Re: In your opinion: Why health insurance?

[Kodee]

I ordered PetCare Insurance and the VERY NEXT DAY Kingston had a major injury to his eye. His surgery cost $1700 dollars and PetCare paid the whole thing minus my $50 dollar deductible. It will take three years worth of my monthly premiums to add up to that amount! Getting insurance was one of the best things I could've done.

didnt you have a waiting period or did you nean after that?

[judy]

There's no waiting period for accidents, only illnesses. when i took zack to the er during the waiting period, they said they saw a foreign body in his stomach on the xray. that would've been covered but i did't pursue it because i don't think there really was a foreign body, i think he had worms.

[Linda'nQuincy]

I also just attempted to get a quote on line from Pet Plan and was told the insurance is not yet available in California.

[Shay]

I have now used my PetCare 3 times, all since Jan 5th. All for gastro. Yesterday's visit was $321.00 the other 2 both right at $100.00. I have now spent more than my annual premiums. I should get reimbursed for 70% after my deductible. So I'm glad I have it. Only problem is, I have $3,000 lifetime max for each illness, so I have already used $500.00 for gastro and she is only 5 mos. Can anyone tell me how long it takes for them to pay a claim? The first one was filed about 3 weeks ago.

Petplan is not available in my state, and when it is, if I switch, gastro will be considered pre-existing, so I don't know if it would be worth it.....what to do, what to do?????

[judy]

I have now used my PetCare 3 times, all since Jan 5th. All for gastro. Yesterday's visit was $321.00 the other 2 both right at $100.00. I have now spent more than my annual premiums. I should get reimbursed for 70% after my deductible. So I'm glad I have it. Only problem is, I have $3,000 lifetime max for each illness, so I have already used $500.00 for gastro and she is only 5 mos. Can anyone tell me how long it takes for them to pay a claim? The first one was filed about 3 weeks ago.

Petplan is not available in my state, and when it is, if I switch, gastro will be considered pre-existing, so I don't know if it would be worth it.....what to do, what to do?????

I would say i received my reimbursement checks around 3 weeks after submitting the claim. Did you fax it? The dates on the checks on all my reimbursements were the same as the day i faxed the claim--it looked like they printed the check the same day they got the claim. But it still took two to three weeks to get my check in the mail. i would probably call them if i were you and ask how long i should expect to wait for the reimbursement to come. On one of them, i started thinking it had been too long so i called them to ask about it and they confirmed that the check had been issued and told me the amount and told me it would be arriving soon.

In the case of PetCare, Zack had a whole month of colitis and vomiting during the 30 day waiting period so it wasn't covered and it turned into a pre existing condition and exclusion on my policy, but it was a temporary exclusion, not a permanent one, which means that after one year i can take him to a vet and have them document that there's no sign of GI illness, and submit that to PetCare and they will remove the exclusion. Or maybe i can just submit all my vet records from the past year and they will accept that to justify removing the exclusion. They understand that there can be different discrete GI conditions that are unrelated to each other, that's why it's a temporary exclusion rather than a permanent one. So, maybe PetPlan would also treat it as temporary and if Lily can go a year without having a GI condition noted in her records, you can have it be covered by PetPlan. You can call or email PetPlan and ask them.

I think that PetCare's lifetime limitations are per illness category, not per illness, which means that the $3000 will be used up by all GI claims combined (it would go farther if it were per illness). When i first got Zack, i signed up for the $3000 coverage, just assuming he was a healthy little puppy who would surely remain healthy for a couple of years at least, so why not keep my premiums down? Three weeks later i had a $424 ER bill plus mounting vet bills, and i could see how fast the $3000 could go, so i called them and switched to the $6000 after about the first month or so. I think the 30 day waiting period applies to that--so if i had gotten a $4000 vet bill during that 30 days for an illness, only $3000 would've been covered during those 30 days.[/img][/i]

[Shay]

I think that PetCare's lifetime limitations are per illness category, not per illness, which means that the $3000 will be used up by all GI claims combined (it would go farther if it were per illness).

Thanks for the info. Judy. I am deffinatley going to look in to Pet Plan if it ever gets here, we are usually last to get everything in this state, so I don't look for it anytime soon. Here's to hoping for healthy doggies.