Hi, I’m Dr. Doug Kenney, a recently retired veterinarian in Memphis, Tennessee. I practiced small animal medicine and surgery for 42 years.
In 2008, I developed a special interest in pet insurance and started researching companies that offered it in the United States. I developed relationships with one or more people at each company - sometimes a veterinarian on their staff or the President/CEO of the company. With their help, I learned a lot about the industry.
I eventually put what I learned in a book, Pet Health Insurance:A Veterinarian's Perspective. You can download either a PDF version or EPUB version (for non-kindle readers) here. You can also get the print version or kindle version here.
I also started the Pet Insurance Guide Podcast.
The book, podcast and this blog are dedicated to helping pet owners and veterinarians understand how pet insurance works and the strategic role it can play in helping pay for a pet’s healthcare expenses.
You’ll find unbiased coverage of pet insurance from a veterinarian’s perspective with a focus on companies that offer policies that cover pets in the United States. In fact, you’ll likely find information that you won’t find anywhere else.
More than likely, you are trying to decide if you need pet health insurance, and if so, which company and policy is the best one for your pet. A veterinarian’s perspective is critical in making both of these decisions and I'll explain why.
Veterinarians see things every day that most of you don’t see. They know what is needed to diagnose and treat a seriously ill pet and how much it can cost to have the best possible outcome. They also see pets with chronic conditions like diabetes or allergies that require years of monitoring and treatment to provide them with a good quality of life. It is my experience that most people don’t realize that the cost of treating a seriously ill pet with an acute condition or the cumulative cost of treating chronic conditions can easily cost many thousands of dollars.
A veterinarian’s perspective is also important because we diagnose and treat the conditions for which you’ll be filing claims. Therefore, we can offer advice on the most important things that should be covered when choosing a policy to insure your pet.
Listen as Dr. Jason Nicholas (The Preventive Vet), a colleague and friend of mine I interviewed for a podcast, describes his experience when working in an emergency hospital setting.
The video below tells the story of a couple with two dogs, one that required years of treatment for chronic conditions and one that required emergency surgery for an acute illness. Fortunately, they had pet insurance to help pay for the expenses. (this video is provided for informational purposes only and not meant to be an endorsement of the company that produced the video):
You can look up information about specific companies by category in the sidebar to the right. There is also a series of articles to help you learn the basics of pet insurance. Please leave a comment after articles that are of special interest to you. Your comments will help other readers of the blog as they will learn from your experiences. And please subscribe to the blog so you won't miss any future articles.
I've also put together a Pet Insurance Toolkit to help you narrow down your choices from the dozen or so companies that offer insurance in the United States and find the company and policy most appropriate for you and your pet.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions about pet insurance in general or a specific topic or company and I’ll do my best to help you.
Please consider subscribing to this blog so you'll be notified when new articles are published and also recommending this website to your friends and family who have pets and even your veterinarian. :-)
