At Embrace Pet Insurance, a number of divorce or separation situations have come up and the following scenarios and solutions untangle the complexity so you can get what you need for you and your pets with minimal anxiety.
Scenario 1: you have sole custody of the pets and you have always owned the pet insurance policy yourself
Call into the pet insurance company to check your policy details for the following:
- Who is listed as the insureds on the policy? You can have two or more insureds on a pet insurance policy, all of whom can all make decisions about the policy, including cancellation and billing decisions. Make sure your policy is limited to the people you want to be making those changes.
- How is the policy paid for and by whom? Make sure you confirm the billing is your own credit card or bank account as soon as possible. You don’t want your ex cancelling the premium payments and lapsing the coverage. Make sure that if the payments come out of a bank account, the account is going to remain active going forward.
- Which addresses are listed on the policy? Several considerations here:
- Your premium may change upon a change of address - not much you can do about this but don’t be surprised by an unexpected change when your next premium is billed
- You don’t want your claim check going to your ex so confirm they are all going to your current location. Even better, have the claim reimbursement deposited into your own bank account so there’s no way for the money to go elsewhere by mistake
- Make sure the email address on record is your current one. You don’t your email going to a defunct address or worse, your ex’s
Scenario 2: you have sole custody of the pets but your spouse owned the pet insurance policy before your split
If you are taking over the policy from your spouse, you’ll have to transfer it into your name as soon as possible. Call the pet insurance company to find out their procedure for transferring the policy as most will allow you to do it. You do not want to have to restart the policy as this might trigger new pre-existing conditions, which you do not want to happen. If you do not know which insurance company the policy is with, there's a handy list over at www.petinsurancereview.com (for the US and Canada). Call them all, starting with VPI (it's the largest at the moment) until you find the right one.
If the policy has lapsed because of non-payment, ask the pet insurer if the policy can be reinstated without restarting the policy. If it is just a week or so from lapsing, it’s a good bet they’ll reinstate your policy as long as you pay the unpaid premium. If it’s longer than that and the company says no, plead your case to the underwriter who issued the policy for some leniency (often different from the company you deal with on a day to day basis_. You will still have to pay unpaid premiums if the insurer agrees.
Once you have control of the policy, check the policy details in scenario 1.
Scenario 3: you are sharing custody and the finances of the pets
If you are sharing custody of the pets on the policy and want to share the cost of the policy and have the reimbursements go to the appropriate person, this gets tricky. Most pet insurance companies cannot handle multiple bank accounts or addresses for premium payments and claims reimbursement depending on who paid for the vet bill so you will need to coordinate the financials with your ex. You should include how you are going to handle this in your divorce settlement.
Note that if you just want to pay for your own policy to cover any vet bills you might have when you have the pets, your spouse does not need to get involved in your policy. It’s totally up to you.
Scenario 4: the pets on the policy go to different homes
Some insurers have multiple pets on a policy so it becomes complicated when some of the pets stay on the old policy and some go to a new home. The pets that are going to a new home will be split off from the old policy onto a new one, possibly trigger new pre-existing conditions for those pets. Ask the pet insurer if a special dispensation could be made so that the new policy does not trigger new pre-existing conditions. Most pet insurers will have no difficulty accommodating this request.
Finally...
Under all these scenarios, if something goes wrong with the policy and you do not get the solution you are looking for from your pet insurer, be sure to write to the insurance company that issued your pet insurance policy for a compassionate review. You can often get a positive response if you go right to the source.
Are you going through a divorce right now and are having to handle this situation? Let us know in the comments and I might be able to help.
