Insurance for your House Dog
Our Dog Specialist
Ina Holz is a German Coach/ consultant for dog owners. Her focus is on the relationship between people and their dogs.
As long as we live and move in this world, accidents can happen. Often it is a chain of unfortunate coincidences, a careless moment or someone else’s inattention that leads to misfortune. With a dog at our side, the risk of damage or even accidents increases. As now we are not only responsible for ourselves, but also for our dog, and his actions. We have a look at two types of insurance that can at least relieve us of financial worries in a worst-case scenario.
Page Contents:
Dog liability insurance
Liability insurance covers any damage caused by the dog outside your home, so any damage should be covered by liability insurance.
For example, if your dog:
- jumps over the wall and digs up the neighbours vegetable patch
- if there is a fight with a another dog and the other dog needs medical help
- if your dog runs into the street and causes an accident
- breaks an expensive vase at your friends house.
All this can quickly become expensive as you are responsible and liable for any damage caused by your dog, so you are obliged to pay for such damage.
Liability insurance covers you in such a case and pays for the costs caused by your dog. A good insurance company with a good service will take care of everything and will often take over telephone calls or correspondence with the other party. As a neutral partner, many an emotional argument between you and the injured party can be prevented.
Dog health insurance
In this area, there are different levels and service offers. As the name suggests, it is about the medical and surgical care of your dog in case of illness.
Serious illnesses can appear at any time especially when dogs get older and can affect our animals just as much as us humans. And because our dogs have become full members of the family, we want to be able to offer them the best possible medical care even in the worst case scenario.
In veterinary medicine, many things are now possible, complicated operations are performed and long-term therapies can be carried out; from a medical point of view, there are very few limits:
- cancer therapy
- hip replacements
- even heart transplants
The limit of what is possible is only limited by our financial possibilities.
And no pet owner wants to experience losing his or her pet because of not having the financial means. A health insurance can give us this piece of mind.
For whom is pet insurance suitable?
In our opinion Liability Insurance is absolutely essential but I am often asked whether health insurance for your house dog is worth it.
Many want an answer in the direction of probability:
- “How likely is it that my dog will get sick?
- How high are the costs for an emergency operation?
- What are the yearly costs?
- What are the medication costs for a chronic disease?
- What are the medical cost when my dog gets older?
People want to know if they could afford it without insurance in the worst case. However, this question cannot be answered in this way, because operations cost different amounts of money and so do therapies. To do this, we would have to know today what the dog might have in the future and unfortunately we can not read the future.
Therefore, my advice is always the same: with a few thousand Dollars, you have covered a large part of the possible costs for various therapies or operations.
However, if you don’t have enough money to have access to a few thousand Dollars at any time then it’s better to take out insurance.
Two last tips in conclusion:
Insurance policies cannot be taken out as often as you like. If you need a particularly high benefit or frequent benefits that exceed your premium payments to a certain extent, you could be threatened with cancellation of the insurance.
Before you choose an insurance provider, you should check the customer reviews. Good customer service should be a must; the situations in which you need to access your insurance are often emotionally stressful. Taking the bureaucratic hassle out of the process can then provide further relief, as well as financial.