It is usually no problem to get a pet insurance coverage but if your pet has a pre existing condition then pet insurance is not that easy to come by. Most insurance companies will tell you to find somewhere else to insure your pet because they do not want to pay out large amounts to cover any medical bills that your pet might acquire because of its condition.
Pet Insurance Conditions
This is no different than with human insurance coverage and unfortunately you will probably have to either have to pay a huge fee to get the coverage, which will most likely not be beneficial to you or you’ll have to pay the bills on your own without having pet insurance coverage.
Why is it that you want pet insurance? Pre existing conditions are already know and from your point of view you will always be better off paying for insurance coverage for illnesses and conditions that are not yet know. Insurance companies run business and will have to make money as that is the game that they play. Because a pre existing illness will have a much higher probability to cost the insurance company money they will not want to gamble on it and therefore put the premium fee way up high.
Problems with Pet Insurance
What you would want to do is cover any non existing conditions because this is where the insurance companies will have to gamble and this is where you will be able to not only win but also avoid the sudden vet bills that can occur.
With a pet that has a pre existing condition the pet insurance will be costly and instead you would want to save up. Put aside some money every single month to cover any expenses that may arise when the condition takes over. Otherwise you will need to make the tough choice to let your pet go if the condition is one of a fatal kind. This can be a troublesome experience but that is one of the downsides about having a pet.
If your pet has a condition that exists before getting a pet insurance go talk to your insurance company about it but keep in mind that they might not want to help you out. They have a business to run and is not (and will never be) a charity organization.
I just found out my dog has Cushing’s, and started looking into pet insurance. I used to roll my eyes at the commercials on TV, but now I wish I had purchased a policy before she got sick.
It is okay that insurance companies are trying to make money… isn’t that what businesses do? They make money, but hopefully the policy holder also benefits. Its no one’s fault but my own that I did not have pet coverage. I’m not going to get upset because the insurance companies won’t cover my pet, or that they want to charge me a crazy amount for insurance. I know how expensive treatment is, and so do they. They have to operate in a manner that will allow them to continue doing business.
my pet is insured but 7,000 of treatment and his swelling on the brain hasn’t gone. We now have to pay for his next MRI scan ourselves. our dog is only 2yrs old and still catching frisbees, but the swelling could get worse. check your insurance limits carefully when buying insurance
We took out an insurance policy for our 10 year old Jack Russell on 1 July 08. We took her to the vets on 31 December as for a few months she had been drinking and weeing a lot and her hair was getting very thin. After Christmas she had tests which showed she had Cushings Disease and to date the cost has been around £1300. Today we have received a letter from our insurance company saying they will not pay as it is a pre-existing condition. The only reason we can think they have come to this conclusion is that when we took her for her annual vaccinations about a three weeks before taking out the insurance, we mentioned in passing that she was losing hair from her tail and the vet took a urine sample which proved negative, commenting that it could be hormonal. We presume the vet must have put this date as the start date of the condition but they gave us no indication at the time that this was the case as it was not diagnosed until January this year. Is the insurance company within their rights to refuse to pay as we had no knowledge at the time and were not given any indication from our vets either until January this year, well into the policy?
is there any ins. companies that do deal with pre existing ? thank you, christine
Is pet insurance a waste if you have a rescued dog? I would imagine the claims department could deny everything as a “pre-existing” condition since a rescue generally has no medical record.