Pet insurance, is it really worth it? | Companion Animal Veterinary Hospital

Pet insurance, is it really worth it?

Matt Young's picture
Penny Lane

What is pet insurance?

It's not life insurance for pets, Pet insurance is medical cover similar to a combination of Medicare and private health insurance in the things that it covers.

Is it worth it?

If nothing ever goes wrong with your pet you will probably feel like it was all a waste. But, when things do go wrong they can be very expensive. In the past week I  have had to refer 2 dogs for surgery with a specialist which will probably end up costing between $3000 and $4000. This is just an average week for us. This sort of scenario is not a rare thing!

Could you find that sort of money quickly if you didn't have insurance? I know I couldn't!

Penny lane

Meet Penny-Lane. She is a regular at our practice and has had the following major health issues: 

  1. She was hit by a car and sustained a nasty fracture that needed specialist treatment
  2. She has had skin allergies
  3. She got gastric-dilitation and volvulus and needed emergency surgery
  4. She has had 2 cruciate ligament ruptures which needed surgery with an orthopedic specialist due to her size
  5. She developed a luxating patella following 1 of the patella surgeries which required a further operation

Fortunately she is covered by pet insurance and we never have to worry about whether to treat her or not. Hopefully she is at the end of her bad run but at last count Penny's treatment covered by pet insurance has been in excess of $25 000.

I can't tell you if you're going to have a Penny-Lane or not, it just comes down the the luck of the draw. But if you do have one, I sure hope you have pet insurance in place!

Which insurance should I choose?

As long as you have pet insurance, at the end of the day, I don't care which insurance you choose. I would like you to have it though. 

There are only 2 underwriters of pet insurance in Australia:

  1. Allianz, who underwrite PetPlan
  2. Hollard insurance who underwrite the rest including RSPCA, Pet Insurance Australia, Petmed, etc

My preference is for Petplan as in my opinion their policies are better value and cover more. Have a look and compare for yourself

To receive 4 weeks free pet insurance from Petplan please come in and see us.

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