Pet Insurance

[Little Lion Head]

I’m just a forum-creating fool lately!

So after taking Pumpkin to a new vet today, and after spending $385 on just TESTING…not even treatment b/c we don’t know what’s wrong yet…I’m thinking about looking into pet insurance.

Anyone have it? Thoughts? Pros/Cons? Costs? Worth it??

[JackRabbit]

I have VPI pet insurance on all three of mine. Runs something like $11 per bun per month. Haven’t gotten around to filing any claims yet. I bought it after following Retrosquid and Ouisie’s posts about their bunny Link (had to ultimately have his eye removed) and how glad they were that they had insurance.

I think VPI may be the only one in the US that insures bunnies.

[Little Lion Head]

JR–VPI is the only one I can find and yep, $11.88 a month I believe. Wish I would have done it before today’s visit. Since we have no diagnoses yet, the lady I called said any treatment should still be covered and they cover 100%. I’m thinking about going with it until I can built up an emergency fund. I budget out everything else in my life, makes sense to put aside a bunny fund as well!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I checked out insurance previously, and did it again for my horse this summer.

One thing to be wary of is, that what you have going on right now would be a preexisting condition and will not be insurable. And that body system or body part (sorry not sure what the health issue is you are dealing with!) may never be insurable.

I’ve heard great things about VPI.

Key things imo to ask when buying pet insurance:

-what is covered-routine, exams, diagnositics, surgeries, major medical, specialists etc
-how much of that is covered? Is it a yearly total, a policy total or a percentage? Or a combination?
-How do you get the claim covered? Do you pay and get reimbursed? Do they provide a card to pay with?
-How many claims/percentage of claims to they turn down or approve?
-What types of things are never insured? -For example many horse insurance companies don’t insure colic or lameness.
-What would void your insurance?
-If you make a certain claim (say GI Stasis) -when are you eligible to claim for that again? (because often it’s then preexisting and you can’t claim for a year, or ever again)

Compare your annual costs to what you could potentially pay in vet bills (See the https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/CategoryID/4/PID/940/Default.aspx page for a good idea) and see if you wouldn’t be better putting that money aside.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

And here is a link to an old thread, that showed a big vet bill and what they got back; For them it was VERY worth the insurance. I think a number of members have VPI

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/106326/Default.aspx

[tessieosulls]

I just bought coverage for my bunny from VPI after she spent three days in the hospital with an $850 bill for ileus. (I knew ileus would then be excluded from coverage for 6 months but since it’ll only cost about $160 for the year I figured it would be worth it to try, in case anything else happened too.) I saw on some other forum posts that people felt like the policy really saved them money, but I just got/looked at the benefit schedule and am really confused. The ‘benefit limit per policy term’ seems insanely small for almost every condition listed– like only $140 for ileus. Very few go past $300– anyone know if I am just not understanding the chart, or if this actually isn’t a great value?

[Frodo Baggins]

No you are understanding it perfectly. My rabbit went in for a check up and ended up getting a mass removed which I than biopsied to make sure it was benign. He than had to go back 10 days later for GI stasis. Everything total was around 1500. VPI which I have only gave me back 600 or a little less. And I had never used it (for him, but I’ve used it for my other animals) before and he was covered for about 10 months. The claim limits are very small.

[kirstyol]

I would absolutely advise you get a written (or emailed) quote I got bramble insured after his last trip to the vets. there was absolutely nothing wrong with him but because he hadn’t eaten for nine hours that day pet plan (a company in the uk, the only one that my vet accepts direct payments from) wanted to exclude gastric issues, I only found this out on the emailed quote and I was livid after all we know how prone to gi issues bunnies can be and the fact that they didn’t say that on the phone. Here in the UK there are a few companies who will insure bunnies and I was able to get cover elsewhere with no exclusions and its actually a little cheaper than pet plans quote was too. Things are different here I know, but my vet advised I get insurance because if he did the not eating for nine hours thing again then they would likely want to do tests etc which would amount to more than what I pay for the insurance so I would save money although obviously I would have an excess to pay but they pay 90% of the bill.

[JackRabbit]

At only around $11 per month for VPI, one claim could easily reimburse what you paid for the policy plus some. While VPI doesn’t have the high limits that companies in the UK offer, it is the only one in the US that covers bunnies at all. I’d say $600 on $1500 bill s pretty good. That’s like $450 after the year’s cost of the policy that you wouldn’t have had.

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