finally choose, as each company has features I like and don't like. This has been harder than choosing insurance for myself!
It's been great! My kitty had a regular vet appointment and shots in July and they reimbursed me within literally a week. Their claim review time is just....amazing. and they didn't give me a hard time about approving it.
 

misterginja

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It's been great! My kitty had a regular vet appointment and shots in July and they reimbursed me within literally a week. Their claim review time is just....amazing. and they didn't give me a hard time about approving it.
That's great to hear, thanks for sharing! I signed up for it, they had the most features I was looking for.
 
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