We think about pet health insurance as something that we do for our pets, and that's an appropriate response. As we've mentioned many times before on this blog, pet health insurance will help you provide the best care available for your pet should you need it. It is indeed nice to know that you won't have to make decisions from the pocket book as opposed to the heart when it comes to treatment for your pet.
But in another sense pet health insurance protects you too, especially in these uncertain economic times.
That's because pet health insurance is really
indemnity insurance. It protects you from economic risk. In reality, pet health insurance is more like car insurance or even home owner's insurance than actual health insurance. In fact, that is the way all pet health insurance is regulated in this country.
When you purchase a policy from
PurinaCare you are protecting yourself against the ever increasing cost of quality veterinary care. Veterinarians are capable of doing more and more for your pet each year. In fact, if the diagnostic, surgical or medical treatment is available to you, it is most likely available to your pet.
Allergy skin testing,
cancer chemotherapy and
total hip replacement surgery are just a few of the
procedures available to both you and your pet. While these procedures are costly, they can represent the best therapeutic option available to relieve the miseries of allergy, eradicate cancer or provide long term pain relief for an arthritic pet.
Pet health insurance can provide you needed financial relief too. If you would choose one of the
PurinaCare without Preventive care policies with a higher deductible, you could potentially protect yourself from the financial disruption of a large veterinary bill. The nice thing about the higher deductible policies; say the $500 deductible, is that the monthly premium is lower. Many people that are forced to purchase health insurance for themselves use the same strategy.
My wife and I purchase our own private health insurance. Our monthly premium is five times what it was when I worked for Purina but it would be even more if I didn't have a $1000 deductible. I'm sure glad I had it, too, because in the past year I've crashed on my bike twice breaking bones requiring surgery each time.
According to a recent report on pet health insurance by the National Commission on Veterinary Economic Issues (NCVEI) the cost of quality veterinary care has risen at twice the rate of inflation over the last ten years. The same report quotes a long term study on dogs indicating that 66% to 80% of dogs will will experience a major health problem over the life of the pet. A major health problem could be a serious injury requiring surgical intervention or it could be a chronic disease like
diabetes requiring lifelong medical care.
With luck and proper attention to routine preventive care measures you can hopefully beat those odds, but most of us will likely be faced with a major emergency or pet health issue at some point. For a relatively low monthly premium one of our higher deductible policies might be the answer for you.
Get a
quote and see for yourself. Compare the monthly premium at the various deductible levels and see whether that amount is worth the peace of mind you'd have if you bought one for your pet.