dogs sick in bed

Episode 149 | All About Pet Insurance: Considerations, plans, options, opinions, realizations, reviews, alternatives & more

Annie wanted to get pet insurance for her young dog, Poppy, and decided to dive deep into researching all the options out there -- and oh boy, there sure are a lot of options! In this episode she speaks to several industry experts and company representatives, looks at reviews, reads the fine print, and, after narrowing down the options, discusses the matter with her husband, Jason, whose opinion about what to get ends up being a little different than hers.

Join Annie on Clubhouse to discuss Pet Insurance with reps from top companies, May 13th at 3PM. Don't have Clubhouse? Text 917-414-2625 to get an invitation. Follow Annie on Clubhouse @AnnieGrossman

 

Pet Insurance comparison:

https://www.caninejournal.com/pet-insurance-comparison/

Companies mentioned in this episode:

The Dog Tale 

Wagmo

Crum and Forster 

Pumpkin

ASPCA Pet Insurance

Hartville Pet Insurance

Lemonade

Pet Assure

Eusoh – Sign up for Eusoh through School For The Dogs and get 30% percent off the monthly membership fee for life at schoolforthedogs.com/eusoh

 

Transcript:

Annie:

Hello humans. So this episode really has been a challenge to put together for several reasons. It's about pet insurance, and I was inspired to research pet insurance because of our young dog Poppy coming into our family.

 

But there's a lot of numbers when you're looking at pet insurance. There's a lot of choices, a lot of boring, fine print. So rather than just figuring out what I could from websites, I tried to get representatives of a bunch of different insurance companies on the phone, which was very helpful.  But I was still left with a lot of options and a lot of information. So before I play the episode, I just wanted to share a few takeaways and explain or point out some things that I think are missing from this episode.

 

First of all, there are a lot of pet insurance companies that I did not discuss in this episode. And that's not because they're not good. In fact, they might be great. They might be better than the ones I ended up focusing on. I'll explain how I ended up picking the five companies that I focus on in a little bit, although it ended up sort of accidentally being more than five.

 

But I just wanted to mention, you know, I've heard, I've heard a lot about Trupanion, Happy Paws, Embrace.  Embrace is one, actually, I do kind of mention in the episode for a funny reason. So perhaps there could be a part two to this episode. And if you are using one of the companies I do mention, or one of the ones I don't mention, I am super curious to hear about your thoughts on your pet insurance.

 

And for that reason, I will be hosting a Clubhouse room on the topic of pet insurance next Thursday, May 14th at 3:00 PM Eastern. If you would like to join me there.  If you're not on Clubhouse and would like an invitation, I might be able to get you one, just text me at (917) 414-2625. And if you are on Clubhouse, just go ahead and follow me. I'm there @AnnieGrossman. And you'll see when the room is going on.

 

Another thing that is missing from this episode is an in-depth discussion on whether or not these different companies will cover training, which is a question that we definitely get at School for the Dogs. And the short answer is no, no insurance that I have found will cover the training that we do with our clients at School for the Dogs. However, there are situations and trainers who do provide services that may be covered. And I actually have put together a whole other episode on this topic, which I plan to air next week.

 

But before we dive in, for those of you who have a short attention span, I just wanted to give you the sort of three big takeaways, which I will elaborate on in this episode kind of as I learned these things. But here are my sort of three big pieces of advice to any pet owner, but especially to new pet owners: Number one, get pet insurance.

 

I put a lot of thought into what I ended up choosing, which I'll talk about in this episode. I brought my husband into the conversation. He did a lot of research. What's funny is, if I hadn't been doing this podcast as the one in the household who is mostly in charge of spending on our dog, I'm pretty sure I could have just said to my husband, like, Hey, I got Poppy pet insurance. This is what it covers. This is what it costs. And Jason, my husband would have been like, great, that's awesome.

 

But it did end up turning into a much more complicated conversation, which I'm glad about because I think he helped me think through some things in a way that I might not have done. But I think even if you pick an insurance more or less at random or have criteria or ideas that are way different than mine, fine, just I think some insurance for your dog or pet in general is probably going to be better than not having it in the long run, and better to get it now than later when your dog may have pre-existing conditions.

 

And I think in a lot of cases, you'll find what I found, which is that if you have a plan that covers your dog's a yearly checkup and vaccines, you might find that over the course of the year, you're not going to end up paying a whole lot more than what you would pay for that single visit. But on top of that, not only will that visit be covered, you will also be covered in case of a much more expensive unexpected visit to the vet.

 

So I'm not suggesting you pick a company at random, but I think if you do, you're still probably more or less better off than not having picked a pet insurance company at all.

 

Which brings me actually to my second point, which is if you already have any kind of insurance, renter's insurance, home insurance, car insurance, and you're happy with that company and your coverage, I think the first thing to do is to contact that company and see if they provide pet insurance. This tip came to me from Daniel Caughill, who's the co-founder of the website, The Dog Tale.

 

Because a lot of big insurance companies offer pet insurance or have an affiliation with a pet insurance company. And if you already have insurance with them, tacking on insurance for your pet may be easier than having a whole other insurance company to work with. And also may result in a better rate, as you will be bundling your insurances.

 

And the last takeaway that I wanted to offer you, which I will talk more about, is actually another tip that came from Daniel Caughill, which is at the very least, if you're not feeling ready for insurance, or if you feel like you have a pet who is too old to insure or has preexisting conditions he suggests, and I think it's a good idea, getting a veterinary discount card, which we'll talk more about.

 

It costs somewhere around $10 a month and we'll save you 25% off of anything you do at your vet. The only thing is it's not accepted by all vets. So you either have to check if your vet takes this card or you have to be open to switching vets. So in summary, any insurance is better than none check with insurance companies you are already working with, and if nothing else get the veterinary discount card.

 

I am going to put links to all that the companies that are mentioned in this episode, in the show notes, and you can find quotes there. Of course there are also plenty of aggregate sites where you can compare lots of brands. I'll include a link to one of those as well. I'm a bit hesitant to trust the reviews that appear on those kinds of sites, because I think a lot of those sites have affiliate arrangements with these insurance companies.

 

However, you can at least use them to get information, although be warned. I did this on several sites and now I must get 30 emails a day about Poppy and what kind of insurance I should be getting for her. I just did a search for pet insurance in my inbox, and I have more than 50 pet insurance companies emails from pet insurance companies that have come to me in the last two weeks alone.

 

Some of the subject lines: let us take care of Poppy's vet bills; Poppy and Embrace a winning combination; protect Poppy before something happens; enroll Poppy and get a $25 visa gift card; Time is running out on Poppy’s quotes; great news for Poppy and your wallet. It goes on and on and on. Especially funny is that in some place I must have made a typo, and written Poopy instead of Poppy. So a lot of these emails are actually about Poopy.

 

Anyway, here's the episode. I am going to see if the people I interviewed in this episode will come on Clubhouse to chat about their offerings next week. So if you want to join me there 3:00 PM. Eastern Thursday, May 13th. If you need an invite to clubhouse text (917) 414-2625. And I will try to get you one.

 

[Intro and music]

 

Annie:

Hello, Jason Pedicone. Thank you for joining me today.

 

Jason:

Hi.

 

Annie:

I have a podcast called School for the Dogs podcast and I know you've been dying to be a guest on it.

 

Jason:

I've been a guest on it.

 

Annie:

You have been.

 

Jason:

Several times.

 

Annie:

I asked you here today because I've been putting together this podcast episode about pet insurance, pretty much because we got Poppy. I didn't really consider insurance for Amos because he was by the time I really was thinking about it, he was old and I just figured it was not going to be worth it to look into it because of his pre-existing conditions, et cetera, et cetera.

 

So I started researching pet insurance because of Poppy and then thought, well, why don't I make this into like a project that I can share with people in the podcast? Cause other people are probably like me and are overwhelmed by all the insurance options that are out there for dogs. And my first step in research was I like crowdsourced on Clubhouse. I did a Clubhouse about pet insurance and I don't know, there were maybe 15 or 20 people there and people started recommending the ones that they liked.

 

So I narrowed it down from that group because there's so many pet insurance options out there, like there's these like aggregate sites or whatever, where you can put in your information and then you'll get a million quotes. But I decided to pick the ones that my clubhouse friends recommended and narrowed it down to four. And those four were called Wagmo, Lemonade, ASPCA, and Pumpkin was, was the other one.

 

So I reached out to each of these companies to see if I could get someone on the phone to like record a call for a podcast. Cause I thought, I mean, I could probably figure out a lot of stuff just from looking on their sites, but I was feeling so overwhelmed and thought, Hey, might as well use the podcast medium for what it's worth. So I thought if I could actually talk to people like at these companies about what they each offer that will help give me some clarity.

 

So I did this and I can't say it really actually helped make things clearer. I think it made things a little bit more overwhelming, although I'm glad I did it.  But I felt like I couldn't just like piece together these conversations and play them. I felt like I needed to like talk through the options since you and I are actually in the market to purchase health insurance. And I know in our relationship, like I'm more of the person spending on the dog than you are, but of course it's still like our money.

 

I thought if maybe I could just like explain the options to you based on these phone calls and then maybe play you some of the recordings which I've gone through and like taken out pieces of, and then we could talk about like what we want to do together. So I'm just gonna like walk you through each of the options so far. And then you can stop me and ask questions if you want.

 

But basically I, I, what I learned is there's like a few different buckets that things fall into.  Some buckets are way more full than other buckets, they’re not like evenly weighted. But so I'm just going to kind of go through, I think I counted five pet insurance buckets. So I'm going to go through sort of in the order that I discovered them in.

 

So bucket one is insurance that basically just covers everything and like a hundred percent. So there's no — there's a deductible that is what we can talk about. But there's no like copay, like they just cover one hundred percent. And the company that offers this is called Wagmo. And I heard about Wagmo through my friend, Dr. Lisa Lippman.

 

I guess, actually I did the clubhouse with her. Cause I thought, I should ask a vet what they think. And she was like, I think Wagmo was the best. They are a new company, female owned, they were just founded a few years ago, and I just think what they're doing is really cool. She's an affiliate with them. Although I'm sure she would only be an affiliate of something that she was into to begin with. So anyway, here's Christie from, from Wagmo.

 

Christie Horvath:

My name is Christie Horvath. I am the co-founder and CEO of Wagmo. I started the company a few years ago when I was in business school. And it's really all inspired by my first dog that I ever had by myself, whose name was Denver. So I was actually in the insurance industry, so I started my career in insurance of all things. I worked at this company called BlackRock in New York. So it was more on the investment side of insurance, but I worked exclusively with insurance companies.

 

And I actually love insurance, which I know is a little bit weird, but honestly, I just think it's fascinating. I remember there was this moment when I was in this like insurance 101 class at BlackRock as an analyst. And the moment I learned that an insurance company basically has two separate businesses underneath it.

 

It has the underwriting business, the risk that it's underwriting. And then there's also the investment side of the business that is basically supporting the cashflow needs for the underwriting business and the two in concert work together to create like a profitable, very sustainable business model.

 

And I guess I just had no idea that that's how it worked and it was so beautiful and logical and just really kind of clicked for me. And ever since then, I have just been totally fascinated with the industry as a whole.  And like six years in basically realized I wasn't actually that excited about the investment side of things, so I went to business to figure out, you know, what within insurance did excite me specifically. 

 

I was in the summer between my years of business school. I was up at Harvard and I had a dog, his name was Denver, and he started having seizures.  And he started having grand mal seizures in the middle of the night. And it turns out that Denver had a brain tumor that was inoperable. And I don't know if you've ever seen a dog have a seizure, but it is totally horrifying. 

 

And very quickly was just faced with this reality of what it really means to be a pet parent, and how expensive that can be and how traumatic that can be, as you know. Denver was the first dog that I was financially responsible for. And those moments when you get hit with that three or $4,000 vet bill that you have to pay because, you know, it's your child, you're not gonna let them suffer just because you don't want to put it on your credit card.

 

So, basically had a personal interaction with all of this and came away with the fullest, most sincere appreciation for what a pet insurance product can do to help somebody navigate all of this.  And, you know, thankfully I had pet insurance. I was covered and I'm so grateful that I was, but you know, like everybody, I started looking around to see what was out there, how am I coverage compared to others and was just disappointed.

 

So I had Healthy Paws, and honestly, I do think they were great, but what I realized is that, you know, the claim process was very slow. I had to print out a PDF. I had to find a fax to send it in. I had to wait, you know, three to five weeks for a paper check to get sent in the mail. There was no text message support. Like the whole experience was just lacking.

 

And I realized as I started to look at what else was out there that this component of the insurance industry has sort of been forgotten.  Other aspects of insurance have been innovated on, but pet has really been sort of left by the wayside. And I feel like the players today have really lost touch of the fact that having a pet and interacting with a pet insurance company is very personal and it's painful. And you want that human element, you don't want to just deal with a gigantic insurance company. 

 

So started to really think about what I was missing personally, in terms of coverage, in terms of experience, and then got to work building Wagmo. So the way that this all sort of started was we actually took a step back and thought about, you know, instead of just working to improve on the pet insurance products that existed today, we started from scratch and said, as pet parents, what do we need help with?

 

And the first thing that comes to mind, as I'm sure you have experienced with a young puppy on your hands is the routine care and the everyday care. So every time you go to the vet, it's like two or $300, no matter what, right? Especially if you're in New York, it's probably three or $400 just to get your average exam, your vaccines, your grooming, your flea and tick stuff. That routine care is super expensive. And it's super important to keeping your pet healthy.  But this is not something that's traditionally covered by pet insurance.

 

So what I got frustrated as a pet parent with is, I was paying $50, $60 a month, but when I took Denver in to go get, you know, his heart rate medicine, or just to go get his Bordatella vaccine, I still had to pay $400. And none of that would be covered by my policy. And you’re going to do that every year because you're a responsible pet parent. And that's what you do to keep your pet healthy. So that means every year at a minimum, you're on the hook for $400, plus your flea and tick and heartworm medications, plus whatever else comes up.

 

So what we decided to do is build a product that actually helps people navigate that component of pet parenting first, because at the core of everything is keeping a pet healthy. And so we built a wellness plan, which stands separately. So you can actually buy the wellness product totally on its own, which is super unique to Wagmo.  You pay a monthly membership fee, and then we embarrass you over the course of your year for your routine care.

 

So we would cover, let's say, we'd cover one exam fee, three vaccines. We'd even cover an allocation towards your heartworm and flea and tick medication. So we cover up to $200 towards your flea and tick and heartworm medication. And the idea really is that it helps you budget for and spread out the cost of those visits. So instead of paying $400 in one session, you're paying 30, 40 bucks a month and have that spread out and potentially can actually tap into additional savings as well.

 

So that was really the idea behind the wellness product. So we rolled that out a couple years ago and customers loved it. We designed it to be super, super straightforward and easy to use. So you would go to your vet, you'd take a picture of your bill, you'd submit it to us. And we would Venmo you or PayPal you your cash back within like a couple of hours. So as close as you can get to sort of instant gratification here, we literally text message you money. And it's designed to really be, to make sure that you're out of pocket for as little time as possible.

 

Customers loved that. They kept asking us when we're going to introduce emergency coverage. And so last summer of 2020, we introduced Wagmo Insurance, which is a complimentary product, which covers, you know, accidents and illnesses. This is going to be more of your unexpected type expenses. So cancer treatments, surgeries, broken limbs. And the idea really is that between these two products, as a pet parent, you're covered from that very first moment that you bring your pet home all the way through to the end of life care.

 

And then what we've done along the way is built out this really cool community of like-minded pet parents who are invested in keeping their pets healthy. And we are starting to bring to light a bunch of cool exclusive benefits and perks. So as a member of Wagmo wellness, for instance, you get access to discounted puppy training. You also get access to discounted pet accessories or discounted BarkBox subscription.

 

So the idea really is we're trying to bring to light, like a full end to end solution in helping people navigate the experience of what it means to be a pet parent and to have pet insurance, rather than just making this another bill that you have to pay.

 

Annie:

So I'm on their site now. And it says for Poppy, and this is a New York. So you have to imagine probably be less expensive other places. She is a like 18 pound Chihuahua mix. It says they would pay a hundred percent of the bill, up to $20,000 a year. So that's not per incident. That's per year with a $500 deductible. And that would be $48 a month. If we did a thousand dollars deductible, it would be $32 a month.

 

And then there's an ad-on, which is for the wellness visit each year, covers the office visit, two vaccines, one routine blood work test, and one fecal test. And that would be an additional $20 a month.

 

And I calculated that we, like amortized over the cost of the year, we spend probably twice that on her annual checkup. So that in itself seems like actually a pretty good value. So if you add those two things together, we'll be spending $68 a year, I mean, a month on her plan.

 

And they reimburse within 15 to — 15 days for most things.  For cancer treatments, it's 30.  And they don't cover pre-existing conditions in most cases, which would be okay for us because we have a puppers, and you can go to any licensed vet. So that's pretty cool it's not available everywhere yet, but it is available in New York State.

 

So I really liked Christie. I liked that the plan covers a hundred percent. Like it just seems really like set it and forget it kind of to me, for $68 a month, with that covering her. I mean, our yearly visit is like $500 a month and $500 a year anyway, so this would only be like, what, like about $200 more than that. And that would cover us in case of something major, which would totally be worth it.

 

And the price they said will go up over time, but it's not based on, I think it doesn't go up based on age. It just goes up as the company's price goes up for everything is what I believe I understood. Okay.

 

So then I reached out to Lemonade and I couldn't get ahold of anybody. I wrote their media department. I wrote their like, contact line, no one. So that kind of like turned me off pretty quickly, but — and also actually led me to decide to just focus on companies that only offer pet insurance, because I thought that would at least make things a little bit less stressful as I was reaching this, to set that limit.

 

But I did look at Lemonade's plan and it actually seemed really like a really great deal. So they cover — you know, all of these sites have like, you can toggle what the percentages you would want them to pay, except Wagmo, that just does a hundred percent. But you can toggle like how much they offer, like what they'll pay up to and what the deductible is.

 

So with Lemonade, if we set it to 90%, which is as close as I could get to the Wagmo option and at an annual deductible of $500, which would basically be us paying for her yearly visit, right. Up to a max of $50,000, which I can't imagine we'd ever spend. I mean, I hope we would never have to spend, I guess it's possible, would only be $30 a month. So that seemed like a good deal to me.

 

And what's interesting is if you go lower and you'd say like, okay, well, what if you only covered up to $5,000 a year, which, you know, in most of my life with Amos, I definitely didn't spend more than this. I don't know if I ever spent more than $5,000 a year.  That would only be $25 a month, but to bump it up to $50,000 is just $5 more a month, which seems like if you, if you were actually out of for $50,000, you'd be like, why didn't I pay that $5 a month, right?

 

Jason:

Yeah. If he needs to be repatriated by helicopter from, you know, some far off country.

 

Annie:

I would have, listen, I would have done that for my Amos. Okay. So, but Lemonade for the purposes of my research, although it seemed like a good deal, I eliminated them from the running because they didn't return my calls. And it seems like if you're getting insurance, one thing you want is, you know, the attention of the place that you're calling.

 

So then, then I reached out to this company, Pumpkin which has their site kind of like Lemonade’s site. It's really cute. Like it's really well branded. It's a new company. They've been around, I think just for one year. They send you a cute little welcome package when you join. So I spoke to someone at Pumpkin. Well, first let me tell you the options for Pumpkin.

 

So Pumpkin is $10,000 annual limit with a $500 deductible. Plus their package that would cover her yearly wellness visits would be $83 a month without — the preventative is $1895. So subtract that. And if you wanted a lower deductible, a hundred dollars with a 10K a year limit, that would be $117 a month and a 20K annual limit with a high deductible.

 

I guess if you do high deductible, low limit, it's $83 a month. Which includes the wellness.  If you do their most popular plan, is 97 and that's two 50 deductible, $10,000 annual limit. Lowest deductible will be a hundred dollars a year with a $20,000 annual limit. That one's $140 a month. Oh my God, this was confusing. Right?

 

Jason:

Well, there's just a lot of options.

 

Annie:

It's just a lot of options, right. This one, after looking at Lemonade, seems like a lot more expensive, but they are exclusive to health insurance. I mean to pet insurance.  And they were super nice. And they also cover things I think that some of the other plans don't, like I think they cover, you can get their package that includes grooming, dental care. They offer a lot and they were very responsive. They cover prescription foods.

 

Anyway, it does seem like a cool company. I spoke to one of their reps for like 30 minutes who was super nice, told me they picked the name Pumpkin because they did a survey that showed that that was like the most popular pet name out there.

 

Jason:

Which is distressing.

 

Annie:

Pumpkin? [laughs]  No not pet name, like pet name.  Like, like sweetie.

 

Jason:

Oh, okay. That’s slightly less distressing.  But it's still not my favorite.

 

Annie

What do we call Poppy as a pet name?

 

Jason:

Popsicle.

 

Annie:

You call her Honey which I think is — All right. So anyway, I spoke to him again, I'm not going to play you any part of the Pumpkin interview though, because right after I talked to Pumpkin, I called the, I called the ASPCA to talk to someone with them and ended up on the phone with this really nice guy whose name, you'll love this, is Bob Capobianco. 

 

Jason:

Oh, perfect. I thought you were going to say his name was Pumpkin.

 

Annie:

Bob Capobianco. Who said he was, I said, are you from the south of Italy? Cause I know they have crazy last names like that there. And he said, no, he's actually from the north near the white capped mountains. Makes sense, right? Anyway, Bob Capobianco, nice guy.

 

And he explained to me that his company, which was called Crum and Forster, basically offers insurance through all these other companies. So his insurance is, like ASPCA is his company's insurance. But so is Pumpkin!

 

 So then I was like, oh, it's like white label insurance that then has these branded affiliates that sell it as their own insurance.

 

And at first is through me. And then I thought, we have tons of kinds of insurance for School for the Dogs. And when they send me a bill, I pay the bill, you know what I mean? Like, when there's paperwork, I'm not like, oh, this says, you know, underwritten by X, Y, or Z. Like I just figure like the company I'm working with is taking care of it. I trust them. So that's kind of, I guess, where these relationships get their steam, is like, well you trust ASPCA as a brand, so therefore you trust if you get paperwork that says Crum and Forster on it.

 

Anyway, let me, let me play you a little bit of my conversation with Bob.

 

Bob Capobianco:

I'm Bob Capobianco senior vice president at Crum and Forster pet insurance. And I'm glad to have the chance to chat with you about all things pet insurance.

 

Annie:

The ASPCA pet health insurance was one place that was recommended. I reached out through the website and spoke to one of your colleagues who then helped set this up, but also said, can you include this text, which I'm just going to read:

 

Insurance plans are underwritten by United States fire insurance company. NAIC 21113 Morristown, New Jersey, and produced by C and F insurance agency, Inc. A Crumb and Foster company. More information can be found cfpetinsurance.com. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance through a licensing agreement. The ASPCA receives a royalty fee that is in exchange for use of the ASPCA's marks and is not a charitable contribution. More information on ASPCA pet health insurance can be found online at aspcapetinsurance.com.

 

So this made me realize like, oh, okay, so it's not like the ASPCA has an insurance wing. It's actually your product. Is that right?

 

Bob:

That is essentially spot on. We have a wonderful partnership with the ASPCA. W have been in a relationship with them since 2006. Our insurance operation and their operation, we share a similar heartbeat in terms of what we want to do to help pets live longer, happier, healthier lives. And that partnership opportunity, as I said, has been in place for 15 years.  They are wonderful people. They're doing wonderful work and we're very happy to be leveraging the gravitas that the ASPCA brand has in the pet owner community. And it's been nothing but a wonderful relationship over that period of time.

 

We started in 1997 as the Hartville head insurance agency in beautiful Hartville, Ohio. Hartville is a very small town east of Canton. And we started out as a small agency. We were the second brand in the insurance industry after veterinary pet insurance, which is now nationwide. So we started very small and independent. Our relationship, again, with ASPCA then came along in 2006. We started utilizing Crum and Forster paper, \meaning they became our underwriter in 2006. And in 2013, Crum and Forster bought the heartfelt pet insurance agency and we became part of the insurance company.

 

So we've been in the business now 24 years. And we've seen a lot, we’ve done a lot in the space and certainly our expertise combined with the ASPCA brand has helped us grow quite significantly. We now protect over 200,000 pets on an annual basis. And this opportunity to grow pet insurance, create the awareness, just as you've gone through yourself in your research, gives us a great opportunity to help people fund the cost of providing care for their pets.

 

Crum and Forster does a number of different insurance in the property and casualty accident lines of business. So we were a perfect fit underneath their portfolio of offerings.

 

Annie:

So Crum and Forster, where he works, they have all these other companies. And when you're working with one of these other companies, they're all branded a little differently. So you can see on my screen, like one of them is Hartville pet insurance. This is what this looks like. ASPCA has this, but like their widget or whatever here, you can see it's the same widget.

 

Some places like Spot, which partners with Cesar Milan. So I don't want to use them for that reason. Their widget looks a little different when you go and try and enroll, but the information you're going to get is ultimately the same. So, but because ASPCA was what I picked, I went through the ASPCA widget, which says that, like the lowest option would be a $3,000 annual limit.

 

And this is for Poppy. This is not for all dogs, but for Poppy in New York City. 70% reimbursement, $3,000 annual limit, $500 annual deductible. So this is like the bottom tier would be 32, 64 a month. And the highest here would be $10,000 annual limit, $100 annual deductible. So you’re only out of pocket for a hundred dollars a year with 90% reimbursement would be $98 and 13 cents a month.

 

And this would cover accidents, dental, disease, illness, hereditary conditions, behavioral issues, which I actually forgot to ask about, but from working with clients who get that kind of coverage, I think if you go to a veterinary behaviorist, your insurance often will cover it, not just the ASPCA insurance. And I think this one also covers wellness. Oh wait, no, I think I'm wrong. It says preventative care, annual wellness exams is not included in this plan, although you can add it for a bit more a month.

 

So, okay. So this is basically accident only insurance.  And I read you these numbers, and you get the same quote if you go through Hartville pet insurance and I believe Spot also and a number of other companies.

 

Interestingly though, what's funny though, is Bob Capobianco actually doesn't use any of the companies that work that are part of Crum and Forster because he has a dog, or a cat. I think it's a cat who had a preexisting condition when he started working there. So he told me he uses Embrace pet insurance and has had a really good experience, so totally different company. Not under the same umbrella as the other ones.

 

So I looked at this one too, this at the low end, which is $5,000 annual reimbursement limit with a $1,000 deductible and 70% reimbursement percentage, would be a $26 a month. And then at the high end would be a $30,000 annual limit with a $200 annual deductible. That's the lowest possible deductible. 90% coverage would be $101 and 61 cents per month. And this is for accident and illness.

 

You would add the wellness separately.  If you did wellness at $650 a year, which would definitely cover us, that would be an additional $52 a month. So.  Enjoyed speaking to him.

 

And then the next person that I spoke to though, wasn't with an insurance company, he's actually a blogger who has a lot of experience writing about insurance. And so I wanted to play you a little bit of my conversation with him because I actually learned a lot from him.

 

This is Daniel Caughill of the website TheDogTale.com.

 

Daniel Caughill:

Behind the question, is pet insurance worth it? The other common thing you hear people saying is they treat insurance like it's an investment, so is it worth it means am I going to get my money back, and as an investment, like, I'm putting this money in, what am I going to get from it? And that's really not a good way to think about it.

 

A good way to think about it is, it’s risk management, right? So insurance is all about mitigating risk. And so if you are a financially stable person who has a healthy savings account, and you've got an emergency fund, you truly might not need a pet insurance. But that doesn't describe most people. So based on a couple studies, most people in America, most families, it's been reported can't afford something like a $400 cost that's unexpected.

 

I'm looking at here on the Embrace pet insuranec, is one pet insurer. I'm looking at a few stats on their website right now. And it says 60% of Americans have less than a thousand dollars in their savings account. If that sounds like you, you're at a crossroads where you're facing risk.  And that risk is if something bad happens to your pet, you're going to have to make a really hard decision.

 

And that decision is do I put myself and my family in financial instability by taking on credit card debt or something like that to pay for these pet costs, or you might be faced with a really hard decision such as do I not pay for this pet health for this care for my pet. some tragically, some people have their pets put to sleep because they can't afford the care that otherwise might address the situation. Those are awful situations to be in. So if you're the type of person who couldn't afford an unexpected cost like that you're precisely the type of person who really does need it

 

Now to go back to your question, is there a certain amount. If you have a savings account and you can't afford an emergency of, I would say at least $3,000, but honestly, a more conservative amount is $10,000. then you probably don't need pet insurance. So obviously most trips to the vet's office don't cost $10,000. But they very much can.

 

For example, if your dog is diagnosed with cancer which is a pretty common ailment among canines, you're going to go to the vet at least once, but maybe a couple times, to just try to get a diagnosis and they're going to run blood tests. They might run x-rays, they might do all sorts of things.  And that could easily run up to a thousand dollars, sometimes more depending on where you live.

 

And then there would be chemotherapy if your dog does have cancer and you want to treat it. And that could be another couple thousand dollars as much as $5,000. And then after that, you're going to have rehabilitation costs and all of these things.

 

And so that's why I say, if you can comfortably afford a $10,000 unexpected cost. And when I say comfortably, I know for most people, $10,000 is going to hurt. but if you can, and you're still going to be able to put food on the table and you're still going to be able to, to pay your rent and all of these things, then you probably don't need it. But if you don't have that, you need to start working towards that.

 

I would say on, on the more liberal side, $3,000 is a good little cushion amount for most pet injuries and unexpected ailments. But I would beef that up as you go to, to just give yourself more wiggle room. 

 

So the nice thing, if you decide to basically self-insure is how people would describe that. First of all, you have to have disposable income to divert towards that fund. And then from my personal finance background, I would say if you can put it in an account that's interest bearing, so you don't necessarily just want this money sitting in your savings account.

 

If you have 10 grand sitting in a savings account for, for eight years, like you described it's not really doing anything for you. Obviously it's there if you needed an emergency, but if you can at least get an account with a high interest savings account or some bonds or something like you're saying $10,000, that's a lot of money. It would take a long time to pay that much in insurance premiums. But hopefully, hopefully you'll never need that full amount. That's a conservative amount. And in the event that you don't need all of that, it should be growing with interest.

 

And basically it's, once you reach that threshold, you can start diverting that money and towards other goals. And you can, if you never use it, it'll be there eventually. So the typical dog's life is, you know, it depends on the breed of course, but let's say 13, 14 years. Well, if it takes most of that time to get to that balance, then what happens after your dog passes? If you never use it, are you going to get a new dog? If you are, then that's amazing. You're starting off from scratch with this fund in place to protect that dog's life.

 

If you decide not to, then you have just been forced to save this amount that you can divert towards other things. Maybe you have a kid now and you want to put it towards their college education or something like that. So again, $10,000 is like, that's the most conservative amount. if you set a personal goal, especially like —

 

I'll say this, if you, if you've had a dog for five years and you can look back on the last, let's say three years and the veterinary costs, you should have a fairly good idea of what it costs to take care of your pet.  And then tack on, you know, $5,000 just, just in case there's an incident. So maybe you only pay $300 a year for veterinary costs and those are routine expenses. And then you tack on $5,000. So that's 5,300 bucks there.

 

So I would start there. I don't know if you necessarily need to do it on day one, unless you like the peace of mind that that brings you. If you're more comfortable with that then by all means do it. But for most people they don't have $10,000 to just throw around on day one. So I would say, start with as much as you can to give yourself that hedge, to mitigate that risk and then just grow on it as time goes.

 

Now, so the second part of your question of, should you draw from it for routine care? I would say that depends on the amount that you have, right? So if you have $10,000 in an account for emergency care for your vet. Yeah, definitely. I would, I would draw from that for routine care because it's just going to scratch the surface of that and you can pretty comfortably pay it back.

 

But if you only have $200 in your savings account for emergencies, for your pet, your vet costs are going to basically obliterate that every year before you're able to grow it. So in those situations, I would say you need to find a way to be routinely paying into it until it's at a sustainable rate.

 

If you're drawing from it 50% of the balance every year, or every time you go for like a routine checkup, then it's not it's not actually mitigating any risks. It's good that you have that money there, but, but it's not really enough to do the job that you intend for it to do.

 

Annie:

So then I asked Daniel if he had any other suggestions of alternatives and he actually had two, which I thought were pretty interesting. One is this company called Pet Ashore, which is basically just like a discount card that you can use to get 25% off at participating vets.

 

And I didn't look at the list of vets too closely, but it looked like there were some vets near us that I've heard good things about.  The vets that we've normally been to aren't there, but I guess I'd be okay changing.  Coverage 25%. And that would be either $1195 a month billed monthly or $825 a month billed annually. It's a little bit less for cats, and then you can also combine pets.

 

So I thought that was kind of a neat option that I hadn't of and certainly if you're going to self-insure, it would seem like it would make sense to invest in that, so that you're going to be spending 25% less.

 

And then he mentioned this company called you so to me, and I ended up calling them up cause I wanted to learn more. Basically it is a cost sharing program, not quite an insurance. And I was pretty inspired by what they're doing. Let me play you a little bit of this conversation I had with the founder of Eusoh.

 

Allen Kamrava:

Yeah. So my name is Allen Kamrava. I'm actually a surgeon turned founder. So I am board certified in general and colon rectal surgery. I finished up at University of Pennsylvania. My life was colon and rectal cancer. And I actually, I still see and treat patients. I have a colon cancer surgery I'm doing Friday, two actually.

 

But ultimately for me, I finished all my training, started practicing out in Los Angeles where we're based. I'm teaching faculty at Cedars, and I got incredibly frustrated with the world of fee for service medicine. And that's a whole, we couold probably spend a year long podcast going through all of that.  But that started this journey. And the real question I started to put for myself is why is there not a better model out there than what we've seen for healthcare?

 

And really, you know, our first year with Eusoh was how do we fix healthcare? And that is a really big goal of ours long-term, but we're a very small startup, and our partners rightfully said, why don't you start in a very small analog to healthcare and prove that what you're doing works in pet care.  Still has surgeries, still life and death, people consider their pets as their children. And it made sense.  It's far less likely people are going to do big liver transplants for their pets than they would for their, you know, their kids in millions of dollars of costs.

 

And so the idea with Eusoh really came down to taking the best in technology and saying, can we build a different model that realigns incentives.  And putting together all the parts that I had learned in healthcare where not only — everyone always puts the blame just on the insurers.  

 

But what I was seeing was doctors were, you know, physicians were abusing the model. They consider it as a big pot of gold and trying to figure it out as best they can, how can they tap into that pot of gold for themselves? As well as hospitals, and even some patients, patients less, it's probably a very small minority, but I'm seeing it tremendously so on the provider facility side. And so that was kind of the thesis of what got me going on building Eusoh. 

 

All insurance is crowdfunding. That's not just a play on words. It really is. People forget that all insurance companies’ core based fund that they start with is all community funded. So they built a current fund, but all the money that comes on back to people on reimbursements for claims, if there wasn't coming from the people there isn't any fund there. That's what our premiums support, our premium dollars go in. And then they come back to the people that need them

 

And what we posited with Eusoh on many fronts, there's many pieces to it, was that if we can take what we're seeing in tech now and connect people directly online and build communities online and build that transparency, and then also take what we're finding with digital payments, be it Stripe or PayPal and everything you were kind of seeing on the payment side, we can move to a more transparent and cleaner model where instead of telling people, Pay in, and we're going to hold it upfront for something that may happen in the future, we can transact on exactly what the costs were completely on an after the fact basis.

 

Which could never be done before, prior to tech because there was issues with, how do you make sure everybody's going to pay? How do you know everybody's going to contribute when they're supposed to?

 

And the reason to do that, you know, it sounds like, well, ultimately it should be the same. The reason to do that was under the conventional insurance model. When an insurer collects premiums, their revenue is actually a proportion to total premiums collected. And so for an insurer to raise profits, they do better if the cost of care outpaces inflation, because ultimately that comes back to them and to their bottom line.

 

And what I wanted to see, which was, what I was seeing was corrupting healthcare, was that the insurers should have no connection at all with the cost of care.  That their profits should be completely disattached from the two. And the only way to do that was to wipe out the premium model and to start from scratch.

 

And so pivotal and I say key to what we wanted with Eusoh was that what we make has no connection at all to the cost of care so that we have no incentive at all to ultimately allow cost inflation to happen at a pace that we're seeing in healthcare is out of control. And actually veterinary care is the same. So the American veterinary society last year for 2020 said it just under 10% cost of inflation at the point of care at the vet in 2019, it was 17.1% inflationary cost for veterinary care. 

 

And that's because the model has been built to allow that to happen. It supports that happening. We don't know what the cost of anything should be when we go to our adopters or vets. It's very, non-transparent, it's very opaque. And by making the system something that nobody understands, it allows costs to outpace everything else that you would ever imagine. And that's what we wanted to do. Cost care is not free. There will always be a cost. It costs money to be with Eusoh.

 

But what we want, or my goal in starting this is that we need to build something where our incentives are aligned with our users, rather than figuring out how to make things become more expensive quickly or faster over time.

 

Annie:

So I was pretty excited to hear about Eusoh, to talk to Allen. I thought it was a cool idea that it was basically like insurance with a mission. And there's, you know, this base rate that you're paying, which I think is like 15 or $18. And then above that you're paying, I think never more than $65 total. So whatever 65 is minus 15 or 18.  But it could fluctuate month to month.

 

And for that, you're always getting 80% covered. And the deductible, I forgot what the doctor ducted, but it's comparable to the others, like $250 and it's up to $8,800 a year, which is not as high as some of the other places. But like I said, in Amos’s whole life, I don't think I even, at the end of his life, when we were paying all kinds of money, I don't think we even spent $8,800.  So that seems like a fine upper limit.

 

So yeah, I just liked that Eusoh wasn't really insurance and that it was kind of like building towards this better world of medicine for dogs as well — I mean, for pets and not just dogs, but pets, but also for people.  That it was kind of mission driven rather than profit driven. I liked the idea of sort of creating a Eusoh community and I was able to talk to them about that. Like, okay, well, what if we wanted like a School for the Dogs Eusoh group? And they said we could totally help you do that. So yeah, I was just into it.

 

But I talked to him a few weeks ago and afterwards I thought about it and realized that I think, if I were making this decision on my own, and fortunately I'm not, I have you to discuss it with me.  I think I would be stuck between Eusoh.  Just money wise, I think it'd be stuck between Eusoh, Wagmo and Lemonade. Lemonade is the least expensive, which seems to offer the highest percentage of coverage, although I didn't get to talk to them. Like I said, I couldn't get anyone on the phone.

 

Wagmo I really liked because I, I think it's nice that they cover a hundred percent. You kind of  don't have to think about it. I like that it's a new business that is very client-focused and female owned.  And then Eusoh I like, although I'm not sure if it's really any kind of a savings over the other options, but like I said, I was sort of drawn to their mission. And then of course, I also thought about what Daniel with The Dog Tale said about like, you could just fund your own account. But I feel like that takes a certain degree of like what's the word, like…

 

Jason:

Maturity.

 

Annie:

Maturity, responsibility, discipline. Right? Like I think you and I could probably find $10,000 to put into a bank account and not touch and put into like a high yield savings account, but there are other things we could do with that money. And it's not like it wouldn't mean anything. Like if you're someone for whom $10,000 is just like, you know, yesterday's change in the pockets of your jeans in the laundry, then I guess it doesn't make a big deal, but it would be significant for us to do that.

 

And in the long run, I think you might actually end up spending less. You could end up spending less money on one of these policies. Anyway, what's your takeaway?

 

Jason:

The way I think about it is like, I mean, the person who was talking about the option for self-insuring was imagining like a high yield savings account or something.  But, no one would do that probably who chose to self-insure. They'd probably invest it more aggressively, like put it in the S&P 500 or something like that. Cause it's a long period of time.

 

And so I actually just did the calculation. If you put the, like the average return on the S&P 500 historically it's like 10% over time. 

 

Annie:

In like 10 years?

 

Jason:

Yeah. So if you put, well, no, I think like ever.  So like if you put a thousand dollars a year in the S and P 500 or in, you know, some kind of aggressively invested fund and got 10%, you'd have like 25,000 at the end of 10 years.  And if you got 5%, which is more conservative, that's like what university endowments tend to get and stuff, you'd have something like 14,000 at the end of 10 years.

 

So, I mean, I, if I were doing this, I would try to —

 

Annie:

We are doing this.

 

Jason:

Well. What I would say, if I were going to self-insure, I would try to invest it in some kind of a slightly more aggressive investment product and get a better return, in which case, you know, then you're talking about having liquid money that you can use on whatever you want. And you can just sort of say, it's a fund for your dog.

 

So, I mean, that's one way to look at it, but I still think that for me, the fundamental problem is I think I disagree with the idea that if you're somebody who can handle a $10,000 expense or even a $3,000 expense, that you don't need this. Because I think that essentially what happens psychologically is when you have to make a huge expense on an animal, you start questioning it.

 

Because you say, well, yes, it's like a child. And everybody kept saying like, oh, people treat their dogs like children.  But it's actually not a child. It's a dog. And, I think people do question or sort of doubt whether it's a good idea to spend that much money. I know when Amos was at the end of his life, and we were spending lots of money on him, I also felt suspicious of some of the vets that we were going to, because they were like, it'll be a thousand dollars for us to just do the normal test, but really what you should do is leave them with us overnight. And then it'll be $4,200.

 

And it's like, you know what do you mean should like, am I a bad dog owner?

 

Annie:

Well, to be fair, you're conflating things, because one was when he was sick and one was when he seemed to have an accident, but..

 

Jason:

Well, I'm just in general, I just mean for high, expensive care for animals. Like for me, the experience psychologically was like, okay, I don't know if I'm being taken advantage of here. I feel uncomfortable with this. I feel slightly uncomfortable with spending so much money on an animal when it's like, you know, we're not independently wealthy and it's not nothing. 

 

Annie:

Well, and he's like already at the end of his reasonable, natural life span for, I mean, it's hard. It's hard. Hard questions to ask.

 

Jason:

Yeah, exactly. So it was like a psychological, psychologically unpleasant, or an emotionally unpleasant process to go through having a sick dog who needed care.

 

Annie:

Well, fortunately though, just on that topic, I feel like just the way things worked out, we never really got to the point of having to like, ask major questions about what were we going to, like, it seemed like everything we were spending up until the end seemed, at least to me, like, obviously we're going to spend this. We didn't get to a point of being like, now we need to —

 

Jason:

We spent about $5,000 on him at the end of his life. And I would say we spent about a thousand dollars a year on him more or less, probably less than the beginning instead of the more towards the end. So, at the end of the day, it's probably fine.

 

You know, the way I kind of think about pet insurance is like, okay, if you want to just drop eight or 900 bucks a year on the dog and just budget for that and not worry about it. And then like, know that what you're buying with your money is you don't have to have that unpleasant feeling. You don't have to fight with your spouse about whether or not it's worth it to take care of their baby. Or, have one owner saying, he's like a child, we’ll do anything for him. And on the other saying, you know, I'm not spending $10,000 on cancer treatment.

 

Annie:

Okay. So it sounds like you're, you're in the camp of not self-insuring in the end.

 

Jason:

Well, the problem is like, if you self-insure, at the end of the day, the problem is the same, because it's still liquid money and you could still spend it on something else. So unless you happen to become independently wealthy by the time that savings pays off, then you're still faced with the same psychological problem.

 

Annie:

Well, when we were spending all that money on Amos, I got a Starbucks card. So now I have a lot of Starbucks points.

 

Jason:

Right.

 

Annie:

And every time I drink a latte, I think of my dog.

 

Okay. So then let's think about the other options. So I think if someone is going to self-insure, they would be smart to also get the pet assure card. Right. That makes sense for 10 bucks a month.

 

Jason:

Yeah. Probably because you bring the costs down

 

Annie:

To bring your costs down. Although of course, that's not going to be covered if you go to an animal hospital or something like that, but it's still something and it's relatively small investment for the year. If it's only, whatever, like a hundred dollars a month, I mean, a hundred dollars a year.

 

Jason:

But I think it's worth noting that the big bills tend to come from animal hospitals. So if you're, when you're dropping that $5,000 payment on your dog, it's probably not going to be at the local vet.

 

Annie:

Right. Also though, if you have a dog who has conditions though, that aren't covered by these insurance companies. And to be honest, that wasn't a question cause we're dealing with a young, healthy dog. I didn't ask a lot about pre existing conditions. I asked a couple of the people I spoke to. Eusoh, I know you have to disclose that and then they won't cover the things having to do with the preexisting conditions. I think the other ones are probably similar to that, but the Pet Assure is for anyone. So if you already have a dog who's dealing with stuff then that's a good way to go.  Plus self-insuring.

 

So it seems to me like the closer you are to the beginning of your dog's life, probably the harder it is to self insure, where if you're towards the end of your dog's life probably actually makes more sense or is maybe easier to do. Okay. So we're ruling out that option.

 

So then the other options =that we've gone over for us either would be Eusoh or Wagmo or Lemonade. And I know we had talked also about Embrace and ASPCA and Pumpkin with the latter two being part of the Crum and Forster group. But I don't know, even though I know it's not that big of a deal, it just kind of turned me off to be honest, that they're all just like one company branded differently.

 

Like I said, I think in the end, really probably doesn't matter. But given that I've done this research which is more than I might've done on my own were I not a podcast on this and discussing it with you. I think my choices would be Eusoh, Wagmo or Lemonade. What about you?

 

Jason:

Yeah, I mean, insurance is like casinos. The house always wins. So the reason there's probably all these different versions of different brands with slightly different tweaked aspects, is that the way they make money is by convincing people to buy the product.

 

Annie:

Yeah, but I felt like, maybe that's also part of the reason why, like I'm ruling out ASPCA and Pumpkin and all of the various Crum and Forster ones is because I feel like it's all just different ways to market to people, the same thing. And I mean, of course marketing is happening all the time. There's nothing like innately dishonest about marketing, but once you kind of realize that you're being marketed to, it feels a little funny.

 

But I thought Wagmo and Eusoh, they both sort of felt like they were trying to do something different in the industry. Wagmo, their feeling is like the industry hasn't changed in forever. It's not convenient. It’s not understanding of what pet owners are going through.  How can we make this better, easier, less painful, dah, dah, dah, dah.  

 

Eusoh being like the whole medical system is broken at least from a financial perspective and let's start fixing it by approaching veterinary care, which I think is interesting. And then I like Lemonade just cause it seemed like the best maybe value.

 

Jason:

I think probably the way to go about this is just do the math and buy the one that's cheapest. That gives you the biggest bang for your buck. Because now that we see that, there are literally four different companies that are just selling the same product with like a different label for different prices.

 

Annie:

Yeah but I’m saying let's not even bother looking, like let's decide we're not looking at those for, if we have to pick reasons to rule something out, let's rule it out just for that option so that we can…All right, we'll do the math. Tell me what do you think is best?

 

Jason:

Okay. So Wagmo is 68 bucks a month for a hundred percent coverage. No deductible.

 

Annie:

68.40 a month. That includes her annual wellness visit, which is $20 a month of that 68, which is actually, that seems to me like a good value, because I think our annual visit, where we go is usually between five and $600 a year. So $20 a month is a good deal. It covers up to $20,000 a year with a deductible of 500. Which would be her wellness visit. If we put it down to a deductible of 250 it comes to $79 a year

 

Jason:

And then what's Lemonade?

 

Annie:

So Lemonade, if we got coverage, let's say $250 deductible with 90% coverage up to $50,000 a year, not including wellness care, like not including her annual visit, which I said is about five or $600. That would be $32 a month or 31.92 to be exact.

 

Jason:

Do they have an option for

 

Annie:

They have annual pay, which would be 364 a year. If we were to include wellness care, that would be an additional 216 a year. Which again, I guess seems, I mean, if we're paying, if her wellness visit is usually 500 and they're saying that,

 

Jason:

So what's the annual for the base?

 

Annie:

So if we paid annually and we got a $250 deductible with 90% coverage up to $50,000 — what's interesting about them is if you choose 5,000 or 50,000, like the price actually doesn't go up that much. So I'm just picking 50,000. Cause it's not that much more expensive. And this includes a wellness visit, would be 580 for the year. 

 

Jason:

Okay.

 

Annie:

And then Wagmo, I told you, and then Eusoh, it has a fluctuating cost. It covers 80% up to, I believe it was $8,500 a year and the cost could fluctuate anywhere between 15 and, I believe 15 and 60 or $65 a month. And that would cover that would also cover her wellness visit.

 

Jason:

Does Eusoh tell you what the average person pays?

 

Annie:

They said it fluctuates and it's going to change also for, I don't know if it's going to change for better or worse as more people join. Cause it's still pretty new, but probably I think they said around 40, $45 a month.

 

Jason:

Yeah. So looking at all these numbers together, a couple of things come to mind.  First of all, the purpose of pet insurance is to have it last for a long time and have it be around. So I don't know if there's some kind of production about Eusoh going out of business. I mean, what if this guy's model doesn't work, what if he's not around in 10 or 15 or 20 years, are we still protected? Like what if not a lot of people join the policy. I'd want to know more before I signed up, especially because it's kind of comparably expensive. The protection is the least good. 80% compared to —

 

Annie:

Yeah. Although to be fair, like all of these, you can toggle to make it cover more or less, but I just did the most possible coverage pricing.

 

Jason:

Right. So let's just, let's just leave it at that. But Eusoh’s 80%, Lemonade’s 90 and Wagmo's a hundred.  Now in terms of annual cost, it looks like you're paying about a thousand bucks a year with Wagmo. And about 580 a year, you know, 984 with WagMo, 580 a year with Lemonade. And that still covers the wellness visit. You do have that 10% cost, but probably long-term, Lemonade's a better deal. Based on what I see here, because it's just a relatively low annual amount to pay and you got really good coverage.

 

Whereas, Wagmo for that extra a hundred percent, it's basically twice the cost of Lemonade on a monthly visit. And the only real difference is like 10% more of coverage. So, yeah. So I think, I think based on looking at this, you know

 

Annie:

Although I'm just looking at, it says on the Lemonade — again, Lemonade, I couldn't get anyone on the phone there. So in Wagmo’s court is like the founder was able to spend half an hour with me on the phone. And I think, like I said, it seems to me like they have a mission and a story. And obviously from my experience so far excellent customer care. And I think you send them a photo of your receipt and they send you the money right away by Venmo. It sounds like, really thought out.

 

Jason:

You’re also paying for that service.

 

Annie:

Right? Lemonade, I couldn't get anyone on the phone and pet insurance is just like one of the things that they do.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I wonder if that means they pay much as much attention to it. And also as I'm looking now on their website, it says, go above and beyond with our extended accident and illness package for an extra $101 a year. And that gets you added coverage for vet visit fees when treating an eligible accident or illness, which I thought was weird.  Like why wouldn't vet visit fees be covered under all the other stuff?

 

Jason:

Yeah, you gotta read the fine print.

 

Annie:

Right, it like vet visit fees isn't that? Why are you going to the vet to pay a fee?

 

Jason

Yeah, it might not cover that. You gotta understand exactly what you're buyin.  The fact that that's not immediately obvious from all of the time and effort that you've spent putting on these people's website is a little worrying. So maybe Wagmo is more straightforward and it's more expensive, but there's no surprises like that.

 

Annie:

Yeah. Yeah. Wagmo also has options, which I didn't even get into where you can get a package that includes a hundred dollars a year towards grooming. And another package that includes a hundred dollars — no, they’re covering up to a hundred dollars a year of dental care. Yeah, I'm looking at their site and if there's little texts like that, that I'm not seeing, I'm not seeing it. So what do you think?

 

Jason:

Well I don't know, maybe we shouldn't render a judgment here on this podcast. I mean, people have heard us talk through all the various options and, you know, maybe they can make their own decisions and we'll make ours.

 

Annie:

Leave the public hanging?! I think talking it out with you and going over all these numbers, I think Wagmo is actually the answer. I was thinking Eusoh, it was just really cool. And I still think they're really cool, but it doesn't necessarily seem like the best deal.  Lemonade does seem like the best deal, but almost like too good of a deal. And I mean, honestly, also just as a female owned small business in the pet sphere, I feel like I want to support another female small business in the pet sphere. Maybe that's silly.

 

Jason:

Well, I mean, I would just want to understand fully, I mean, I would want to buy the cheapest most affordable option.  And then just donate to businesses that I want to support or buy their products, you know, the things that I really need. But it seems like there may be too many surprises or they may not be good enough at communication at Lemonade to really understand what you're getting for your money.

 

Because if you're supposed to get 90% of everything in wellness fee, and then suddenly they're talking about spending extra money on to cover vet fees, I'm like, what's going on? You know? So, we're still not to the bottom of that one. I think. So I don't feel ready to make a decision.

 

Annie:

But I mean, if we weren't making a project out of this and we just needed to make a choice, do you really think we would [laughs]…How many hours do you think we would have actually spent discussing this?

 

Jason:

Yeah, I mean, I think that I would, before I spent any money on this, I would want to know exactly what I was buying. So, Lemonade seems better. But I want to know, I mean, if they're still unanswered questions, I want to know what the answers to them are.

 

Annie:

I don't know what more questions to ask.

 

Jason:

No, I think we should pause the podcast here and like go figure out what Lemonade isn't telling us.

 

Annie:

But how are we supposed to know what they're not telling us? Do we like read reviews?

 

Jason:

Well, let's look more closely.  Because just on paper right here, I would say buy Lemonade because it's cheaper. And it gives you almost as much as Wagmo, you're just not paying for the bells and whistles. It's cheap because you're not paying for all that extra stuff. So, I mean, one of the dangers Wagmo might be their product is expensive because they're putting money into customer service and support. Maybe you want that, you know, but a lot of people are probably going to want to be the most economical and maybe that's Lemonade

 

Annie:

One tally mark for the Crum and Forster insurances is that, I guess that's what the partnerships are about. Like, you have to feel like, well, the ASPCA wouldn't be partnering with them if they were crappy and there's like all these different ways to access it. So maybe that means like, they've thought things through? But again, there's a little bit like a lack of transparency where they're not like sign up with us and then you'll get this other company's insurance.

 

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's about, when you fully scrutinized and really understand exactly what you're buying, buy cheapest thing.  Because at the end of the day, insurance is not like staying in a hotel. You don't need to have good room service. You need to have a good equation.

 

Annie:

But think about it this way though. Lemonade only covers 90%, Wagmo covers a hundred percent. The difference would be, if it's a $500 difference a month, I mean, a year, $500 difference a year between the two roughly, or less than that, right? Like 4?

 

Jason:

Uh, it's 580 versus 980, like 400 a year..

 

Annie:

So if you did have to go through some procedure that was $4,000, with Lemonade, you'd be spending that $400 anyway. Whereas with Wagmo you wouldn't spend that. If you had something that was $8,000, you would have spent 800, whereas Wagmo, you actually come out on top?

 

Jason:

Well, no, because you're giving Wagmo that 400 bucks every year. So, I mean, you'd have to basically have your dog have multiple 4,000 or $5,000 events.

 

Annie:

To make up that 10% difference.

 

Jason:

To make up the 10% difference, which is unlikely, I mean, based on our experience. So yeah, I would say cliff hanger, pause the podcast here. We're going to go look at Lemonade and figure out what the heck is actually going on. And then we'll come back and tell you our final decision.

 

Annie:

You know, one thing worth mentioning is when you go to the Wagmo site, which is Wagmo.io, on their blog, they have a blog post called Wagmo vs. others. And it says one thing that differentiates them is there's no sketchy loopholes in the small print. ‘Ever read between the lines and discover what you wanted isn't what you signed up for? There's always loopholes and exclusions that you don't realize when signing up. Then when faced with an emergency you're left hopeless. We don't believe in small print. We'll tell you all of the details upfront, check out our sample policy doc, if you don't believe us.’

 

And then it's, it talks about that. There's no hidden costs. It says ‘ad-ons often house the most important coverage needs for your pet. You'll end up seeing hidden costs on your monthly bill. Ain't nobody got time for that. We do have to charge some fees and taxes because, insurance, but we'll list them clearly for you and keep them to a minimum.’

 

Hello listeners that are still with me here, Annie alone now.  Jason is all the way on the other side of the apartment now. And I decided to see if I could find some reviews of both Wagmo and Lemonade. So I went to Reddit, which has a pet insurance subreddit and also an insurance reddit.

 

And I looked up Lemonade first and it's an older company. So there's a lot more here about Lemonade as opposed to Wagmo, which is a newer company. And although they were offering their wellness package as of about a year ago, their full package is newer.

 

I'm just going to read out some of the quotes here about Lemonade:

 

“Do not use Lemonade. This company is a joke, nothing about saving my cat cost only $75 for vet visit. I don't care. They claim it to me or not, but Lemonade do ruined my day.” Gotta love Reddit.

 

“Since I installed their apps, I keep talking to stupid AI forever, and Jesus, you know that feeling.”

 

Someone else writes, “I hope this isn't too late, do not get Lemonade.” All caps. “I am in the process of canceling my policy less than a month after purchasing it.  Absolutely useless crap and radio silence for a week.  Did not cover a single claim. And it has caused an incredibly stressful time for me, since the medication for my dog is $450 and it will affect me financially.  Go for Geico or anything else, no waiting periods, which affected my dog because of the difference of one day, even though the appointment was after the waiting period.”

 

“I have a Lemonade insurance plan for my cat and the experience is absolutely shitty.  For the second claim I filed, I filed it two months ago and they are still processing it right now. I already emailed them at least 10 times and on December 11th, they applied to me one last time telling me that they were still processing my claim. LOL, do not buy Lemonade.”

 

Someone else write, “ had Lemonade too. They still had not finished processing my claim for my dog after two months. And I ended up canceling my policy, the amount I was paying every month, while I was waiting for the claim to process was more than the vet bill. I don't recommend Lemonade.”

 

And there are no overwhelmingly positive posts about Lemonade in any of the threads that I saw.  And a couple more posts, people talking about the stuff that exists in the fine print, et cetera, et cetera.

 

So then I looked up Wagmo, and a lot of the conversation seemed to be about just their wellness plan. Like I said before, they launched their full emergency coverage plan plus the wellness plan, which is what I was looking at. One person named awyeahmuffins a year ago in the dog's room in the discussion subreddit wrote a rather thorough review here. They write:

 

“You can use this at any vet or groomer, simply fill out a claim form and submit a picture of an itemized receipt for the claim. It's charged monthly, but you have to commit to a year of service to offset the cost of the reimbursement. It also seems you also keep your signup price for one year as well. There's zero terms or paperwork when you sign up.  Whatever terms you can find on their website, that's it.  Claims have been reimbursed in less than 24 hours for me and paid via Venmo or PayPal. More details on claims below.  The PayPal money has been instantly sent to my account when reimbursed.”

 

And then they go into detail — claims. “I've submitted two claims so far to test the service claim. Number one, this was a $900 nail trim at my dog's daycare. This was mostly just to test the service, to be honest.  It was reimbursed within a day. No problem. Claim number two, dog's annual vet visit. So during this vet visit, I paid $292 of services that would fall under the categories in my plan as outlined above. However, since I have a $50 limit on vaccines, this meant I had $262 worth of reimbursable services.

 

“I submitted the claim and put $262 in the claim amount box and uploaded a picture of my itemized vet receipt. $292 was reimbursed to me via PayPal. I now have a negative $33 sitting in my vaccine section on my account. This may be a bug due to the fact that all of their lowest tier plans now have a hundred dollar limit for vaccines. I'm not sure whether they'll ask for this $33 back. I do not mind if they do. However, since reimbursement is instant and I filled out my claim correctly, I'm just going to sit on it for now.

 

“Additional thoughts. The service is not as good of a deal as when I signed up. I still get my price for one year. When I saw their plans, I kind of thought it wouldn't be worth the effort to sign up at that price. However, since I've used the service and it's been so quick and easy I would consider signing up again, even if I'm saving less money, it's still a net gain.

 

“This company gives me strong movie pass vibes. I don't really expect it to last another year to be honest. I don't see how they're making money at all. I've been able to scrounge up one or two interviews with the CEO of the company, and it's the same old movie pass song and dance of quote unquote user data, vet data, marketed suggests, et cetera, et cetera.

 

“That said, I enjoyed my movie pass while it existed in its early form. And I enjoy this while it exists as well. I would recommend the service if you do the math and think you'll use it enough to come out on top.  Personally, I'd sign up before a big yearly visit like I did. Claims are easy and reimbursements are quick. I don't really have any complaints, just a fair bit of skepticism, but I've already come out on top with my one vet visit. So I'm content with that.”

 

And here's one interesting thing, is in one thread on Wagmo, like I said, there's only a couple here. In one Wagmo itself or a rep replied to the thread.  And in this thread, there's this response:

 

“Full disclosure. I help out with Wagmo’s server stuff as my sister is actually the founder of this company.  Regardless, I can assure you it's legit. I've even signed my own dog up and take advantage of the benefits, my choice ignoring the big sister pressure. They're actually part of the tech stars class this summer, if you want to read more, but here's how it works.

 

“The wellness plan is just the beginning. Sure, they make money on the breakage. Not everyone will use the full value of the plan. But the real play here is they will start offering other products down the line. True catastrophic insurance coverage is where they're going next. But you can see where there's great opportunities to layer on partnership opportunities with other pet brands, vets premium food companies, et cetera, et cetera. 

 

“Think of it like AAA, or AARP for pet parents except cooler. They are definitely a startup. So the product has changed a lot since it first came out. And to be honest, we'll probably change again. They're super keen to learn from their users and love feedback. Plus in the meantime, it will help a lot with taking care of your pets.

 

[music]

 

Annie:

I'm playing transition music to indicate that time has passed. That was called mineral still, this one's called morning color wheel.

 

[music plays]

 

What do you think? I feel like harps. I feel like harps indicate the passage of time. Anyway.

 

Jason:

I feel like that indicates the passage into a supernatural other world.

 

Annie:

All right. Jason and I are back here together again after taking a week or so off of discussing this topic.  During which time I've done some soul searching, some thinking. I also read aloud some of the things I read about on Reddit, about both Wagmo and Lemonade. And I know you went and printed out Lemonade's fine print and read it with a magnifying glass.

 

Jason:

And I also called them and spoke to a representative.

 

Annie:

Right. But just to be clear, you spoke to the representative who is probably in a call center and you had no problem doing that.

 

Jason:

He seemed very, yeah. Informed.

 

Annie:

I tried for over a month to get a representative to come on the podcast because you can't just call like a call center representative and expect that they're going to want to be recorded and podcast. And I couldn't get anyone, nobody responded to my emails.

 

Jason:

You could just tell them that the call will be recorded for training purposes.

 

Annie:

Right, this call will be recorded. Yeah. Couldn't get anyone in any kind of media department and more annoyingly than that, my email during this time was flooded with emails from them, trying to get me to sign up.  But no emails that were actually like responding to my query. So, just stating that.

 

So I don't know. You want to go first with your thoughts about Lemonade after doing more research on your own?

 

Jason:

Yeah, sure. So Lemonade was the cheapest option in terms of what you paid per month for the amount of coverage you got. It didn't provide a hundred percent coverage like Wagmo did, but if you sort of prorated it by the amount you paid versus by the amount you would save, it was the most affordable option. So I was attracted to that for obvious reasons, but their documentation was not entirely straightforward because there was a bit on there about them not covering vet service fees, which I didn't understand what that meant.

 

Annie:

Did you figure it out?

 

Jason:

So I called them and spoke to the guy, and he told me that basically a vet service fee was when you take your dog to the vet and they do a procedure and they charge you a certain amount for the procedure, but then they also charge you sort of like a flat rate just for going to the vet. So sometimes there's additional fees charged by vets in addition to the fees for service. So if there's a general service fee for going to vet, that's not covered so.

 

Annie:

Well, is that like the waste disposal fee, which is usually like $3 and I never understand why they charge you for that? Like, they're charging you to throw something out. Why don’t they just build that cost in.  Or is it like the fee you pay for just having a vet look at your animal to begin with?

 

Jason:

I think it's the latter. I mean, it might be both, both of them might be like, sort of ancillary fees, associated with the process of going to the vet, but that aren't actually connected to the ailment or injury I guess.

 

Annie:

Right. Well, that feels really opaque to me. And doesn't feel like a selling point because I feel like, as we know from going to doctors of all kinds, there's always a million things that are tacked on that don't make a lot of sense. Right? I don't know. Did that make you think, like, okay, no big deal or did that make you think, did that give you pause about the idea of signing on with them?

 

Jason:

No, it didn't strike me as a loophole that they would exploit to charge me huge amounts of money.

 

Annie:

But didn't it seem like it could be a lot of small amounts of money?

 

Jason:

Well, I don't know, you have more experience going to vets than I do, but what I would imagine is like, there's probably generally some kind of base service fee that you get charged every time you go to the vet. So you're going to be looking at that, but I imagine it's probably not high, so it might be a hundred dollars or $50 or whatever it is.

 

But the main fees would probably all come from the services rendered for you know, things with like what do they call them? Like codes, you know, like when you got diagnostic codes and there are like codes tied to services. I think that's where most of the money comes from in vet bills.

 

Annie:

I dunno. Cause I feel like I've had the experience of going to vet.  Just the other day. I brought Poppy to get a couple additional vaccines that I wanted her to get or like she needed a heartworm test and I guess a Lyme vaccine.  And they charged me like $80 just for having the vet in the room with her. And then they charged me for the vaccines. So if it's going to be 80 bucks or something like that, that seems like it could add up.

 

Anyway. So, so you're, you're still like in the Lemonade camp then it sounds like, all things told.

 

Jason:

No, not really. I've been convinced by your passionate interest in Wagmo actually.

 

Annie:

Which I need to explain? Right?

 

Jason:

I think you should.

 

Annie:

I think I should. All right. So my thoughts and we've had a little bit of this conversation off mic, although not a lot, but my general thoughts, as I've considered this.  First of all, the Reddit reviews of Lemonade were really bad. I don't know if I read them all to you, but I read them on the podcast. So prior to this.  And they basically sounded like, you get what you pay for kind of thing.

 

But also as I'm thinking about it, I realized sort of when I started doing this, I set up the parameters of like, okay, I decided I needed to set some kind of limits of what plans will companies I was looking at just because time is finite. There's a lot of a lot of different companies out there.

 

And one of the parameters I set was that I was not going to consider companies that did insurance other than pet insurance. Not that I recommend that for everybody, just for like the rules of this particular game that we're playing.  And I also kind of ruled out Lemonade early on because I couldn't get an anyone on the phone. And just considering how considerate all the other companies I reached out to were, it definitely gave me pause, so to speak.

 

But the other reasons that I've keep coming back to Wagmo in my head, first of all, I feel like as someone who works in the pet industry and believes both in treating clients, dog owners that we work with as well as possible, and not making it about the money. I mean, obviously we're a business, they're a business, everybody has to make money.

 

But I just got a similar feeling about Wagmo, that they are similarly mission driven and that they really want to make this process as easy as possible. They want to help their clients as much as possible.  That they're kind of progressive in their thinking about insurance as an industry in a way that spoke to me as owner of School for the Dogs.

 

And in doing the math. And again, I think I mentioned this before, it's a little bit more than Lemonade, what like 20 bucks or something a month?  Which I feel like, again, for me personally, being that in the industry or whatever, seems like an amount of money that's worth it. But also if you look at it in terms of the cost of just a wellness visit for us, which for our dog, which is probably going to be five or $600 a year, it's like a hundred dollars more than that for the whole year. It covers the wellness visit. And it would ensure that if anything happened, we would be covered.

 

Oh, well, that was the other thing, which I did suggest to you off mic, was that we go to the $50 a month plan, which would give us a higher deductible, a thousand dollars a year. But I think like a thousand dollars is an amount of money that we could scrape up if we needed to in an emergency to pay for something for Poppy, or put it on a credit card and like not stress out too much about paying that off. 

 

Like I feel like a thousand dollars is, it's the highest deductible option, but I feel like we keep coming back to talking about how insurance is kind of a gamble. I think we could gamble that at least for the next few years, chances are, we're not gonna have any major emergencies that are gonna cost that much. So maybe go with the higher deductible, gamble that we're not going to have to use it, but that it can be there in case it's really necessary to cover those unexpected five or $10,000 bills that I hope never come up, but could.

 

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, I think that that's a decent line of argumentation. I mean, I also think that like Reddit reviews and Yelp reviews, if there's enough of them, are really significant.  And maybe Lemonade isso optimized because they just sort of, in a sort of actuarial way, just kind of run the numbers and don't give you much extra support.  Which,if it's a hassle to get your claims filled, or it's a hassle to deal with them, then it's not worth it.

 

Annie:

Something else though, that I've realized over the last few few weeks is that, at the end of the day, like we've made a big conversation about this because of the fact that I'm doing this podcast episode.  But I really think that like any insurance is way better than no insurance. So if we did get Lemonade, I also think that would kind of be fine.  Because like I just think it's better to have something, even if it's low cost, which might mean that you will be unhappy with it and you'll change later, but that's like part of your own learning process. Like this has been a whole learning process.

 

So if people are listening to this, I'd say like, if you want to go the super cheap route, go the super cheap route. But again, because it's like my industry, I guess I feel like not going the bargain basement route makes sense to me.

 

One last thing that appeals to me about Wagmo before we shake on making this decision, cause Annie always wins [laughs].  And I didn't talk about this before they have a partnership with this app called good pup, which I don't know that much about, but it's a training app. And I think that if you sign on for Wagmo, you get access to this app. And so just the fact that they believe in training enough to sort of tack that on I think is really neat.

 

And one thing that I didn't consider with all of these other companies is whether they cover anything having to do with behavior. Wagmo doesn't.  Actually some of the other companies that I rejected early on do. But there's actually a lot to say on that topic. So I have a whole other podcast episode coming up just about that.

 

All right, so we're doing Wagmo?

 

Jason:

I think we should do Wagmo. I mean, I think the headline is that the pet insurance is worth it if you go to the vet once a year for a semi inexpensive checkup because they're going to cover that for you.

 

Annie:

Well, if you choose one of the ones that will, which this will.

 

Jason:

Right. So if you take that add on, you get a savings that sort of makes up for what you pay, and you pay a bit more, but then, ultimately you never have to find yourself in that painful situation of choosing between money and your dog's life.

 

Annie:

Right. Or money that you have sitting in a bank account that could be used for other things.

 

Jason:

Yeah, that too.

 

Annie:

All right. Good news for Poppy. Good news for me, because this episode has been a beast to put together. So I'm glad to be coming to an end. Thank you for joining me listeners and thank you to the love of my life. And my smarter half. For talking this through with me.

 

Jason:

My pleasure.

 

Annie:

So before I sign off just wanting to remind you to join me next Thursday, May 13th on clubhouse. Follow me there @AnnieGrossman to discuss pet insurance. I am going to try to have those who were on this podcast there to discuss it with me as well. And to take your questions.  If you're not on clubhouse and you need an invite, text me (917) 414-2625. And I will try and get you one.

 

The other thing I wanted to mention is that as I said before, a lot of the sites that have information about pet insurance are there because of the affiliate links.  So much about the the pet insurance industry seems to be about selling pet insurance and getting other people to sell pet insurance. And you know, I probably could have figured out a way to get affiliate links for all of these brands. But didn't want to do that.

 

However, I did set up a Eusoh account for School for the Dogs podcast listeners and School for the Dogs students and employees, which gets you 30% off the monthly fee, bringing it down to $15. And as I explained in the podcast segment on Eusoh,the price above that will fluctuate month to month, I think never going up to more than $45 above that $15, which is a special price you can lock in if you sign up for Eusoh through us at schoolforthedogs.com/eusoh, that's E U S O H.

 

And I think we get — full disclosure. I think we get like $40 for every new signup. So certainly a way to support what we're doing and get your dog some coverage, and join what I think is really the coolest of all the options that we discussed on this podcast. I think Eusoh is just, I don't know, it's the neatest, I feel like that's a silly word to use, but it's most neat, most cool. Because it's not technically an insurance plan and it's really trying to change the way healthcare is paid for for everyone.  Not just the pet industry. And I think it's really interesting that they're kind of using the pet industry as a way to test this out.

 

So definitely check out SchoolfortheDogs.com/eusoh and you can be insured as part of the School for the Dogs community. Thanks for listening. And I really hope that you've gotten something out of this episode. I know there is a lot to take in again, do make sure to check out the show notes where I have provided links to all the companies I've mentioned and to the dog listeners out there stay healthy.

 

[outro and music]

 

Annie Grossman
annie@schoolforthedogs.com