Care for Your Pet’s Health

As I normally do I want to give you a review of as many pet insurance company websites as I possibly can and today I go through the Banfield Pet Insurance website with you. If you want to visit their website you can do so by clicking here. Before I get started with the review I would like to state that I have no relationship to Banfield and I am not associated with them in any way.

Banfield Pet Hospital

From their website we can see that they have been in business since 1955 which means that they have more than 50 years of experience in the pet industry and without digging any deeper into what they are all about that should at least give them some credibility as nobody stays in business for more than half a century without having a happy customer base. That is an important observation to make as we sometimes see that new business are creating a great buzz and then they disappear in just a year or two. As we generally expect to have our pet for more than a year or two we’ll like the insurance company to stay around for a long time as well. In addition it is almost certain that the Banfield VET staff is also highly educated people.

Main Page Options

From the entry page we’re able to subscribe to their email newsletter. This isn’t something new but what is lacking is an explanation as to what it is that we’re actually subscribing to. It doesn’t say whether it is about keeping your pet healthy or whether it is about the Banfield Pet Insurance business and how their sales numbers are evolving. That could definitely be improved quite a bit. The second thing that I found a bit odd was that you are asked to enter your company name. Does this mean that the newsletters are meant for corporate people that have their own company or at least work for one? If you had asked me I would have assumed that the newsletters were for pet owners but I must be mistaken.

The Banfield Newsletter

I decided to sign up anyway and within a minute or two I received an email to confirm my request. Now that is the way an email newsletter signup should work but even after receiving the mail and having a look at the confirmation page I still don’t know what it is that I can expect to receive.

But let us go back to the main page again. The page’s right side is divided into two categories. One is the three current news articles and the other is the four major sections of their website.

One thing that I can help to notice is that nowhere on the front page is stated anything about Banfield Pet Insurance or even anything about insurance in general for that matter. But from the main four sections we might be able to locate something about it.

The Four Major Sections

The site is divided into sections called “Your Pet’s Health”, “Locations”, “Careers/Practice Ownership” and “About Us”. From the view of a pet owner the sections about careers and about Banfield seem rather irrelevant. Sure it would be nice to know more about them and if that is what we want we can click the about us link but currently we’re trying to locate something about pet insurance options.

I believe that it would be a fair guess to assume that anything about insurance ought to be found in the section called “Your Pet’s Health” as the “Locations” section will merely be a bunch of addresses and phone numbers. It is relevant information but not what we’re currently looking for. In the end it might come in handy because we might have to call them up if we can’t find the information about their pet insurance.

The Pet Health Section

Entering the section about pet health we don’t seem to find that much. It is another page with a newsletter form and then a few paragraphs claiming Banfield veterinarians to provide exceptional pet care. They write about their “Optimal Wellness Plans”, but still nothing about pet insurance. However we would all agree that being well is the preferred options as to being ill and needing insurance coverage.

From the page we are again provided with three options. We can choose between the “Dog Health”, the “Cat Health” and the “Optimal Wellness Plan”. Neither the dog health section nor the cat health section says anything about Banfield pet insurance. The dog section talks a little about the importance of nutrition, vaccinations, parasite control, spraying and neutering and about having routine checkups.

The cat sections talks about exactly the same things and as a matter of fact the two sections look almost identical in nature.

The Optimal Wellness Plans

Since we have only the optimal wellness plan section left I feel comfortable that we’ll find something in here about pet insurance. However I find to be quickly disappointed. The only thing on the page is information about the importance of keeping your pet healthy and how you can increase your pet’s life with 25% by great preventive care.

Don’t get me wrong here. All of this is VERY important and nobody wants to have anything but a healthy and happy pet but we’re still here to try to find information about insurance and not prevention.

Conclusion: No Banfield Pet Insurance

So here we are after surfing their website we still come up empty handed. We have found pages about pet health and why it is important but even though I have surfed through all the other pages of their site I couldn’t find even one place where the Banfield pet insurance was mentioned. Therefore I must come to the conclusion that what might be referred to as the “Banfield Pet Insurance” isn’t really an insurance but rather a “Wellness Plan”. Banfield is committed to giving you the best possible tools and options for keeping your pet as healthy as possible and in the case of illness and injury… well, you have to find your insurance coverage elsewhere.

If you are new to pet insurance or having pets you might not have heard of VPI Pet Insurance but the case is that you might actually have anyway. VPI is short for Veterinary Pet Insurance and is one of the oldest pet insurance companies in America today. They specialize in pet animals within the USA so if you live outside of the US you’ll need to find pet insurance coverage elsewhere.

As stated on their website you can find coverage from PetPlan.com if you are a Canadian. For people in the UK I recommend reading the article if wrote recently about the Tesco company.

One of the things I really like about VPI compared to many of the other insurance companies that offers pet insurances is that VPI only deals with animals. They aren’t trying to sell you car insurance, home insurance or different mortgage deals. It’s just pet insurance and that is it. As I see it this will give you a lot of different advantages and of course a few disadvantages. But let us have a look at the advantages first.

VPI Pet Insurance - Advantages

Dealing with a company that specializes in pet animals will have you feel comfortable that they know what they are dealing with. Not only do they know insurance but one must assume that they also know a great deal about pet animals and the different aspects that are important when we’re talking coverage from issues like sicknesses, aging symptoms and accidents. Being one of the oldest and most respected pet insurance companies in the US they have a substantial record of issues they have experienced and dealt with. Now this can also be a disadvantage to you as a customer but I’ll deal with that in a little bit.

Taken from their website a study made by ACI Custom Research in September 2006, show that 9 out of 10 veterinarians (who recommends pet insurance) recommends using VPI as the provider of that insurance. I know that even though it is stated that it was an independent survey it can’t be fully trusted but I do believe that it says something about the quality of the insurance company. Does this mean that they’ll cover anything? NO! Does it mean that they will have the cheapest solution? NO! But does it say something about what kind of knowledge and credibility the company has? Yes, I think that it does.

I do suggest that you go talk to your pet’s VET and ask what they recommend. It might be VPI and it might not but what is important is that you remember also to ask “WHY” they recommend what they do. Without that question answered you can’t really use their advice in a constructive way. Now on to one of the other advantages I see from choosing VPI Pet Insurance as you provider…

Because they have nearly 400 people employed part of those are highly qualified professionals that are able to answer any specific questions that you might have related to your animals condition. Whether it is sickness or injuries I’m sure that one of the more than 10 veterinarians or 60 veterinary assistants will be able to either answer your question promptly or at least look through their archive of past issues and come up with an answer for you. Please note that I’m not saying that they are the only company that will be able to do that… far from it, but being focused solely on pets will give them the advantage of only having to concentrate on the one topic.

Last but not least, and I have already mentioned it above, I really like the fact that VPI is not just covering the two favorite animals: Cats and dogs. Sure they are their greatest part of their portfolio but it is nice to know that if you own a horse or have an exotic bird you will be able to get insurance coverage from the same company as when insuring your cat or dog. If you like them as a company it is great that you don’t have to go somewhere else if you decide to get a new pet for yourself.

Now let’s look at some of the disadvantages…

VPI Pet Insurance - Disadvantages

I’ll state upfront that I do feel that there are many more advantages than there are disadvantages by choosing VPI but naturally they will have some advantages (which is negative if you’re the customer) over other not so specialized insurance companies.

First of they ought to be far better at setting the right right coverage price for your specific pet. Where other companies might think that “a dog is a dog”, VPI will know from many years of experience that this is not the case. You’ll therefore risk being charged a higher fee if you have a pet with a greater likelihood of becoming sick or injured. Now all in all that can’t hardly be argued not to be a fair deal but the result will nevertheless be that you’ll have to pay more in insurance fees.

Secondly, the knowledge that VPI has will make the better equipped to avoid paying out the coverage due to small technicalities that they know of. I’m not stating that this is the way they do business. Far from it! But they do have the option and I believe that they will have an easier time doing it than other insurance companies might.

In Conclusion

From reading the above you might think that I’m paid to say as I do or that I have a reason for naming more advantages than disadvantages but I have to tell you that I don’t. Honestly I don’t care what pet insurance company you’ll choose in the end but what I do care about is that you have done your due diligence properly. Without putting a bit of work into finding the pet insurance company that us right for you, you” probably end up with the wrong one. And in that case why not end up with the specialists at VPI Pet Insurance? I think you’ll be better off than with a company trying to sell you car insurance as well.

In this article I’ll have a closer look at the Tesco Pet Insurance from Tesco Finance Ltd. I haven’t been able to find any statistics about how many people are using their pet insurance packages, how many payouts they have made or how many injuries and sickness cases has been reported in by their customers. That is not unusual however, as that is normally kept within the company due to competition. So by no means does it say that there is anything to be worried about from a customer’s point of view.

The company Tesco Finance Ltd. offers a lot of different financial products like insurance, credit cards, loans, mortgages, saving and coverage when travelling. That means that the pet insurance part of their business is just one of many products that they spend their time and effort on. The pet insurance part of their website can be found here: Click here

When I first arrived at the page I saw a little kitten and a large red badge telling me that I could get “2 months free”. Now that sounded nice so I have to look a little further into that one. Luckily for me, it didn’t require much effort to find out that you don’t actually get 2 months of free pet insurance coverage, but merely that your monthly payment has been reduced so that you in a twelve month period would save an amount equal to the two months. Personally I hate that kind of “offers” but I guess that is just the way advertizing is done today.

Tesco Pet Insurance - Cats and Dogs

From the front page of the pet insurance section of their website it seems to me that the only two pets that seem to be covered are cats and dogs. If you visit some of the insurance companies that are specialized in pet insurance you will find coverage for animals like horses, birds or exotic creatures. But the biggest part of the marked is without a doubt in the cat and dog industry because those are the two favorite pets.

The smallest price you can pay per month for your cat insurance is 4.50 GBP and 8.00 GPB for your dog. This price includes the “2 months free” offer and as that offers is only available to new customers and only for the first year, you can expect the price to be a little higher in the second year. It should however not be more that a 17% increase.

It is always advised to call the insurance company to make sure you’ll get the coverage that is right for you and Tesco Insurance is no exception. From them website we can see that they offer two different types of insurance coverage. One is called “Basic” and the other is called “Extra”. The difference between the two is that Extra will cover up to 4,000 GBP per condition whereas the basic will only cover 2,500 GBP per condition. Secondly the Basic coverage will only cover your pet for a 12 month period from the start of the condition whereas the Extra coverage will cover for life (as long as you keep paying for the insurance coverage that is).

Tesco’s selling points

Again from the main page you will find Tesco listing 4 key selling points as to why you should choose them over other insurance companies. First this is that they have no maximum age limit for pets. Now I can only guess but I’m sure that you will be more likely to benefit from that one if you have registered your pet for a Tesco pet insurance when it was young and kept the policy live throughout your pet’s life. But as I said, I can only guess. I haven’t tried to register an old pet for insurance with them so I can’t really say. What I do know is that any insurance company will always be able to turn you down as a customer with whatever explanation they can come up with.

Second selling point is that they do now reduce coverage when your pet gets older. Now that is a good thing because most pets will need to coverage in the end of their life and not so much in the beginning. The third selling point can seem to cause a little bit of worry though as it says that “there is fixed excess payments, so you’ll always know what you need to pay when you make a claim”. No I can’t help thinking: “Pay when you make a claim? Wasn’t the idea of a pet insurance not to have to pay when bad things strike?”. Well, if I were to sign up for a Tesco pet insurance I would definitely make sure to ask what that was all about before signing anything.

The final selling point is that you have a selection of ways that you can pay for the insurance. Hardly a selling point if you ask me, but I guess that they weren’t able to come up with more that the three mention above. Now you might think that I’m giving the Tesco pet insurance option a hard time but really I’m not. What I’m trying to say is that when a company is trying to sell something online they will need to make as much effort at is as they do when trying offline. Sure they have listed a few points that are valuable but from a customer’s point of view there isn’t much “WOW effect”. I simply have a hard time finding the “What’s In It For Me” part. Sure they’ll have you save a few pounds as a new customer but what else do they have?

If I were them I would have included a bunch of customer testimonials right there on the front page. When people shop they like to see what people like themselves think about a product and if they like it you’ll be more inclined to buy. Simple stuff really!!

Now to finalize I can tell you that the Tesco pet insurance website offers a small selection of articles about why and when you need pet insurance coverage but make sure that you, when you read them, remember that they really want to sell you something and that they are not just there to be “friendly”. My last advice to you is to call up Tesco and ask them all the questions that you can possible come up with. Make sure that you don’t hang up until you are certain whether they have the pet insurance product that you feel will cover your pet the best. Their phone number is: 0845 300 2200.

By the way… they only cover pets living in the UK.