Importance of pets in our lives
When you bring some pet to your home, it becomes a part of life and an adorable member of your family. Australians, being pet lovers, mostly prefer to own a furry friend like a dog or a cat as a pet that provides them companionship and emotional support besides reducing stress levels and sense of loneliness.
It therefore, becomes imperative for the pet owners to ensure that their pets remain healthy, physically active and fit. In addition, pets must be given adequate care with nutritious food, love and affection and proper housing.
On many occasions, like human beings, pets also get sick or injured and need treatment from veterinary doctors. The treatment and even routine check-ups can put extra load on your pocket which can be greatly reduced by purchasing insurance for your pets.
What is pet insurance?
Pet insurance is insurance cover designed to pay either a part or full cost of medical treatment for your pet. Pet insurance helps pay a portion of eligible veterinary bills when your pet gets sick or is injured from an accident.
Treatment cost of your pet can appear in unplanned or sudden manner and can be enormous. Pet insurance can reduce this burden of expensive treatment of your pets.
Types of Pet Insurance
When it comes to deciding on pet insurance, there are basically three main types of insurance policies to choose from, such as:
- Accident Only Policies: These are meant to cover the cost of visit to a vet after accidental harm or injury such as broken bones from car accidents, scratches from fighting with other animals, and snake bites. However, this insurance policy may not cover injuries due to a pre-existing condition.
- Accident and Illness Policies: This covers above mentioned injuries caused due to accidents plus the cost of seeing the vet for illnesses such as cancer, infection, hereditary conditions and skin ailments besides many other health related treatments.
This policy does not cover pre-existing conditions and diseases where there is a known vaccine besides breed related conditions.
- Comprehensive or Accident, Illness and Routine Care Policies: This usually includes all above features of Accident Only and Accident and Illness Pet Insurance Policies.
In addition, these Comprehensive policies also cover for the cost of Routine Care Treatments Such As Vaccinations, Worming Treatments, De-Sexing, Dental Care and Behavioral Training.
Some of the Comprehensive pet insurance policies even provide compensation should your pet die, be lost or stolen.
Although, Comprehensive policies pay for the cost of treatment required due to Accident, Illness and Routine Care yet there are some common exclusions, such as:
- If there is any evidence of animal abuse or neglect.
- Pre-existing conditions or anything your pet has suffered before the waiting period
- Complex surgeries like organ transplants
- Ambulance costs
- Artificial limbs/prosthetics
Comprehensive policies are best suited for ageing dogs and cats, as they tend to develop more age-related illnesses and become more susceptible to injury. These may also address breed related issues and conditions especially among dogs.
Should you require more pet insurance information, feel free to get in touch with iSelect as it is one of the leading and most reliable pet insurance providers in Australia.
