Pet Assure? Not Quite Pet Insurance

[EmersonandEvie]

I was looking into ways to reduce our budget and noticed we spend a nice chunk of change every month on pet insurance for the cats. I began looking into alternates to pet insurance and stumbled across Pet Assure. This is a program that has nationwide (in the USA) participating vets that gives you 25% off of all in-house procedures (the vets that participate in the program are listed on the website). It break down to about $4/pet/month, compared to $20+/pet/month.

Unlike pet insurance, there are no deductibles, pre-existing conditions are covered, and pet age doesn't matter.

Pet Insurance Alternative | Pet Assure: Pre-existing Covered

Has anyone used this, or heard of it? I'm very intrigued.

 

[daftcat75]

It seems like a good idea until you get hit with a $10,000 bill and find out only 25% of that is covered instead of the 90% after deductible like Trupanion paid out. Twice. Krista had two of those bills. One was with the emergency vet where there would not be shopping around for participating vets. Insurance seems like a waste of money until it pays out when you really need it. I would say if you feel comfortable paying $7500 out of pocket, if needed, then maybe saving money right now might not be such a bad thing. But if that sounds shocking to you, then maybe I would look elsewhere to trim back expenses. The one wildcard here is that there were numerous other bills I was not able to submit to insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Maybe getting help on those would have balanced out the nearly $10,000 loss of coverage from her big bills. But I'd rather have big bill protection than little bill help.

 

[fionasmom]

I have my three youngest cats insured with a plan that is 90% after deductible and don't plan on changing. Just me personally, but I am always suspicious of health networks and would want to know who the vets are who accept it. Regardless, it won't change the 25% coverage of a huge bill.

My cats have no pre existing conditions, or did not when I enrolled them. Jamie as a big one now with his ongoing kidney issues which are still unresolved though. There are probably no exclusions with Pet Assure as they are not paying very much in the long run.

This probably comes down to how much you could pay or would be inclined to pay for one of your cats.

In an odd "lost causes" situation it might actually work though. Theoretically, I could enroll my GSD, who is elderly and has had just about one of everything happen to him, for around $16 a month. Then, on his next $400 bill, which is just about for walking in to the office at this point, I would get back 90 some bucks. So that money then pays a few more months of his premium if that would be sufficient.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

It seems like a good idea until you get hit with a $10,000 bill and find out only 25% of that is covered instead of the 90% after deductible like Trupanion paid out. Twice. Krista had two of those bills. One was with the emergency vet where there would not be shopping around for participating vets. Insurance seems like a waste of money until it pays out when you really need it. I would say if you feel comfortable paying $7500 out of pocket, if needed, then maybe saving money right now might not be such a bad thing. But if that sounds shocking to you, then maybe I would look elsewhere to trim back expenses. The one wildcard here is that there were numerous other bills I was not able to submit to insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Maybe getting help on those would have balanced out the nearly $10,000 loss of coverage from her big bills. But I'd rather have big bill protection than little bill help.

I get where you're coming from. My only issue with the insurance is that the premiums skyrocket every year. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect to be paying the same premium for a 6 month old kitten vs a 12 year old cat, but I have personally seen my premiums increase about 20% every year. With three cats, that will eventually become totally unfeasible- we will eventually be paying more for pet insurance than for our human insurance! The issues that my cats have now are thankfully few, but wouldn't be covered if we went to another plan that did cover them (Evie has dental issues, which is pre-existing, and my current plan doesn't cover anything dental related).
About the participating vets: I'm lucky that our primary vet doubles as a 24 hour vet hospital, so the 25% discount would still count towards emergency care, should it be needed.