Pet insurance basics

Insurance is not intended to cover every single occurrence. Pet insurance is not different. In fact, there are some circumstances the where your pet insurance policy will not provide Insurance cover for. These instances are called exclusions. What is an ‘exclusion’ and what type of circumstances are likely to be excluded from your pet insurance policy?

An exclusion, is because an agreed upon item that is excluded from claimable items on an insurance policy. Some exclusions are personalized per policy, and others will be across the board for all customers of an insurance company.

Likely Pet Insurance Exclusions:

• Any medical conditions that are specifically excluded on the Your Certificate of Insurance.
  
  Pet Insurance companies will often exclude animals of a certain age (like under 8 weeks old).
  
  Most Pet insurance companies do not have claimables for routine care. Often excluded is the cost of Preventative and Routine care or Treatment such as check-ups and procedures that are designed to prevent future Illnesses from occurring rather than treating existing Illnesses. These include, but not limited to annual physical examinations and or check-ups, vaccinations, heart worm prevention medication; flea and other internal/external parasite prevention; dental check-ups and dental scale & polish or teeth cleaning, or removal of misaligned or retained deciduous teeth.
  
  We don’t know of any human health or pet insurance companies that cover the cost of elective or cosmetic surgery. Thus the cost of elective procedures and treatments is often excluded. This includes de-sexing, spaying or castration; micro-chipping; grooming and de-matting, cosmetic or aesthetic surgery, dew-claw removal, prescription diet foods, and any treatment not related to an Injury, Illness, or trauma.
  
  Petplan pet insurance is for pets, and not for animals that are used for profit or for guarding profit. This means that pet insurance policies will often exclude those dogs that are being used for guarding, track racing or coursing.
  
  Pet insurance will also exclude animals that are not legally able to be kept in the location where the policy is active; this includes animals that have been declared dangerous.
  
  Pet insurance policies will also exclude claims that related to any law breaking, weather that be in relation to keeping, breeding or importing of animals.
  
  More than likely your pet insurance policy will exclude claims that relate or in any way connected with a crime or malicious acts towards others or your animal.
  
  Many pet insurance policies will have a list of locations that the animal cannot travel to in order to not be excluded from those locations diseases. This clause may also restrict you from claiming on events that occur while on vacation.
  
  Your pet insurance policy will also exclude claims from diseases that could have been easily prevented by readily available vaccines or from illnesses that have ‘ignored’ rather than treated.