The Pet Insurance Scam You Should Know About

I want to share something with you that I find really concerning and really just goes to show how evil insurance companies really are. And you probably are already keenly aware, but if you have a pet and you're thinking about getting pet insurance or have one on pet insurance, especially if you have the same insurer I do nationwide, or if you're just dealing with insurance in general, this is a good thing to know because it shows you how they think of the kinds of policies they operate and how they're going to try and make their scam sound like it is in fact in your best interest. Okay. So not that long ago, I got a letter from nationwide. They're the, uh, the company that insures my cats and they're telling us, Oh, congratulations. We're making all these improvements and good news. You don't even have to sign anything. You don't have to prove anything. We're just going to automatically enroll you in it. So for me, that's already a red flag. So I start having to look into it because it doesn't give you the details about any of the numbers or anything like that, right? I'm having to call speaking of cats. This is my cat who has cancer. Um, he likes to hang out during, during these videos. Okay. So I, I'm calling them to find out and they're telling me, okay, for this cat here, who was diagnosed with cancer, his premium increase is going to be about three times as much. So he goes from paying, we're paying about $70 a month for him to over $200 a month for him. And then you're thinking to yourself, well, that's because he has been diagnosed with cancer and they had to pay out for that. Well, our other cat who's totally fine, his health is good. His premium increase was two times as much. And so what's the deal there? So I'm, I'm, I'm asking them what's going on. They're saying, oh, well, but look, we're giving you more coverage. I'm like, well, what do you mean? Well, like you used to have $7,500 a year max that we would cover for you. But now, now we're going to increase that to 20,000. So obviously your premium is going to go up a bit, a bit, right? Because we're going to be covering even more, but look at it. What they're telling us here is not that they're giving $20,000 of coverage fully. It is allotted in $5,000 amounts. So we will give $5,000 maximum for if there's an accident for your cat, right? Or they have an illness and that includes all illness stuff, or if they have some sort of congenital issue, that's $5,000 or cruciate, which is like joint type stuff. So here's the problem. This is what is called in sports betting a parlay because my cat, for instance, his problem is illness, right? Cancer. So he got $7,500 of coverage last year, but now the max amount of coverage that he can get for that is now $5,000. So I'm paying three times as much for less total coverage. So unless, heaven forbid, he gets in an accident or is also diagnosed with some sort of congenital issue, which is usually like only for like purebred type cats, the coverage is not nearly as good. But they're trying to make it sound as good. Why do I say it's a parlay? Well, a parlay is normally in like a sports bet, you just like bet if the team's going to win or lose. Right. And then if you're right, you get money. And that's basically how insurance works, right? They're betting you won't get sick. You're kind of betting that you are right. If you do get sick, oh, well, then they pay out. And if you don't, well, you've been paying them and they win the bet. But in a parlay, you don't just bet that your team is going to win or lose. You also bet maybe like, oh, the quarterback is going to throw at least three touchdowns and there's going to be at least one field goal in the game. So in other words, you have to check all of these other boxes off to actually get your winnings. Well, it's the same deal here for us to be able to get the full amount of what he would be covered for. He'd have to have an accident and an illness and some sort of congenital issue and a joint issue. What's the chance of all that? Is it possible? Sure. But it's much less likely. In fact, in sports betting, they call parlays a fool's bet because your chance of actually being able to check all those boxes off is remarkably low. Can it happen? Sure. Is it likely? No. So what Nationwide is getting to do here is tell us that they're increasing the coverage, but they actually have a much better chance of not having to pay out. But it gets worse. So follow me here. So I'm talking with the agent about this and they're like, oh, no, no, no. But don't worry because you also are getting the privilege of being able to customize your care. Cool. So, in other words, you don't have to have all of these coverages and therefore you can alter your premium a bit like, oh, you recognize that your cat doesn't have a congenital issue or is very old. So it's unlikely that there's going to be one. They're not a purebred pet, so on and so forth. So we can take that off. Okay. So let's make a long story short here. I'm just going to pull up the numbers for you on this. So I say, okay, well, my cat has cancer, so really the only thing that we're really concerned about at this point, given his age, right? He's an elderly cat. Let's go ahead and see what the numbers look like. If we, in fact, take off everything except illness and they say, well, we can only reduce accident. Okay. Well, reduce accidents as much as you can. Take off all of the other, uh, two things out of those, out of those buckets as they call them. Okay. So do you know how much? Well, obviously you don't, but let me tell you, here's how much the number changed for him. If we removed all of that other coverage, it went from $214.44 to $214.19. So pulling off more than $10,000 worth of coverage for him only decreased the premium and total costs that we'd be paying monthly by 20 some odd cents. In fact, the only thing that actually made any kind of difference in the reduction of his premium costs is if you look here, they also have these two other little things where they'll cover up to a hundred dollars annually for like prescription food and a hundred dollars annually for behavioral food. Okay. So, but do you know how much you pay for that? It was like $85. So yeah, you could take that off and that would decrease your premium by about 85 bucks. But what's the point of those two little things anyways? Oh yeah. We're going to give you a hundred dollars in prescription food. Well, what you mean is you're going to give me 25 bucks in prescription food. What are you talking about? Okay. So then I'm thinking, okay, well maybe it's because obviously this poor baby, he has cancer. So they're not going to let you really reduce your premium much. It's all going to be an illness. So I call him back. I say, okay, well I'm looking at my other cat. He's in really good health. What happens if we remove those other things so that we're really just focused on accident and illness for him? Because I don't think we have joint concerns or congenital concerns. And you're thinking, okay, well maybe it'll bring it down by 50 bucks a month or something like that. At least. Nope. It was literally the same thing. His premium goes down. I think it was maybe 40, 50 cents a month. So what's the point? Why are you going to tell me that I can have this customizable option when I do customize it? It only changes it by a few cents and man, they really are getting into our heads about this kind of stuff. Cause think about it. Cause there you are. You're trying to figure out how to ensure your cat. You're like, well, okay. At the most, maybe I save like $5 over the course of the year, but I'm reducing his accident and congenital and joint stuff. Well, what if something does happen? Am I such a selfish pet parent? Am I such a selfish father that I'm willing to pay, you know, 40 cents less a month. And as a result, him lose $10,000 of coverage, who would do that? You feel like a monster. So you think, well, what's the big deal? Well, the problem is, is that 40 cents a month? Probably if you think about it, if they have hundreds of thousands of clients out there, we're talking about over the course of the year, those five bucks for every single one of those clients, we're talking about millions of dollars they're making off of us because we're kind of disinclined to remove coverage that we honestly really don't need because it's so cheap. But the stuff that you're told is supposed to be, oh, you can customize it. There's really no point in customizing it. Okay. So the long story short here is one look into changes. If you've been getting letters like this from your insurer, look into it because you might find that there's a surprise bill, but you're actually getting much less coverage. Like in our case, it's $2,500 less coverage that we're getting and we're increasing the amount that we pay annually by thousands. Check that out. If you're thinking about getting pet insurance, well, the fact of the matter is, is him having it was very, very, very helpful because his cancer treatment was like $14,000, which we do not have. So his insurance did help reduce that and then the rest all had to go on credit cards, but you can look around, shop around, find something that really works for you and is hopefully doing less of this kind of scammy BS. But also just finally in general, just keep this in mind in dealing with insurers. This is how they're thinking. They're literally telling me that they're giving us less coverage, that they're charging us more for it, and then trying to make it sound like they're giving us this great deal. That's not okay. Business shouldn't work like that, especially when it's life and death, because here's the fact of the matter, and you know this and I know this, at the end of the day, when we are out of our ability to max out our credit cards for him, the doctor won't care. He just won't be able to get treatment. So unless it can be paid through some sort of insurance, once we are out of money, he's just going to die. That's true of us also as humans. It just starts becoming, well, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it, bye. So we need to stand up to this, write him a letter. If they're making this change to you, change your policy, go to a different insurer, because the only thing that they care about is if they're losing money. All right. Well, thank you so much. I hope you found this informative and helpful. If you have other similar experiences or warnings for people about insurers, you find that your insurer is doing a similar scam, please pop it in the comments, let everybody know, right? If you have other information we should have, please do share it. If there's something I'm missing, also let me know. It's always really good to hear from you all, make sure that I'm getting all my numbers right. Thank you so much for your time. I wish you the very best in your battles with your own insurers and the health of your family and your fur babies. Take care and have a good day.