Pooches:Trupanion Pet Insurance

Oh the joy of pet insurance, well not exactly. So in an earlier post, we wrote about the joys of being an Embrace Pet Insurance customer, but how quickly this changed in a year. In the past year of having Embrace Pet Insurance for Mr. B, we only filed one claim, which was not reimbursed due to the deductible and the fact that they only reimburse 80% of the vet bill. When it came time to renew, they raised their rates almost 41%. Our premium for Mr. B went from $451 to $635 in one year. They told us in an email that this was due to inflation of veterinary medical costs, but upon further review we discovered that our premium also increased due to Mr. B's age. If we continued with Embrace, the call center representative told us to expect a 20% increase in our premium next year and a smaller percent increase in our premium every year after until Mr. B reaches the age of 10. We calculated that at this rate our premium with Embrace will be over a $1000. We asked them to do some estimates for the next 6 years for us, but we have yet to receive this email. So we went back to square one to look for another pet insurance company. These were things we had to consider when looking at different companies. 1. We looked at the reviews on Pet Insurance Review and further investigated the top five reviews, excluding Embrace. We looked for the more recent reviews and read the ones with older dogs and if there were any premium increases.
2. Are there premium increases with our pet's age? This was an important consideration since Mr. B is 6 years old, which is the age when most pet insurances increase their premiums.
3. Again, we looked at the deductible and the amount paid of the actual veterinary bill.
4. We examined per incident limit, limit per year and any exclusions such as hereditary or congenital disorder (we found that most pet insurance companies are all the same regarding exclusions).

Why we chose Trupanion?
Mainly because they do not raise premiums due to pet aging. Though, they only offer the $20,000 limit with no limits per year, claim, illness, procedure, or condition, we hope and believe that he will never exceed this limit in his lifetime (knock on wood). They have very flexible deductible options and they cover 90% of the veterinary bill arising from injury or illness. Our premium is very reasonable and we have the peace of mind that we will not see a 41% premium increase again, but maybe a 6-10% due to inflation of veterinary medicine costs.

Things to think about regarding Trupanion:
They do not cover the veterinary exam fee, so we will need to pay our deductible, plus our vet's exam fee, which is $75, plus 10% of the rest of the bill. This plan is mainly to safeguard against injuries or illnesses. Also if Mr. B's medical costs exceeds the $20,000 limit, we would have to start a new policy and all of his illnesses and injuries will be considered a preexisting condition. Finally, there is a 5 day waiting period for injuries and a 30 day waiting period for illnesses.

All in all, we are pretty happy with our choice to go with Trupanion for Mr. B and hopefully, we will not be looking for a new pet insurance for several years.