Puppy insurance

[Rosa]

I have the feeling I need to purchase puppy insurance. I would appreciate suggestionscsnd comments.

Rosa/Bridget

[Amy and Annabelle]

I have it for Annabelle. There have been many discussions here on pet insurance that are worth a read and informative. Just put pet insurance in the search box to find them. 

[charlotte bednarsh]

I have Trupanion insurance for my furbaby;  I had Trupanion for my previous doodle, Paz, who crossed the rainbow bridge last May 2016 after a 6 month battle with lymphoma.   Trupanion was amazing......there is no cap on what they will cover per illness and they reimburse immediately.  My new puppy is now covered by Trupanion whom I highly recommend.

[Tara and Maggie]

We also have trupanion.  Unfortunately have had to use it one day already...and they were great.  I did a lot of research and basically it came down to healthy paws and trupanion for me.  The big difference was how the deductables are handled.  I think they are both good choices.  

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I have PetPlan for Jasper. They are very quick to process claims. I also considered Healthy Paws, but I liked Pet Plan's options better. Both are highly rated. 
You may want to ask your vet's office if they have any companies they recommend (or not) based on their claim experience. Since they are the ones who for the most part will be submitting your claims, their experiences with the various companies may help you decide. 

[nsa777]

Trupanion covered us through our first dog's 8 month battle with cancer (histiocytic sarcoma).  They were great- very speedy reimbursement of 90% of all charges and customer service was great.  However, we were paying $40+ monthly and had a $400-500 deductible.  It is definitely worst case scenario coverage, but we were grateful to have it.

[Stacy]

I have Healthy Paws for the girls. I wish I could endorse them, and they seem to be a wonderful company but since I haven't had to use it - which I am absolutely not complaining about! I can't really say how well it works in an emergency. I will say, while I went with the $250 deductible for Maggie I chose the $500 deductible for Willow. It's a yearly deductible not per incident, so that helps. It's not the first $500 that's the problem. It's the $5000 after that I worry about. I chose Healthy Paws because there's no cap to the coverage. I was looking at Nationwide, which is what my work uses, but I would have maxed them out with my last dog. That worries me. I never want to make decisions for them based on my finances.

[nsa777]

I think the other consideration will be which company your vet is accustomed to dealing with.  Could make claim processing easier/faster.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Yep. I did ask my vet's office manager about their experiences with claims for the two companies I was considering. No help though because she said both were equally good. 

[ks-man]

I'm starting to jump down the rabbit hole of pet insurance.  Only have had Cannoli for two months but the costs are certainly adding up.  Did a quick look at Trupanion and will look at the others listed here.

Are the annual fees that are quoted subject to change each year?  I thought I read somewhere that the big issue with pet insurance is if your pet gets a condition at the renewal the insurance company will jack up the rates to ridiculous levels and you're pretty much stuck since all other companies won't cover preexisting conditions.  You either pay the exorbitant rates or else need to drop the insurance right when you need it.

I'm not sure if that is more with low tier insurance companies or if it is common practice across the industry.  Anybody have thoughts on that?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It's pretty standard throughout the industry. We've has several huge discussions about that, I'll try to find you a link. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Here are a couple of good links for you to read through:

https://doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/those-who-have-healthy-paws-i...

https://doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/pet-insurance-premiums-what-t...

https://doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/pet-plan-insurance

I ended up going with Pet Plan anyway, over Healthy Paws, mainly because Pet Plan covers office visits (not routine wellness visits, but everything else) and Healthy Paws doesn't. Also, the PP rates were slightly lower. 

[Stacy]

I have a suspicion that fees will go up yearly. Maggie's insurance went up by $2/month at renewal and we didn't have any claims. It's more of an annoyance than a financial thing. And it's true about being locked in by pre-existing conditions. 

I will tell you that whatever the premium had been, it wouldn't have come close to my vet bills for my sick girl. I had a couple $3000 bills, a $4500 bill, a $1000 bill. And they all happened at roughly the same time. It was painful, and of course she was the one who didn't have insurance. I got her as a 6 year old rescue and I thought the premiums would have been too much. I won't make that mistake again!