Health Insurance for your Pet Protection
Well, this is no surprise. Pet people are happier people. How much happier? Well, according to Psychology Today, a lot happier. Studies show pet parents have greater self-esteem, are less lonely, even more physically fit. Love you, Hero! That's my buddy. That is until your beloved pet gets sick and you have to deal with the emotional and financial stress of life-saving veterinary care. And Dr. Craig Galbraith, Chief Veterinary Advisor with Pethealth and 24PetWatch is here to help along with our pet guest, Champagne. Welcome.
Thank you for having us. She's being such a good girl. She's being awesome today. You're a beauty, yes. So, tell me Dr. Craig, how do you really deal with thinking about the well-being of your pet and also your pocketbook? Yeah, the biggest way is thinking about purchasing pet insurance. Absolutely. And what are some of the misconceptions people really have about pet insurance? Well, there's a few. The biggest is that people think that pre-existing conditions are covered.
And what that means is pre-existing condition is something that your pets been symptomatic for, diagnosed with, or treated for before you got the pet insurance. So, it's always best to insure as soon as possible to avoid having pre-existing conditions that aren't covered. The other one is that people don't think that they need pet insurance.
Right. So many. You don't know you need it until you really need it. So, people think that if they just take what they would pay in pet insurance premiums and set that aside every month that they can just rely on that to cover their veterinary bills. Right.
The problem with that is you don't know when these things are going to come up. So, if you've only been saving for four or five months, you may not have enough to cover that illness or accident that just occurred. And if you need ongoing treatment for that, then you've already used up your savings and you may actually have to dip into things and some of your other household bills may start to suffer as well. And the last thing is, Champagne here, she's a bit older. She's six. And people feel that if their pet is a bit on the older side that they can't get pet insurance, and that it is only for puppies and kittens. And that's just not the case. Good to know.
You can insure a pet at any age, the earlier the better, as always. And even if they do have pre-existing conditions, if they are older, there's always room for pet insurance because you never know. Accidents can always happen.
You've certainly had people come to you as a veterinarian with a tragic situation, a very very sick dog, and then you have to talk to them about medical cost. And that can be a really challenging situation, I'm sure. Absolutely. As a veterinarian, when you're dealing with uninsured pets, the conversation can be mostly about the finances which can be very difficult. I mean, when pets are sick, it's an emotional experience, a very stressful experience. But when you have pet insurance, the whole experience is transformed. It's not "What can I afford?", it's "What's best for my pet?", and it just changes everything for everybody. Of course. You're not put in that position of making a financial decision about your pet. You can actually... What are my options? What are my options? So, how do we determine which pet insurance policy is right for me or for our viewers.
And that's probably the biggest challenge with pet insurance. The one thing I can tell people is make sure you're comfortable asking lots of questions, asking what does the coverage actually look like, and for that coverage can I make changes to my co-payment, my deductible, so that I can get my premium down to where it can fit into my budget?
Right. You know, there's accident insurance, accident-only, accident and illness coverage. So, make sure you know what the policy looks like. Are there optional types of coverages available like wellness? Things like vaccines, microchips? That was what I was saying. What else can we do to protect our pet? I mean, I haven't done the microchip. That's terrible. I should go do it.
Yeah, for those who have pets already or are thinking about adopting a new pet, absolutely get the microchip. That's one of the best ways that we can keep those pets with us in our families healthier longer. So, where should folks go to find their new family member like Champagne? Well, the first place they should go is Petango.com. Pethealth has one of North America's largest online pet adoption websites.
Wonderful! I love the name. Petango. I can remember that. You go there and what happens when you go there? Well, you can just basically pick based on your area. So, you can set a radius for your search, what kind of pet you're looking for, or you can even set it to ask you lifestyle questions about yourself to help you choose what pet's best for you. And then they show you what's available in your area? Absolutely. It gives you the contact information for that shelter. So, you just reach out to them and then you make that connection. Oh my gosh. So last year, we adopted out over a million animals through our shelter partners. Wow! I don't know if I want to give my daughter this website site yet. (laughter).
Yeah, it can be addictive. Yeah, I know. Well we hope that we've inspired you to go out and adopt one of these beauties like Champagne. Millions of people have. All you have to do, as we just said, is go to Petango.com and you can find adorable adoptable pets in your area. Thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for having us. She is just, you've only met like two days, right? Yeah, and she's locally here from the Florida Humane Society.
