2010-04-11-got-a-pet-and-want-insurance-skip-vpi.txt

title: "Got a pet and want insurance?  Skip VPI."
author: Chris
date: 2010/04/11
slug: got-a-pet-and-want-insurance-skip-vpi
categories: reviews
keywords: bula, insurance

I hate insurance.  Health insurance, car insurance, renter's insurance, and now:  Pet insurance.

That said, I'd like to share with the world a bit of information that could prove useful to anyone looking for pet insurance.  The big name in pet insurance is <a href="http://www.petinsurance.com/" target="_blank">VPI</a>, so that's what we got for our beautiful bulldog Bula.  The first several encounters with VPI was typical of much insurance:
<ol>
	<li>Have a problem.</li>
	<li>Submit a claim to get reimbursed for said problem.</li>
	<li>Receive a reply for the insurance company stating that either they denied your claim, or are reimbursing you for a small fraction of your claim due to some compensation schedule.</li>
</ol>
<div>Run of the mill disappointment.</div>
<div></div>
<div>However, our chew-happy puppy ended up swallowing a mini-tennis ball (awesome), and this led to exceptional disappointment.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Our vet gave us two options for removing the ball from Bula's gut:</div>
<div>
<ol>
	<li>Cut him open, stitch him up, and help him recover for 2 weeks on a bunch of drugs while he wears a cone of shame.</li>
	<li>Use an endoscope to go down his throat and retrieve the ball with a claw (yes, like the arcade game).</li>
</ol>
<div>Option #2 was the easy choice, but we decided to consult with the official VPI claim schedule first, just to make sure we wouldn't get screwed over on the $1000+ procedure.  Luckily, VPI covered "Foreign Body Medical" so we proceeded with the endoscopy.</div>
</div>
<div></div>
<div>Jumping to the interesting part, the claim was denied, saying that the procedure was a "medical condition" and not "surgical", so the claim was denied.  Incredulously, I clarified that they would have reimbursed the claim had we opted to cut open our dog, and they responded in the affirmative.</div>
<div></div>
<div>So there you have it:  VPI Pet Insurance incentivizes more harmful, more invasive procedures.  And their customer service was rude and unsympathetic, despite several official appeals by me.</div>
<div></div>
<div>We cancelled VPI and are now using <a href="http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com/" target="_blank">Trupanion</a>, another pet insurance company.  So far so good.</div>
<div></div>