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Pet Insurance?

DebAnders

New member
I have a newly adopted 4 year old Blenheim boy cavtiny in good health - no indication of heart issues or other medical problems in his past. I'm investigating health insurance for him to help defray some of the anticipated expenses we may encounter as he ages. I've looked at three plans: PetPlan, VPI, Embrace and Pet First. Have any of you had good or bad experiences with pet insurance and these providers?
 
Hi,
I have PetPlan for my three. I think it may be a little more expensive than some others (although I'm not sure) but everytime I have called or dealt with them in any way, they have been great! Very helpful.
 
We have Petplan, and they have been wonderful. (In the States.) In fact, the person who established the company has Cavaliers. They allow for any hereditary conditions (beware of VPI and some others who will disallow inherited types of conditions based on breed.) Of course, you would want to insure before you had any investigated any specific pre-existing health conditions.

Anyway, we have already made some large claims, including an MRI and Myringotomy for PSOM. All charges were promptly paid, minus our deductible, and I even got email updates from their company wanting to know if I was happy with their response to my claims, and showed concern as to know how my girl was doing. We may have to re visit some of these specialists, as symptoms are returning, possibly indicating SM. :( Anyway, I know that whatever my babies need, we will be able to care for them without a constant worry of mounting vet bills. We can easily take care of the usual expenses, but it is nice knowing that we will not be tens of thousands of dollars in debt down the road if things continue to happen.
 
we, (me, pauline and brian) have axa, i have only just joined them and about to test them out, pauline's dylan has sm and says they are brilliant, brian recommended them to pauline originally so he is obviously plesed with them, on that basis i plumped for them. di
 
Ive signed Jelly Tots up with Axa too on brians advice:)
If its good enough for Poppy,Daisy & Rosie then its good enough for Jelly!;)
Ruby is with PDSA & i had to keep her on that at renewal due to pre existing conditions. I stupidly had her on a lower cover to start with & have now increased that, altho her pre exists are only on the old lower amount which is still better than moving her to another where they wouldnt be covered at all (my how i wish id found this forum earlier!)
Im about to find out how good they are by putting in our 1st claim:xfngr:
 
Jasper is with Petplan I have never made a claim, until now, I will let you know how good I'll find them. Gabby is with Axa, she as a pre existing condition which I know is exempt, I choosed Axa for her because of other members good views.
 
I have Embrace Pet Insurance. I love them! They are so personable and caring. You receive an email from an actual person, not a mass generated one! They are very helpful on the phone, where you-once again get a HUMAN! Which these days isn't the norm! They also do not exclude genetic or breed specific issues. That is why I went with them. After all the research, they seemed to get the highest rating. There is a website that reviews pet insurance plans, www.petinsurancereview.com, that I found very helpful! Good luck!
 
We have Petprotect. We recently made a BIG claim when Leo was kept in hospital for 6 days then had an MRI. They paid up straight away.....no quibble.
They even sent me a letter to say it was all paid and they hoped Leo was feeling better. It was a personal touch but I really liked it:wggle:

Mel
 
I have PetPlan and have been pleasantly surprised. The dogs had dentals back in February and the receptionist suggested filing a claim. I didn't think dentals were covered....and was astonished to receive a check for $900!!! One dog was covered and one wasn't (due to the amount of time lapsed since last dental) and found that extractions were covered.
 
I have Embrace and have had great experiences with them, including the huge emergency vet bill that we had when Pixie died.
 
Henry signs up with Pet Plan

Thank you all for your stories and input. Based on your favorable experiences I did purchase an insurance policy for Henry with Pet Plan. Let's hope he never needs it :eek:
 
Just as an FYI, some companies only operate in certain countries, and countries with the same name can be entirely independently run and owned in different countries and will not have the same policies. This is the case for example with PetPlan -- it is originally a UK company and the US PetPlan is a wholly owned and *separate* franchise; the Canadian PetPlan is separate again. The Irish PetPlan has different policies than the UK PetPlan (though they are broadly similar).

So when looking for insurance, be sure to get information on the individual company in one's own country. (y)

I've been very happy with PetPlan in Ireland, which is currently owned by Allianz. I believe there's now a second company in the market but don't know anything about it.
 
The new irishcompany is petinsure.ie
I have my pair insured with them. I have not had any claims with them yet though so cant comment on that but if I ever do i'll let you know ;)
 
Everyone who posted seem to be proponents of getting insurance but I'm just curious, does anyone here advocate not getting pet insurance for cavs?

I.e., in the case of the average cavalier who doesn't suffer any major issues, would health insurance simply be an expensive luxury, or something that will most probably pay back itself over time?
 
I have 3 Cavaliers and do not have insurance on any of them. I weighed the cost vs benefits, and in MOST cases it is a better investment not to get insurance. The reality is, though, you just never know what your dog's future health holds. That's what insurance is for, really; the unknown.

If you are someone who carries top-of-the-line health insurance on yourself and your family, then I would imagine you would want your pet insured. I am one of those who has the "bare bones" health insurance...the "just in case there's a real emergency" coverage. So I am more of a gambler.

When something does come up, however, it's always easier to say "do it" when you don't have to worry about how much it will cost. ;)
 
We also don't have insurance. When we got Max we thought seriously about the cost/vs. benefit and how much Mindy and our Golden had cost in vet bills (quite minimal) and decided against it. If one of the dogs does end up having a serious condition I may certainly regret the decision but it was a one that we put a lot of thought into.
 
Thanks, Chloe and Mindy. I got a couple of online quotes from some US insurance companies. Looks like it'll be US$25-35 per month for the coverage I would get, if I were to get any. Wasn't able to get quotes from a couple of sites because the puppy's not 8 weeks yet (though I guess I could have just changed his birthdate to get a quote now that I think about it). More research to do sigh!
 
I must say that before I had my Cavaliers I had two dogs that weren’t pedigrees and I had insurance for them. Back then I never even thought about life time cover and the insurance was basic and cheap. They both lived to a ripe old age of 15 and I never used my insurance. So this time round I wondered if I should bother about insurance, then I learned about all the problems cavaliers can encounter and thanks to this forum I thought that a cheap insurance won’t be enough and I choose the life time cover. And thank god I did as I found out that my Ebony has a heart murmur with the age of 2 ½ . The vet said that if it would be another breed having a heart murmur with 2 ½ he be worried but he said this is a cavalier, it is expected. It’s not costing me nothing at the moment but I know there will be the time where I need to spend the money and I am glad I can give her the best possible treatment there is because I don’t have to worry about how much it going to cost me.
Everybody got their own opinion but I am glad I have got insurance.
 
we, (me, pauline and brian) have axa, i have only just joined them and about to test them out, pauline's dylan has sm and says they are brilliant, brian recommended them to pauline originally so he is obviously plesed with them, on that basis i plumped for them. di


I too have AXA and they have been excellent. They paid out promptly for all Sally's costly cardiac investigations at Leahurst and have also been great to communicate with via post and on the telephone. I would definitely recommend this company to UK members.
 
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