What is Pet Insurance?

Pet insurance helps pay for your pet's unexpected veterinary care.

As pet parents, we want to provide our dogs and cats with the best possible care, no matter what. But when accidents and illnesses come up unexpectedly, the costs can quickly run in to the hundreds, and even thousands, of dollars.

Pet medical insurance helps you pay your unexpected veterinary bills, so if your pet has an accident or becomes ill, you’ve got help covering the costs. With Petplan on your side, you can follow your veterinarian’s recommended course of treatment knowing that your pet health insurance will help provide you with financial peace of mind.

Why you need it

Health care can get costly without pet insurance.

Just like everyone else in your family, pets get sick sometimes. In fact, one in three pets will need unexpected veterinary care each year.* And it isn't just older dogs and cats, either. According to 2010 Petplan claims data, dogs under the age of one are actually 2.5 times more likely than their older brethren to have an unexpected visit to the vet. And while every parent wants to provide their pets with the best care possible, sometimes the high costs can force you to ask your vet for less expensive alternatives.

Every six seconds, a pet parent is faced with a vet bill for more than $3,000.*

These days, there are more lifesaving diagnostics and treatments – like MRI, surgery and chemotherapy – available to our pets than ever. But with advancing veterinary medicine comes rising costs. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, the cost of veterinary care has more than doubled over the past 10 years.*

You want to make the best decision for your pet, regardless of cost.

That's where pet insurance comes in. By insuring your pet’s health, you can have peace of mind that, should your pet get sick or injured, your costs can be covered. After all, when your four-legged family member isn’t well, the last thing you want to do is worry about how you’re going to pay for it all.

What is costs

You can’t put a price on unconditional love.

But you can budget for it.

No matter how much we love and pamper our pets, each year one in three will fall ill or have an accident that requires an unexpected trip to the veterinarian.*

According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA) 2011-2012 National Pet Owners Survey, pet parents will spend $12.2 billion on veterinary care this year alone, up from $11.0 billion last year and $8.2 billion five years ago. And as veterinary medicine continues to advance, those numbers are expected to rise. Pet insurance can help you budget for these unexpected costs.

For those of you wondering about pet insurance cost, the illustration below shows some of the actual conditions and costs for claims reimbursed by Petplan in the past:

To help you understand how Petplan would reimburse you following a claim, here's an example based on an actual Petplan pet insurance claim:

With Petplan, there are no benefit schedules. Just straightforward reimbursement based on your actual veterinary costs.

For enrollment information, please visit GoPetplan.com/BFPetCare

Information written and provided by Pet plan.