Nowadays, you can insure almost everything and anything. People can insure their lives, their body parts, their equipment, their homes and yes, even their pets. Pet health insurance has really been making a statement over the past few years. Celebrities, politicians, tycoons and regular citizens have been self insuring their pets to avoid financial turmoil in the future but do you really need to get one?
Well, in a nutshell yes. Because of al the benefits and you are getting it's ridding yourself of futures worries that you may encounter about your pet in the future. But don't just jump in and get the first one you'll see. Know the facts and get help from people who know. Here are some tips on choosing what is right for your pet.
Tips for choosing pet insurance
To ensure that you will be getting the right kind of insurance for your pet without putting so much toll in your budget, here are some useful tips to get by:
1. Comparing the different prices. The very first thing that you would have to consider when planning to enroll your pet in a pet insurance policy is the price. Some companies may offer the same price as the other but the coverage may vary greatly. There are some low cost comprehensive policies that are wiser to get.
2. Excesses cost you more than you may know. Some people who are newbies to pet policies often fall prey to the excess. The excess is the amount that you have to pay when making a certain claim. Some companies lessen their expenses on claims by having high excesses. Now if you go for a cheap policy that has high excess pay you may end up paying more than what you intend to in the first place.
3. Lifelong coverage. Lifelong coverage is a term in insurance that is a little difficult to understand, but one thing is for sure "lifelong cover" does not mean Covered for life. To understand this concept better here are a few general ideas of it.
- Time capped. These are often the low cost plans, time capped means you are only covered for a certain condition for the first year and the rest is on your shoulders. Let's say that your pet developed a heart condition, you can claim the amount of money stated in your policy for your pet's first year of treatment, but after a year no more. The treatment for your pet's condition will be on your shoulders for the remainder of its life.
- Financially capped. Some companies call financially capped as lifelong cover but the truth is it really not. It's not even close to it. Financially capped is when the company agrees to pay your claim for X number of years but for a fixed amount. Let's say your dog has developed diabetes and you made your claim from the company. They will pay out a fixed amount, let's say 5,000 dollars. They paid 2,000 dollars on the first year, another 2,000 on the second year and 1,000 dollars on the third year but after that no more. After that, all of the succeeding expenses for your pet's treatment will be on you.
- Lifelong cover. In pet health insurance, this happens when the insurer pays you for your pet's treatment with a fixed amount, every year, for as long as the disease that it has plagues your pet.
