I was looking at the Pets Best per incident limits in their policies and wasn't sure how they work in practise so I emailed them to see. Here is the Q&A on the topic.
Question:
Can you clarify for me what happens with chronic conditions and your maximums? For example, if my cat has a kidney problem that’s chronic but it only flares up every 2 years or so, would each occurrence count as a separate incident? If so, would my pre-existing conditions reset every year so that after the first incident of this kidney problem, it becomes a pre-existing condition? Thanks. Laura Bennett
Answer:
Thank you for your inquiry, The $7000.00 maximum on our Pets First policy is applicable to one incident. If a pet were diagnosed with a kidney condition, this would be one incident. If the pet were then cured of this condition in the intervening two years when it was symptom free, the policyholder could apply to have the records reviewed, if such condition is to be found cured not requiring any other treatment then it will be subject to a new incident limit and deductible should the condition return. Feel free to let us know if you have any further questions. Respectfully, Pets Best
So there you have it. I'm still not sure I get the answer since kidney conditions don't ever really get "cured", they just might be dormant for a while, but that gives me hope that for this kind of condition, the incident would be reset and the coverage increased.
I suppose that in the case of diabetes, which would be quite an active disease, your maximum coverage would be limited to the per incident limit of $7,000 but I'm not sure if at the end of the year, your coverage gets cut off as the diabetes becomes pre-existing.
This is a rather subtle effect of the per incident limit. If you have it in your policy, it pays to think about how these things work before you have to use them.
