Pet insurance

How pet insurance reimbursement works, what waiting periods and pre-existing condition rules mean, and which companies offer it.

Companies: 13
Full profiles: 13
Comparisons: 10

The basics

How pet insurance works

Pet insurance is reimbursement insurance, not a health plan. You take the animal to any licensed vet you like, you pay the bill in full, and then you submit the invoice and the medical records and the insurer pays you back for the part that is covered. A few insurers can pay a participating vet directly, but the default arrangement is that the money leaves your account first.

What you get back is decided by four settings you choose when you buy, and understanding them is most of understanding the product.

This line in the database

Companies writing this line: 1313 researched in full
Published comparisons: 10
Tools for this line: 3
Guides that apply: 7

Reimbursement percentage: The share of the eligible bill the insurer pays once the deductible is met. A higher percentage costs more premium and leaves less for you to absorb.
Annual limit: The most the policy pays in a policy year. Some policies offer an unlimited option. This is the setting that matters in the situation you actually bought insurance for, which is a long or catastrophic illness.
Deductible: What you pay before reimbursement starts. An annual deductible resets once a year. A per-condition deductible applies separately to each condition and does not reset, which is better for one long illness and worse for several unrelated ones. Which type a policy uses changes the arithmetic completely, and it is not always stated prominently.
What counts as eligible: Accident-only policies cover injuries. Accident and illness policies add conditions such as infections, cancer and chronic disease. Routine or wellness care is usually a separate add-on rather than insurance, and is closer to prepaying for predictable expenses.

The order these are applied in is part of the contract. Whether the deductible comes off before or after the reimbursement percentage, and whether exam fees are eligible at all, changes what you receive on the same invoice.

What you are buying

What the coverages do

Each of these is priced and limited separately, so it helps to read them as separate promises rather than as one policy.

Accident coverage: Injuries: fractures, lacerations, swallowed objects, poisoning, bite wounds, and the diagnostics and surgery that follow them.
Illness coverage: Conditions that develop rather than happen: infections, digestive and skin problems, cancer, diabetes, heart and kidney disease, and hereditary and congenital conditions where the policy includes them.
Diagnostics and treatment: Imaging, laboratory work, hospitalization, surgery and prescription medication linked to a covered condition.
Specialty and emergency care: Referral specialists and emergency hospitals, which is where large bills come from and where the annual limit is tested.

Add-ons

Optional coverages you may be offered

Wellness or routine care, an add-on covering vaccinations, annual exams, dental cleaning, flea and tick prevention and spaying or neutering. It has its own separate caps per service.
Dental illness, beyond cleaning, for extractions and disease, which some base policies limit sharply.
Behavioral therapy, for treatment of diagnosed behavioral conditions.
Alternative and rehabilitative therapy, such as physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and acupuncture prescribed by a vet.
Prescription diets and supplements, when prescribed for a covered condition.
Exam fee coverage, since some policies exclude the consultation fee while covering everything done during the consultation.
Third party liability, for damage or injury your pet causes, which is common in some markets and rare in the United States.
End of life and non-medical benefits, such as euthanasia, cremation, lost pet advertising and boarding if you are hospitalized.

Where cover stops

Common exclusions and limitations

The exclusions are where a policy is actually decided. These are the ones that come up most often on this line.

Pre-existing conditions are excluded. Anything that showed signs before coverage began, or during the waiting period, is excluded, whether or not it had been formally diagnosed. Insurers read the medical records for this, which is why the vet history you never think about becomes decisive at claim time. Some insurers will reconsider a curable condition after a defined symptom-free period; others will not.
Waiting periods apply from the start date, typically a short one for accidents and a longer one for illnesses, with longer periods still for specific conditions such as orthopedic problems and cruciate ligament injuries. A claim inside the waiting period is denied even if everything else qualifies.
Age restrictions. Many insurers will not enroll a pet below a minimum age or above a maximum age, and some restrict which coverage levels are available to older animals. Once enrolled, coverage usually continues for life as long as you keep paying.
Breeding, pregnancy and whelping are normally excluded.
Elective and cosmetic procedures are excluded, including declawing, ear cropping and tail docking.
Preventive care is excluded from the insurance itself and is only covered by a wellness add-on.
Conditions arising from neglect or from missing preventive care the policy requires may be denied.
Bilateral conditions are commonly treated as one condition, so a problem in one knee can make the other knee pre-existing.
Premiums generally rise as the pet ages, and that increase is not locked at enrollment.

Pricing inputs

What affects what you pay

01Species, and for dogs, breed, since hereditary risk differs sharply between breeds.
02The pet’s age at enrollment, and its age each year afterward.
03Where you live, because veterinary prices vary by area.
04The reimbursement percentage, annual limit and deductible you choose.
05Whether the policy is accident-only or accident and illness.
06Add-ons such as wellness, dental or exam fee coverage.
07Whether the pet is spayed or neutered, with some insurers.
08Multi-pet discounts and enrollment through an employer or a breeder.

The process

How getting a quote generally works

In the order it usually happens. Nothing here is a quote, and this site does not sell one.

1
You give species, breed, age and ZIP code, then pick the reimbursement percentage, annual limit and deductible.
2
The price updates as you change those, which makes it easy to compare settings within one insurer and hard to compare across insurers unless you hold all three constant.
3
There is normally no medical exam to enroll, but the insurer will request the medical history when the first claim is filed, and that is when the pre-existing condition review happens.
4
Getting a current vet exam and reading your own pet’s records before enrolling tells you in advance what is likely to be excluded.

Glossary

Terminology

The words that appear on a quote or a policy for this line, in plain language.

Pre-existing condition: A condition that showed signs or was treated before the policy started or during a waiting period. The definition each insurer uses, and whether it covers curable conditions after a symptom-free period, is the most consequential sentence in the contract.
Waiting period: The time between the start date and when a given type of claim becomes eligible.
Bilateral condition: A condition that can occur on both sides of the body, treated by many policies as a single condition across both sides.
Hereditary and congenital conditions: Inherited conditions and conditions present at birth. Whether they are covered, and whether coverage depends on symptoms appearing after enrollment, varies by insurer.
Annual limit and per-incident limit: The cap per policy year, and where it exists, a separate cap per condition or incident. A policy with a generous annual limit and a tight per-incident limit is not as generous as it looks.
Benefit schedule: A payout structure based on a fixed table of amounts per procedure rather than a percentage of your actual bill. Much less common than percentage reimbursement, and much less predictable relative to real prices.
Direct pay: Payment made to the veterinary practice instead of to you, which requires the practice to participate.
Curable versus incurable condition: The distinction that decides whether a past problem can stop being pre-existing. An ear infection that resolves may qualify; a chronic condition will not.

Before you buy

Questions worth asking before you buy

Ask these of an agent, or of yourself, before comparing two prices.

How does this insurer define a pre-existing condition, and can a cured one become eligible later?
What are the waiting periods, including for orthopedic and cruciate conditions?
Is the deductible annual or per condition?
Is the deductible applied before or after the reimbursement percentage?
Are exam and consultation fees eligible?
Are hereditary and congenital conditions covered, and on what terms?
Is there a per-incident or per-condition cap in addition to the annual limit?
How much do premiums rise as the pet ages, and is there an upper age for renewal?
How are claims submitted, how long is reimbursement, and is direct vet payment possible?
Who underwrites the policy, as the brand you buy from is often not the insurer?

Recorded per company

The mechanics we have verified on this line

These are the fields that decide what a pet policy pays. The count beside each one is how many of the companies on this page have that field researched and sourced.

Compare side by side

What is covered: 13of 13 companies verified
Waiting periods: 6of 13 companies verified
Age restrictions: 4of 13 companies verified
Reimbursement options: 2of 13 companies verified
Deductible options: 2of 13 companies verified
Notable limitations: 13of 13 companies verified

Who writes it

Companies that write this insurance

Every profile is built from the company's own documentation and from regulators, with the source and the date beside each fact.

All companies

Side by side

Comparisons for this line

A pair is published only where enough fields are verified for both companies to make the comparison worth reading. No comparison names a winner.

All comparisons

Free tools

Tools for this line

Each one shows its arithmetic and its assumptions. None of them produces a premium, a quote or a savings figure.

Tool

Deductible exposure explorer

Shows exactly how one loss splits between you and your insurer at each deductible level, and how much more of a loss you carry when you raise it.

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Tool

Insurance company comparison

Put two companies side by side on the facts we have verified, with the source for each one and an explicit gap where we have not verified something.

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Tool

Pet insurance comparison

Waiting periods, age restrictions, reimbursement and deductible options for the pet insurers in our database, showing only what has been verified.

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Guides

Guides that apply here

All guides

Guide

How to read an insurance policy without reading all of it

A policy is four kinds of document stapled together. Knowing which part answers which question lets you check the things that decide a claim without reading the whole contract.

Read the guide

Guide

What a deductible actually costs you

A deductible is not a one-time cost. How it resets, how many can apply at once and whether it is a flat amount or a share of a limit all change what you are exposed to.

Read the guide

Guide

What insurance companies mean by an exclusion

Exclusions are not fine print bolted on to a policy. They are how coverage is defined, and there are only a few reasons any of them exist.

Read the guide

Guide

How to compare two insurance companies fairly

Most comparisons are unfair by accident, because the two things being held up against each other were never the same thing. Here is how to make them comparable first.

Read the guide

Guide

What to do when a claim is denied

A denial is a decision with a stated reason, and the reason determines what you can do about it. Work out which kind you received before you argue with anyone.

Read the guide

Guide

Pre-existing conditions in pet and travel insurance

Both products exclude conditions that existed before you bought, both define that in their own words, and in both cases the definition is read out of records you already have.

Read the guide

Guide

Why the same coverage costs different amounts for different people

Identical coverage carries different prices because insurers are not pricing the coverage. They are pricing the expected cost of the risk behind it, and that is assembled from categories of factor.

Read the guide

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