My Pet Insurance Comparison

It’s almost impossible to get a simple pet insurance comparison. The word simple is where the problems begin. First, you need to know the parameters of the insurance policy you want. You need to look at things like what services are covered, what percentage of the price does the insurance pay, what is the deductible, and what is the maximum amount that the insurance company will pay. There are more questions than that, but at least this should give us a place to start.

The good news is that all of the major pet insurance companies offer instant online quotes. All you have to do is enter some information about your pet – type of pet, breed, age – and you get a quote instantly. The bad news is that the insurance companies don’t offer exactly the same thing. Some of them pay 80% of the vet bill after the deductible has been met. Others offer a choice of 80%, 90% or even 100%. Most have annual maximums, some have per incident maximums.

To make a long story short, I couldn’t a policy that was offered by all of the companies, so I couldn’t do an apples to apples comparison. The best I could do was to price a policy with as close as I could get to a $100 deductible, a 20% copay and an annual maximum of $8,000. This was for accident and illness (not routine care) for a 7 year old Labrador Retriever in Southern California. The results are below.

Company Annual Per Incident Deductible Covered Premium
Pet Plan $8,000 N/A $100 80% $59.05
ASPCA $8,000 $1,500 $100 80% $27.52
VPI $9,000 $2,500 $50 90% $33.67
Pet’s Best N/A $7,000 $100 80% $42.97

I did notice some interesting things about the insurance companies I looked at.

Pet Plan seemed to have the best customization. You can choose the co-pay and the deductible, and they show you the benefits and premiums for all three available plans. They don’t have a per incident maximum, which is a major benefit. They say they pay 80% of what your vet charges – not what they deem reasonable and customary. They also cover hereditary conditions, which most don’t. This was the most expensive of the options I looked at, but the coverage is better too.

ASPCA has a low cap of $1,500 per incident of the plan I used in my comparison. . I suspect that bad news will come in one unexpected surprise – not several small ones, unless you have an older pet who might have a variety of problems. While the premium looks good, I think if you have a major issue, you’ll find yourself underinsured.

VPI publishes its benefit schedules right on its website. Most of the insurance companies reimburse based on what they deem reasonable fees for a particular treatment. VPI goes so far as to publish those fees so that you can compare them to what your veterinarian charges. They allow more for each procedure under the more expensive plans. So while it looks like they reimburse 90% of vet bills, I think they reimburse a lot less under their standard plan. This is probably true of the other companies as well. The only difference is that you won’t find out what they consider reasonable and customary until your claim is submitted.

Pet’s Best doesn’t have an annual maximum. Instead they have a lifetime max per pet. But they do have a per incident maximum, which was $2,500 on the basic plan. I chose to include their Pets First plan in my comparison, since the per incident max of $7,000 approximates the $8,000 annual max that I was shooting for.

As I went through this process, I started out looking for the lowest prices. You can get a very inexpensive policy, but it will cover a very limited amount of expenses. My goal is not to reduce my costs on normal vet bills. It’s to protect myself from huge unexpected vet bills. When I started looking at per incident maximums, I quickly moved up to a pricier, but better policy. In many cases, the premium didn’t increase that much, considering what I was getting for it. There are some expenses that all of the insurance companies exclude, like pre-existing conditions and hereditary problems. These are the very problems that can quickly run into thousands of dollars. The only way to protect yourself against surprises like these is to be self-insured.

On the other hand, I don’t want to buy insurance for routine care. I can afford vaccines, spaying, etc. These are relatively low expenses that I know about. And if I run across a surprise problem that costs $150, that’s fine. I’d rather take my chances on these smaller expenses.

Overall, I think pet insurance is affordable for what you get. The prices I listed are for pretty decent insurance – not the lowest priced plans. Forty bucks a month doesn’t seem like that much. I spend more than that on dog food, treats and toys each month! You need to carefully consider what you’re looking to achieve with a pet insurance policy and then find one that meets your needs. Don’t be afraid to price out a different plan. You might find that you get a lot more coverage for a little more money, or that you save a lot in premiums for going with a slightly higher deductible.

It’s not possible to compare prices because the insurance companies don’t offer the exact same product. Probably the best strategy is to price out what you want with each company and make a table like the one above. Include the things that are important to you, like coverage for hereditary conditions if you have a purebred. Then select the one that meets your needs at the best price.