The Importance of Pet Insurance
Within the past several years, pet insurance has become much more common! As veterinary professionals, we love it when owners have pet insurance. Pet insurance is exactly what it sounds like - an insurance policy for your pet’s medical care!
Pet insurance policies vary in coverage options, but most are set up to cover unexpected illness and accidents. Some companies will even cover standard preventative care such as vaccinations! Similarly to human insurance policies, pets can have pre-existing conditions as well. We recommend insuring your pet as soon as you possibly can! Long term coverage is typically more affordable when it is obtained prior to any pre-existing conditions.
One major difference between human health insurance and pet health insurance is that most pet insurance companies do require the pet owner to pay in full at the time of service. The owner is then reimbursed from the insurance company for any charges. This is why we also recommend CareCredit for use in tandem as it can cover those unexpected costs until the insurance reimburses you!
Many medical hospitals offer wellness plans. This is different from pet insurance, as it will only cover certain items at certain hospitals. Even if you have a wellness plan somewhere, we do recommend having pet insurance in case a medical condition is not covered in this plan or if an ER trip is ever needed!
How do you get pet insurance? It’s very simple! You can check with your current insurance provider to see if they offer pet insurance- companies such as Nationwide do have policies available for pets! There are also many insurance companies that are for pets only, such as Embrace, Lemonade, & Pumpkin. Here at Vets to Pets, we LOVE Pumpkin and cannot recommend their policies enough! You can check out their website here for more information: