We thought it would give us peace of mind having a pet insurance. I’m part of several dog / puppy facebook groups where people share how dogs can get into various troubles, or they could just have an unexpected illness, and that treatment or cure cost A LOT. I’ve also read comments by vets or vet techs in those groups who expressed sadness because some dogs are easily treatable but the parents can’t cover the cost of such treatment, which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if the dog has pet insurance.
We understood that there are several preventative things that our dog will go through in the first year of her life, along with spaying, therefore we started our search for one.
Our method was searching for “best pet insurance (insert year here)” e.g “best pet insurance 2022” on google. Some articles will have a summary of what companies they think are the best insurance, and why. Things we paid attention to include:
- What the annual deductible is, meaning how much money do we spend out of pocket before the company covers the cost.
- When the company covers the cost (after the deductible is met), how many percent of it do they cover. E.g: if a procedure costs $1000 and your policy says the company cover 50%, then they pay up to $500, and the parent pays the rest.
- What the maximum annual payout is. This is the ceiling of how much the company pays each year. If this ceiling is met, then the dog parent will always cover the cost, no matter how many percent coverage the policy states. Some policies do have unlimited maximum annual payout if this is something you’d like.
- Whether they accept pre-existing conditions.
We ended up purchasing our pet policy from Pets Best. I find they are affordable for our coverage. They do not accept pre-existing conditions, and they have the initial wait time before you can claim some things. Ask your agent before you enroll. We also took their preventative policy, which is perfect for a first year puppy.