- With such high cost,
pet owners may wanna look into pet health insurance,
to cover the costs of their pets health,
especially for this little guy here, right Cortez?
But like a lot of insurance,
pet health insurance can be a little confusing.
In this video, we are covering the ins and outs
of pet health insurance, and whether or not
it's beneficial for you and your fur baby.
(swoosh sound)
Hey guys, welcome back to The College Investor,
investing and personal finance for millennials.
Today we are going to be diving into pet health insurance,
what it is, what it covers and whether or not
it's right for you.
So first, let's start off with what is pet health insurance?
Pet health insurance is a type of property insurance
that protects the financial well being, of the pet owner.
Okay, a few key points about pet health insurance.
First is there's generally a deductible.
So the deductible is the amount of money that you pay
out of pocket before the insurance kicks in
and before your insurance company helps you pay
for a portion of those vet bills.
So for example, if you have a $500 annual deductible,
then you are responsible to pay $500 out of pocket
before that insurance coverage kicks in.
Now, once you do meet that deductible,
then you'll have coinsurance.
So coinsurance, is typically when your insurance provider
and you are both responsible for paying a portion
of your pet's vet bill.
Typically the insurance company will pay around 80%
of the bill and then you're still responsible
for that additional 20%.
And here's what's really surprising,
we found in the US that just 2% of dog owners
and a half percent of cat owners carry pet health insurance.
For as much as we love our pets,
it's actually really surprising that,
a majority of us are not carrying pet health insurance.
Okay, so what does pet health insurance cover?
There's typically three different buckets
in which pet health insurance is broken into.
The first is, wellness.
So this covers anything like, flea and tick treatments,
or annual vet visits.
The next is accident and illness coverage.
So emergency vet visits would be covered
under accident and illness.
If your cat gets stung by a bee,
or if your dog swallows some empty water balloons,
that may or may not have happened to my dog.
And then the third is comprehensive coverage,
which includes both the wellness and accident
and illness coverage.
There are plenty of health insurance companies out there,
that offer these types of coverages,
and the three biggest companies out there are Nationwide,
Trupanion, Healthypaws Pet Insurance Foundation,
and the marketplace for pet health insurance
is rapidly growing.
You may have even seen PetSmart's own pet health insurance
called, Banfield that's also a very popular one.
And then there's a lot of startup companies
coming into this marketplace,
including, PetsBest,
Embrace,
Figo,
Petfirst and Petplan.
Okay, so how much does pet insurance actually cost?
This really does depend on a variety of factors,
including, species.
So dogs actually cost more than cats unfortunately.
Then there's the age of the pet and breed,
certain breeds are more prone to illness than others,
and where you live that all factors into,
how much your pet and health insurance premium costs.
Now the average premium for accident and illness coverage,
is around $516 per year.
And for dogs this can vary, if you have a larger dog,
your premium's going to be more.
It ranges between $25 to $150 per month,
to cover the premium costs for a dog pet health insurance.
And for cats it's around $10 per month.
Okay, when you were thinking about
getting pet health insurance for your fur baby.
There are a ton of factors that you should consider
as you're researching and trying to figure out,
which coverage and plan is the best for your pet.
So a couple of different things to consider.
First, does this cover the right things.
In the US 98% of pet health insurance policy holders,
have accident and illness coverage.
Next you wanna ask yourself,
whether or not, rates will change in the future.
So rates could increase if your pet makes a claim
in a given year.
Then you'll wanna find out how does the coverage
treat chronic conditions,
especially if you have a pre existing condition
with your pet, it could mean that you have a higher premium.
You'll also wanna know what is the monthly premium costs.
So generally the higher premium that you pay,
the lower the coinsurance you'll have.
Next, you'll wanna find out, whether or not
there is a cap on insurance payouts
and what the pet owners share of coinsurance is.
And then you'll wanna figure out how that deductible is set.
So the deductible, could fluctuate between,
an annual deductible or a per incident deductible.
There is a difference between the two,
so you'll wanna find that out.
Then is there an age cutoff for pets typically,
you'll wanna really consider this if you have,
a senior dog or cat and you're trying to get
health insurance coverage for them.
I was really surprised to find out how few pet owners
actually carry pet health insurance.
I mean, most of us, aren't able to cover a $1,000
emergency vet visit without putting it on a credit card
or worse, going into credit card debt.
It's pretty cost beneficial to add pet health insurance,
especially if you really wanna take care
of your little fur babies like this little guy.
As long as you're shopping around for the best deal,
pet health insurance can be really cost effective way
to make sure you and your pet are protected (laughs).
Say Yep, I am protected for sure.
You're protected, right?
I think you are.