How to sell pet insurance
Money Made Easy: Pet Insurance
hi I'm Dan Danford and we're doing
another episode of money made easy for
dads divorce calm this is a question
from the website it's not the kind of
question that we got 20 or 30 years ago
does owning pet insurance make any
financial sense I know many insurance
companies I've looked into only
accepting certain breeds a lot of
exclusions on pre-existing conditions
and/or they have extreme limitations on
what is covered at the vet any advice
amazing transformation I mean this is
just one of those topics that didn't
even exist 15 or 20 years ago
but the background information is that
more and more people have pets many of
those pets are living longer and longer
which means that they encounter some of
the diseases and maladies of age and
that treating those animals can be very
expensive
hence insurance companies never wanting
to miss an opportunity have created pet
insurance so I guess my first bit of
information or advice would be what I
would do with anybody with any kind of
an any kind of insurance at all and
that's only cover expenses that you
can't pay yourself okay the reason we
have car insurance or house insurance is
because we might have a problem that we
couldn't afford to fix the cost of a car
transmission falling out or our being
involved in an accident and the costs
that go along with that or having a fire
at our home and all of a sudden you know
we owe a big mortgage and we'd have to
rebuild the house it's just too much for
most of us to do so we have insurance to
cover those things well it's the same
thing with your pet okay if you've got a
pet and there's a potential that that
pet might have a health problem that
cost you more money than you have then
you ought to get into insurance and it's
a simple question of common sense I
guess one of the things is you know if
if you think it's likely that your pet
would encounter $1,000
surgery or something like that okay well
if you're paying nearly a thousand
dollars a year in pet insurance premiums
okay and you'd be paying those premiums
for a number of years then you might pay
those premiums for five or six or seven
years in other words you've paid six or
seven thousand dollars worth of premiums
in order to pay for a thousand dollar
surgery that just doesn't make sense
doesn't make sense at all so I guess
what I'd say is is to first of all
decide you know what's your threshold
okay and you know how much money would
you spend to take care of your animal if
it had a problem and would you be able
to afford that if it was an issue and
truthfully some of these questions when
it comes to animals or you know the same
questions we face with elderly people
today and that's that you can spend an
incredible amount of money keeping them
alive for a very long time and their
quality of life might not be that good
so at some point do you ease both your
suffering and I can't answer that
question and I have opinion on it only
you know that question with your pet but
you know there are you know treatments
and things today that that can you know
make they can extend an animal's life
for a very very long time
and it can be very expensive so that's
part of this issue as well so let's say
you decide you do need an insurance
policy for your pet well what I tell
everybody all the time is to compare you
know check around with different
companies and different pet insurance
policies you'll want to look at things
just like you would with anything else
you want to look at the deductibles you
want to look at what's covered you want
to look at how much the premium is you
want to look at exclusions for
pre-existing conditions obviously if
your pet already has a condition and
it's excluded then there's no point in
even having that insurance but you may
find another insurance company that
covers those things
so again just compare between the
different insurance companies another
thing is that especially with dogs but
also with cats is that breeds matter you
know some breeds of dogs and cats
are more subject to certain diseases
than others and you'll find this when
you start looking around for policies
because the policies will be more or
less or might not cover certain breeds
so you know be aware of your own breed
and your own you know common things that
happen there and then use that common
sense to make a decision about what fits
for your pet okay and then the last
thing I'd say it's very similar to
humans again and that is wellness you
know when we have company plans with our
companies one of the things they
encourage us to do is to encourage our
employees to live in a healthy lifestyle
not only does that make the employees
life better but it also cuts down their
expenses in the long run well the same
things true with your pet okay one way
to reduce expenses is to make sure that
the animal is well taken care of you
know make sure they get the exercise
they need the nutrition that they need
the checkups they need the shots they
need all those kinds of things will
reduce your costs of insurance and also
reduce your costs at the vet the bottom
line on this whole situation is you know
it's the relationship that you and your
family have to your animals okay that's
really really important here and then
it's the relationship between what the
cost of those animals might be in your
budget and all of that has to be
reconciled together so that you can make
a wise decision on buying insurance for
your pet I really do think it's an
important topic today because so many
people have animals that mean so much to
them and veterinary medicine just like
human medicine has become very very
expensive and very very specialized and
so it very very well may be that many of
us should consider having insurance
policies for our pets but again it's a
person by person or family by family
decision and I encourage you to think
long and hard and check things out
before you buy those policies that's
another episode of money made easy for
dads divorce comm I'm Dan Danford we'll
see you again
next week
