Hartville partners with ASPCA and more

I'm slightly behind the curve on the first part of this news.

A few weeks ago, the Hartville Group announced it had partnered with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) as the exclusive pet insurance partner for the association with over a million supporters (wow!). 

As part of its significant commitment to the ASPCA, which guarantees at least $1 million over the next three years, Hartville is contributing $1 for each quotation and $5 for each enrollment. 

More details are available here.

As for my second piece of news about this, Hartville has also have developed ASPCA specific policies - in other words, ASPCA Pet Insurance. There doesn't seem to be anything online yet (although it was supposed to be released last night) but I'm sure it's coming any time soon. I'll update this site when I see it announced formally.

Finally, for the insurance geeks out there, Hartville have a new underwriter, United States Fire Insurance Company, which is a division of Crum & Forster (AM Best Rating A-). This moves Hartville's pet insurance policies from surplus lines to admitted status (as I said, this was for insurance geeks!).

Comments

[Rob Oaks]

I WANT TO LET EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT A SERIOUS AND UNCONSCIONABLE FLAW IN THE ASPCA PET HEALTH INSURANCE PLANS.

With ASPCA, you renew your plan on a yearly basis. This yearly renewal is inconvenient but not, in itself, a problem.

Here's the very serious problem.

ANY CONDITION THAT EXISTED DURING THE PRIOR PLAN PERIOD IS CONSIDERED A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION!

What are the implications?

Consider the following situation:
* Your dog is diagnosed with a serious cancer on a Monday and you schedule your dog for costly, major surgery on Thursday.
* You submit the ASPCA insurance claim on Tuesday.
* Your ASPCA plan is set for renewal on Wednesday.
* Your dog undergoes surgery on Thursday.
* You submit the ASPCA insurance claim for the surgery on Friday.
Guess what? YOUR CLAIM WILL BE DENIED!

Please let this sink in.

ANY CONDITION, NO MATTER HOW SERIOUS, THAT EXISTED EVEN 1 DAY PRIOR TO RENEWAL WILL NOT BE COVERED. This also implies that any condition that lasts, in any form, more than a year, will not be covered for the condition’s duration.

I talked to a customer service supervisor about this (their customer service is generally very good, BTW) and they acknowledged that it’s a real problem, citing examples of major, heartbreaking claims that were not covered because they spanned the renewal date.

What ASPCA will tell you is that they have a plan, the Sterling Plan, that covers “long-term” conditions (now remember, according to the example above, LONG TERM COULD ACTUALLY BE 4 DAYS). What they won’t emphasize is the following:
* The Sterling Plan is by far their most expensive plan. It is almost 50% more than their next most expensive plan, the Premier Plan, which is what I have.
* The Sterling Plan has a maximum PER INCIDENT (NOT per visit) benefit of $2500, which is HALF of the maximum incident benefit for the Premier Plan. This means that any condition, NO MATTER HOW SERIOUS, will not be covered past $2500. So, if you thought you could sign up for the Sterling Plan to deal with a catastrophic care situation—think again: $2,500 doesn’t go very far when it comes to things like cancer.

Now I understand the basic principles of insurance and actuarial science. With any insurance plan, there will be net winners and net losers. But what I’m telling you is that I do not believe that the majority of ASPCA Pet Health Insurance subscribers will save money over the life of their pet.

That’s the bottom line.

For more information or to contact ASPCA Pet Health Insurance and tell them what you think, see http://www.aspcapetinsurance.com/pet-insurance-default.aspx.