The Cost Of Pet Insurance Gives Paws For Thought

The Sunday Age

Sunday February 24, 2008

Dan Harrison

With the high cost of veterinary bills, a little goes a long way in insuring the longevity of your four-legged loved ones, writes Dan Harrison.

BRUNSWICK executive assistant Ann-Marie Holt jokes that the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is the vet's best friend.

She owns two of the breed - Max, 2, and Zippy, 18 months - which she chose for their playful, affectionate temperament, which is well suited to children. But the breed has a downside: susceptibility to a range of health problems, including heart disease and obesity.

So it was with this in mind that she took out health insurance for her four-legged companions when Manchester Unity, with whom she had long insured her family's health, began offering pet insurance six months ago.

"I'm one of those people who likes to think that I'm covered if something goes wrong," she says. "I don't want to have to make the decision of do we spend $8000 or do we put them down."

For $22.80 a dog each month she receives cover for up to 80% of her dog's veterinary expenses, including hospitalisation, radiology and surgery.

She's one of an increasing number of Australians who are paying to ensure they will be able to afford the best care for their pets.

The pet insurance industry in Australia is young, and by world standards small. It is estimated that less than 1% of Australia's 3.7 million dogs and 2.7 million cats have private health cover.

But insurance companies hope pet insurance will soon catch on here as it has done in countries such as Sweden, where almost half the country's pets are insured, and the UK, where more than 25% of pets are covered.

Manchester Unity's national sales manager for pet health insurance, David Rees, says Australia's insurance market tended to reflect what was happening in the UK market.

"The primary reason we (began offering pet insurance) was because of the opportunity in the market, given that less than 1% of pets are insured in Australia, yet 63% of households have them," he said.

"It was a natural extension for us, to go from covering people to covering the whole family, including the pets," he said.

Mr Rees said customers had welcomed the company's pet insurance offering. He said membership was in the hundreds but should reach the thousands by the end of the year.

The president of the Australian Veterinary Association, Diane Sheehan, said anecdotal evidence suggested that pet insurance was increasing in popularity as the cost of veterinary expenses rises, because of technological developments and increasing specialisation.

"Veterinary science is advancing all the time," she said. "A lot of practitioners are doing MRIs, CAT scans, digital imaging . . . what can be done in veterinary medicine couldn't have been done 10 years ago - but all that comes at a cost."

Australians spend $1 billion a year on veterinary services, according to business forecasters BIS Shrapnel.

Gwen Ford is one of the directors of Pet Plan, which has offered pet insurance in Australia since 2004. Its parent company has been offering cover for pets in Britain since the 1970s and operates in the US, Canada, Japan and Europe.

Ms Ford said the growth in the pet insurance industry was largely spurred by childless people such as career women and same-sex couples, who had more money to spend on their pets.

"Those people are the people that are buying pet insurance," she said.

Over the past several months, Pet Plan has paid what it believes is the highest pet insurance claim ever paid in Australia.

It paid $12,000 - half of the total cost of treatment - to the owners of Bridie, a 23-month-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier from Doncaster, who had 80% of her intestines removed over three operations, after she swallowed a fruit stone in the backyard.

Ms Ford said Bridie's story illustrated the value of pet insurance.

"For $30 a month, a client never has to make a decision under duress. They always have that peace of mind that they're not going to have to go home and tell the children 'Molly's gone to God', when in actual fact they said to the vet, 'I'm sorry, I can't afford four or five thousand dollars to repair a dog'."

Animal capers

RSPCA

? Covers cats from $19.60 a month; dogs from $20.60 a month. rspcapetinsurance.org.au

PET SECURE

? Covers cats from $11.40 a month and dogs from $13.90 a month. petsecure.com.au

PET PLAN

? Covers cats from $12.35 a month and dogs from $22.37 a month. petplan.com.au

MANCHESTER UNITY

? Covers cats from $12.30 a month and dogs from $14.80 a month. manchesterunity.com.au

AFS PETMED

? Covers cats from $17.50 a month and dogs from $18.50 a month. afspetmed.com.au

VETS OWN

? Covers cats from $22.65 a month and dogs from $23.65 a month. vetsown.com.au

PETCOVER

? Covers cats from $15.85 a month and dogs from $30.85 a month. petcover.com.au

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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