Pete the Vet: Insurance can be a life saver for your pet

Pete the Vet Checking best deals for pet insurance

Most people will be aiming to cut outgoings as we head into the new year, but there is an extra item that should be considered for 2023: pet insurance.

Although this may be a new cost, it protects you against the risk of your pet suffering because they need veterinary care that you cannot afford.

Everyone, vets and pet owners, dreads the desperately sad situation that can arise when a pet needs diagnostics and treatments that are beyond the budget of their owner.

If the costs can’t be covered, sometimes the only option left is euthanasia to end the life of the pet.

Most vets do their best to avoid this by offering cheaper (albeit less ideal) treatment options and payment plans. But this isn’t always possible. And most pet owners aren’t happy with second-rate options: they want to do the absolute best for their pet, who they often see as a family member.

This is where pet insurance comes in. 

When you sign up for a new policy, you budget for an affordable monthly amount to cover the insurance premiums. Then if you do need to visit the vet, you can focus solely on making your pet better, regardless of the cost, with the reassurance that the pet insurance company will cover the bill.

Pet insurance is more likely to be used for a pay out than other types of insurance. Over 30% of pet insurance policy holders submit claims each year, compared to only 15% of household policies and 22% of motor policies.

Pet insurance doesn’t cover all of the costs of keeping a pet: you still need to pay for routine annual health checks and vaccinations, and parasite control (fleas, ticks and worms). Many vets now offer so-called “Pet Health Plans” to help with these costs: the annual total cost of these items is reduced by a loyalty-based discount, then split into twelve monthly payments. 

Sometimes Pet Health Plans include a discount on other aspects of vet care, but it’s important to realise that this is not the same as pet insurance.

When planning for pet costs, you also need to remember that routine elective procedures (such as spaying and neutering) and maintenance dental work, such as scaling and polishing, will also need to be paid for separately, as they are not covered by Pet Health Plans, nor by most insurance policies.

So how do you choose the best value pet insurance policy?

There are five pet insurance providers in Ireland, and it’s easy to go online and get quotes from each of them.

However the cheapest pet insurance product is not necessarily the best: you need to read the details of the cover you are buying, and you need to make decisions about what sort of cover you want to have.

There are three main options, in order of increasing cost.

• Accident-only cover (the cheapest policies).

• Accident and illness time limited cover (a new illness will only be covered for the first12 months; after that, you need to cover the costs yourself)

• Accident and illness lifetime cover (a new illness will be covered for the entire lifetime of the pet, as long as you keep paying monthly premiums)

As well as these wide choices, there are other important details to understand.

• What level of excess are you prepared to pay (this is the sum of money you cover yourself before the insurance kicks in). It’s cheaper to buy insurance with a higher excess (e.g. €300) than a lower one (eg €50).

• What is the maximum amount of vets’ fees per year that you want to claim back? You can sometimes pay cheaper premiums if you accept a lower annual total of vets’ fees to be covered (eg €2,000 total fees instead of €8,000).

• Extra discounts may be available for certain situations, for example if a pet is microchipped, or if you are insuring multiple pets with the same provider.

• It’s cheaper to insure mixed-breed animals compared to pedigree pets

• Some insurance companies charge different prices depending on where you live, or even which vet you attend.

• The age of your pet is an important factor: some companies will not take out new policies on dogs over five years of age, while others will take on pets up to the age of eight. Once the pet is insured, you can continue to insure them with the same company until the end of their life, but you cannot change to a different company.

And usually, the excess becomes costlier as your pet gets older, and you may be asked to pay an additional amount (e.g. one third of the total bill). Whatever age your pet is when you take out the insurance, you will not be able to put in claims for pre-existing conditions: the cover will only be for new illnesses or accidents.

Vets vary in the way that they deal with pet insurance. Some allow you to pay only the excess, and they then claim back the balance directly from the pet insurance company. Others may insist that you pay up front yourself, and claim the money back afterwards. Also, some vets charge a fee for processing pet insurance claims, and this is not usually covered by the insurance.

I hope that your pets stay fit and healthy in 2023, but if they don’t, you’ll be relieved that you took the simple step of getting them insured at the start of the year.

• Companies offering pet insurance in Ireland include; Allianz, An Post, Blue Insurance, PetInsurance.ie, Petinsure.ie.