What Is Pet Insurance?

Pet Insurance is a policy to cover you for the expenses should your pet get lost or stolen, fall ill or cause an accident.

When you first bring your pet home it is just about the last thing you think about. Instead you are occupied socialising your new family member and possibly house training it. See 'How to house train your dog'. You are not at that stage thinking about it getting ill or wandering off, still less, that it should cause an accident. See the article 'What is the age expectancy of my dog or cat?'

However, this is the cheapest time to insure your pet because it is impossible to back date your insurance so when something terrible happens you will find you are not covered for the huge vet bills that occur.

Nowadays, we all have car insurance; it's a legal requirement after all. We usually have household contents insurance because sadly the chances of a burglary are rather high depending on where you live. Pet insurance sometimes seems like a cost we can avoid paying in the optimistic view that it won't happen to our pet.

Pet insurance does not cover all the basic health checks, injections and spaying or neutering because they are considered costs that you take on when you buy a pet.

What pet insurance is there for are the unexpected expenses. What the insurance company has to do is work out how likely these are to occur and this is why older dogs are almost uninsurable and pedigree dogs, known to be prone to more health problems, cost more to insure.

Pet Insurance is offered by all the usual insurance companies as well as many well known retailers such as Marks and Spencer's and John Lewis (through Greenbee). It is essential to decide what cover you need and compare what's on offer because they do seem to vary quite a bit.

The most important element of the cover is the vet's bills because if your dog or cat breaks a leg or has any other injury, falls ill or has a serious behavioural problem, the cost can be thousands of pounds. In this time of credit crunch, falling house prices, redundancies and so on, most of us don't have thousands of pounds readily accessible to pay these sorts of fees. It is heartbreaking when your pet is ill or injured and not having the money to pay the vet is a stress you won't want.

Another aspect to consider in the case of dogs in particular is that we are in an increasingly litigious society nowadays. If your dog goes into the road and causes an accident, even if the driver swerves to avoid it and causes one himself as a result, you as the owner could well be held liable. This is called 'third party liability'. Other issues covered under third party liability are instances of your dog possibly biting someone. It doesn't matter if you feel they were teasing it or their dog was taunting it, you are still responsible and could be sued. I heard of a dog that quite by chance ran past someone in a wood and they fell and broke their leg. They had to have time off work and sued the owner for loss of earnings. The owner was devastated but this is what pet insurance is there for, to cushion you against these sorts of incidents.

Have a careful look at the policies on offer and compare what they give you before choosing one that is right for you. Bear in mind that you cannot predict what your pet will need so opt for the policy that covers the maximum you can afford.

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