You may be having a bad day in your life, but having a pug dog around you can brighten up the mood and make your life much better. Well, that’s because their distinctive faces and cute features will melt every dog lover’s heart! A perfect balance between playful and docile, a pug is comical, smart, adaptable, affectionate, and extremely loyal and is always a great pet for just about any family. There’s no doubt that welcoming a new pug into your home can be an exciting time. As the pug becomes part of the family, you’ll realize that they’re usually healthy dogs. But like all purebred dog breeds, pugs do have some serious health risks, which can make both of you frequent visitors to the vet. However, you can have peace of mind by getting pet insurance for a pug.
What is Pet Insurance for a Pug?
Pet insurance for a pug is insurance structured to pay either in part or in full for the medical costs of treating a pug. Like health insurance for people, pet insurance provides this benefit, but to a given level. Generally, pet insurance is mostly meant to give pet owners peace of mind: the awareness that they’ll be able to provide their pugs with the veterinary care whenever needed.
As you can imagine, pet insurance is of great importance to you as a pet owner. The benefits of pet insurance for a pug are so immense especially for your peace of mind and of course the well-being of your lovely pug. For this reason, this article breaks down various issues on pet insurance for a pug. At the end of it, you’ll know how pet insurance works and what’s right for your pug.
Why do You Need Pet Insurance for your Pug?
As one of the fastest growing insurance products in the U.S. and other parts of the world, pet insurance has become more important than ever. Pets are now considered a special part of the family in many households and will receive almost the same commitment to their well-being and care as other members of the family.
Sadly, the commitment to your pug’s health is becoming expensive by each passing day as a result of the increasing costs of general veterinary care and advances in technology for pets. This is actually one of the main reasons why many pet owners choose to protect themselves from these rising costs of veterinary care by adopting a quality pet insurance plan.
While the most obvious reason to have pet insurance for your pug is to cover veterinary bills, it’s a safety net to help protect you against unpredictable costs related to your pug. Even though it can seem like an unnecessary expense especially when your pug is healthy, you’ll only realize that it’s worth when your pug has some health issues or develops an on-going condition.
How Does Pet Insurance Work?
While there can be some differences in pet insurance plans, they generally work in the same basic way. Generally, insurance companies provide a waiting period, which is essentially the period between when you purchase the policy and when the illness coverage begins. For medical coverage, insurers often require your pet to get a check-up before the coverage begins to establish any pre-existing condition. Similarly, the waiting period for accident coverage is usually a few days.
What is a Pre-Existing Condition?
A pre-existing condition often refers to any condition, symptom or sign of a condition that exists or is likely to exist in your pug before the insurance coverage begins. If your pug has a condition before you purchase an insurance plan, it’ll be impossible for you to go to the insurer to claim back the vet’s bill for treatment of the existing condition. For example, your pet insurance plan won’t cover the costs for conditions or treatment that arise from your pug being overweight. This is because your pet being obese is something you have control over.
In most cases, you’ll be first required to pay for your pug’s medical costs out of your pocket before filing for a claim afterward. Normally, the insurer will review your claim. If approved, the insurer will directly deposit the reimbursement funds into your account or send a check to your mail. This process typically takes around three business days but can take longer than a week if the claim is complicated.
How is Pet Insurance Reimbursements Structured?
The amount of money you get reimbursed will depend on how your insurance plan is structured. The most important components are:
Choose a Deductible- This is the money you have to pay towards your pug’s medical bill. You can pay it either per month or per incident before you can file for a claim. These amounts generally range from $0 to $1,000.
Reimbursement Level – Also known as co-pay percentage, this is the percentage of the bill that will be reimbursed by the insurer after the deductible is paid. It rates between 50% and 100%.
Annual Max – This is the maximum amount your insurer will pay in terms of the medical bills on an annual basis. The common rule is that you’ll have to pay out of your pocket any amount that exceeds the annual max.
Generally, it’s advisable to go for a policy that offers a 100% reimbursement level, a $50 deductible, and no annual max. While such policies are available, they’re quite expensive and would cost you over $100 per month and would only allow you to pay only $50 per incident. Therefore, a more reasonable approach is to go for a policy that’s affordable to your monthly budget while also giving you low incident costs.
What are the Types of Pet Insurance that you can choose for Your Pug?
There are various types of pet insurance that are currently offered by insurers. It’s advisable to choose the right type of pet insurance that can suit your pug’s needs. They are:
- Accident Only Cover
- Accident and Illness Cover
- Comprehensive Cover
- Accident Only Cover
What it covers – This type of pet insurance covers harm or injuries that your pug sustains as a result of an accident. It’s important to go through the plan and check whether your pug will be covered for common claims such as scratches sustained from fights with other dogs, broken bones from an accident and even snake bites!
What it doesn’t cover – It’s essential to keep in mind that an accident only policy may not cover all types of accidents. For instance, injuries that your pug sustains as a result of a pre-existing condition may not be covered under this policy.
Here’s a practical example; your pug has dislocated his hip and you take him to the vet for surgery. As a result of this dislocation, he becomes clumsier, trips and injures the very same hip or another part of the body. Under such circumstances, the insurer may not approve your claim.
Again, injuries that may occur because your pug is obese or those that occur from tick and flea bites may not be covered under this policy. The general consensus is that these are issues that you as a pet owner could have avoided and so shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Does it Suit Your Pug?
You should consider going for an accident only cover if your pug has a clean bill of health. If your vet has confirmed to you that vaccinating, micro-chipping and de-sexing your pug won’t cost too much, it could be worth going for an accident only cover. You can also consider this type of pet insurance cover if your pug is still a puppy and has a clean bill of health, as they will only have to visit the vet in the event of an accident or for annual checkups.
It’s common knowledge that pugs rarely have a clean bill of health and may be affected by hereditary conditions such as respiratory problems, hip dysplasia, eye conditions and many more. For this reason, the accident only cover may not be suitable for your lovely pug.
Accident and Illness Cover
What it covers – In addition to covering for accidents and injuries as mentioned above, they also cover for sickness or disease diagnosed by the vet. This pet insurance provides cover for diseases including canine cancer, hereditary conditions, infectious diseases, and skin conditions.
What it doesn’t cover – There are obviously some common exclusions that aren’t covered within this type of pet insurance. For example, this policy doesn’t cover for pre-existing conditions or any type of disease that has known vaccines. It’s important to check whether this policy will cover for your pug’s chronic, lifelong or recurring condition before signing on the dotted lines.
Does it Suit Your Pug?
This is the type of cover that may be perfectly suited for your pug given that it’s suited for pet breeds that are prone to health problems.
Comprehensive Cover
What it covers – Also known as accident, illness and routine care cover, this type of pet insurance covers accidents, illnesses, as
well as various components of your pug’s routine care. The comprehensive cover gives your pug access to preventive health treatments including dental care, vaccinations, de-sexing, micro-chipping, worming treatments, and may even include behavioral training.
What it doesn’t cover – Even though comprehensive cover provides your pug with cover for plenty of issues, it still doesn’t provide cover for issues such as:
- Abuse – Your cover may become null and void if there’s concrete evidence that your pug was abused or neglected.
- Pre-existing conditions – This policy may not cover anything that existed prior to the policy.
- Artificial limbs/prosthetic – This policy may not cover your pug if he’s on prosthetic or artificial limbs as this would be considered a pre-existing condition.
- Complex surgeries – This policy may not cover for complicated surgeries that may put your pug into life-threatening risks such as organ transplants.
- Ambulance costs – This policy doesn’t cover for any ambulance costs incurred when transporting your pug to the vet.
Does it suit Your Pug?
This type of pet insurance may be suitable for your pug, especially if it’s aging. This is because pugs tend to develop lots of age-related illnesses. It’s important to keep in mind that some insurers have age limits and may not cover your pug if it has exceeded that age limit. It’s, therefore, crucial to check the age limit set by the insurer before signing.
How much can it Cost You to Insure Your Pug?
Generally, the premium that you pay to insure your pet dog may vary depending on the type of breed you choose. These variances may depend on the size of your pet dog with giant dog breeds such as the Irish wolfhound costing more than small dog breeds such as the pug.
Accident Only cover – If your pug is less than 1 year old, the prices for an accident only cover could set you back an approximated $14 per month. You should keep in mind that it’s always expensive to get an accident only cover for a puppy pug since they’re more prone to accidents than older pugs who are bigger, well-developed and more well-trained.
Accident and Illness cover – This cover can averagely cost you as little as $11 per month if your pug is less than a year old. However, it will become more expensive and may cost you an average of $17 per month if your pug is older and prone to various illnesses.
Comprehensive cover – This policy may cost you an average of $150 per year if your pug is less than a year old. Differently, it can cost you an average of $200 per year if your pug is older.
Is Pet Insurance Worth it for Your Pug?
It’s crucial to note that purchasing pet insurance for your pug is not essentially more important than going without it. This is because it’s possible that your pug may never get hurt or sick and you may only have to spend on annual checkups, which are generally not insured. Nonetheless, going without pet insurance is a risk that you do not want to take given that your beloved pug is involved. Again, you should also keep in mind that pugs generally have hereditary conditions that are likely to affect your pug and they’re often costly to treat.
For your peace of mind especially in the event that something happens to your pug when you’re cash-strapped, the best advice would be to go for pet insurance that’s affordable and appropriate to your lovely pug! In fact, most pet insurers offer dog owners the chance to customize their pet insurance plan to fit their needs, and so you should be able to provide your pug with an appropriate pet insurance.
