Pet Insurance: Is It Really Needed?
Adopting an animal means expanding your family, welcoming a new member whom you will have to take care of and who will have to be looked after with responsibility and love. More and more families today are choosing to buy insurance for their pets.
For the year 2018, it is estimated that the pets of Italian families have reached 60,400,000 of which 7 and a half million cats and about 7 million dogs.
Paying attention to the well-being of your pet also means making sure that it cannot cause harm to third parties, for example to neighbors. This is an important responsibility and for this reason many families today choose to insure their pet. As a result, the number of pets covered by insurance is growing, especially cats and dogs.
How does pet insurance work?
Pet insurances are varied and offer very different costs and services. On the market, most of the insurance solutions concern dogs and cats, the animals most present in Italian families.
Having insurance allows you to cover the damage caused by the possession of your pet, but not only.
What types of pet insurance are there?
In addition to taking care of your pet’s health and rights, each owner is also responsible for any damage and problems it may cause. Insurance can be purchased to cover damage to the home or to individuals (family members and third parties). You can buy insurance that covers both aspects or just one of the two.
Legal protection
With “Civil Liability of pets” means that the insurance will intervene to compensate for any damage caused by your pet, damage to property or people. There may also be the “Legal protection”, ie a guarantee that allows you to cover the legal costs that arise in the event that an agreement is not reached with the counterparty and a dispute arises.
What to watch out for before taking out insurance for your pet
Before taking out an insurance policy for your pet, it is important to check that the insurance is truly adequate for your needs. It is therefore necessary to check that it is valid for:
- the breed to which your pet belongs
- the age of your pet, some insurance companies place limits on this
Veterinary health and care
The life expectancy of pets has grown over the years, thanks to medical care, the development of specific medicines and the quality of food designed specifically for animals.
Unfortunately, our puppies also get sick or can suffer more or less serious accidents. Insurance in these cases can certainly be very useful to help cover the costs of medical visits to be sustained, for the purchase of medicines, for the analyzes to be done, for surgery, hospitalization and so on.
Insuring your pets can therefore be a good choice that must be carefully considered to avoid unpleasant surprises.
