Pet insurance is often written off as an unnecessary expense until you wish you had it. Let’s look at some of the biggest benefits of pet insurance. We’ll also discuss what it takes to see these benefits of pet insurance.
Accidental Injury Coverage
Many people get pet insurance for unexpected bills, because they don’t want to be financially unable to provide critical care to their pet. For example, no one wants to have to euthanize an animal after an accident because they can’t afford to pay for X-rays, surgery and other major bills. Fortunately, accidental injury is the cheapest type of coverage you can get. And it is included in the most affordable pet insurance policies.
Illness Coverage
Illness coverage kicks in when your pet gets severely ill. Note that it won’t pay for illnesses that would be prevented by proper vaccination and preventative medication like heartworm pills. You may or may not get coverage for over-the-counter items like flea and tick collars or heartworm medication. That may be covered by a comprehensive pet insurance policy. Or the insurer may simply offer it to policy holders for a discount through a bulk-buying program.
Preexisting Conditions Coverage
If your pet already had an existing problem, pet insurance typically won’t cover it. For example, most pet insurance policies will not cover tendon and joint problems for 6 to 12 months after the policy starts. This is intended to prevent people from signing up for coverage and then tapping into the insurance policy to pay for surgery. Insurance policies rarely cover diabetes in pets, either. You may not be able to get pet insurance for birth defects that are common in your pet’s breed. In other cases, you may get coverage if you pay for puppy insurance as soon as the animal is born and the problem manifests at some point.
Suppose your animal contracted an illness before the insurance policy went into effect. You may not be able to get coverage for a re-occurrence or relapse of that same disease for a set period of time.
Chronic Conditions
Chronic conditions may or may not be covered by pet insurance. This is generally not covered if the animal already had it unless you pay for comprehensive pet insurance or take out an additional rider to cover the issue. Then the pet insurance will pay for your pet’s insulin.
Pet insurance often stops covering everything for pets beyond a certain age, because they have too many chronic conditions. The treatments available to you to treat chronic conditions and their aftermath may be limited, too. For example, the pet insurance may pay for insulin for your pet but not a cat kidney transplant. Your dog might be eligible for anti-anxiety drugs but they probably won’t cover pet acupuncture.
Preventative Care
Preventative care may or may not be covered by your pet insurance policy. If the policy does cover it, it typically limits how many visits you can have each year and the type of care you can receive. Vaccinations may or may not be covered for puppies, but your insurer won’t cover preventable illnesses that arise because you didn’t get them vaccinated.
