Curious About Pet Insurance? Wondering If It Covers All Pets And Vaccination Charges? | News18

Shift our focus now to something that is so close to all our hearts I'm going by the response that all of you guys gave us and also close to mine I'm a pet mom, I'm a dog mom And a lot of times, people that I speak with, other pet owners, pet parents etc There is a common thread of conversation which goes on about how expensive it is really getting So recently, I got to know about pet insurance And I thought, wow, how come we never understood this a little earlier If there can be health insurance, life insurance for humans, why not our furry friends? So should you get pet insurance? What kinds of insurances are really out there? Let's go across to an expert who will take all those questions for you Also, since we floated this question, a lot of viewers have written to us with questions So we will take those as well Joining us on the program is now Vineet Khanna, he is the co-founder for Super Tails Hi, good morning Vineet You clearly have the best job in the world, I'm extremely jealous straight away to say You get to work with pets all day long But can you educate us a little bit about this pet insurance? And like I said, we know two kinds of insurance There is health insurance, there is life insurance How does it apply when it comes to pets? Hello, good morning, thanks for having me over Just let me tell you one interesting thing Actually, animal insurance in the form of livestock and cattle has been there for years It's just that our furry friends were missing out on that But of late, as you know, pet adoption has been on the rise And pet parents are more involved in taking care of their furry ones as well So the need to take care of them, not just with respect to nutrition etc But their proper well-being in form of health and medical attention is on the rise So obviously when these kinds of things happen, the spending on these categories will also happen And this is where obviously there is an opportunity for insurers to come in And be able to provide for various products which can take care of the medical attention Can you run us through some of these? So obviously as with any insurance product, they start with very basic insurance cover Which could include some treatments and regular check-ups etc Then you can go up to comprehensive health cover Which would involve any form of surgeries, any elective surgeries Antibirth controls, spaying, neutering etc as well And then you have more add-ons available to the same In the form of theft, loss, accident Many different kinds of add-ons are available And as per the specific need of the pet parent You can kind of customize a product into pet insurance As I said, this category or product is evolving in the country So there will be many more product offerings that will come up in the near future As pet parents become more aware as the healthcare infrastructure Rises around pets as well in the country It makes a lot of sense that these products are going to come into the picture If you talk about some of the global markets, they are already very well established And definitely Indian pet care market will take a cue from them US global market is already a 10 billion dollar just a pet insurance market So we are far away from there when it comes to the total pet care market itself But as we know pet adoption is on the rise So the ancillary categories along with them will also grow in the near future Sure, but Vinit give me some bits that people can actually Pet parents can actually take home from this conversation For example, we have lots of questions In fact, I can go straight away to one of those Navneet has written to us and he says Does pet insurance cover all pets? Or there are some exceptions as well This is going to be a very common question because people will ask Is it only for dogs? Is it only for particular breeds of dogs? Is it only for cats? What about birds that some people keep? Are all of those available? So in the form of standard products that are available from both private and public insurers Dogs and cats which is the canine and feline animals are the most covered ones That too there is an age criteria between a particular age Typically from 8 weeks to about 14 years in the case of cats And similar age in the case of dog In the time frame in which you can cover them There are insurances that are starting to get built about Smaller animals like hamsters and rabbits as well Any more products beyond that Obviously there needs to be a market for the insurer to also create a product around the same Largely if I were to say it is for cats and dogs that exist While there are insurances for cattle and livestock in the country Which have been there for decades Let me take the next question. This is from Azi Nation If you can pop that question on the screen as well Does insurance cover vaccination and any other charges that come on a routine basis as well? Comprehensive coverage does include vaccination and routine charges as well In fact it can cover as much as even veterinary visits Which involve preventive healthcare It is very important that regular checkup is done for these animals Because they are not able to talk about themselves When we have a problem we are able to communicate But it is only through these visits that they will be able to Get examined about any illness that they might be having These products do cover routine as well as preventive healthcare As well as any conditions as serious as cancer is also covered under these products Vinit ultimately the question is how much does it cost? Can you give us a ballpark figure of how much on an average for a dog Maybe since maximum pets are dogs and cats these days How much would an insurance like that cost if you were to cover Any major health, any major surgery, vaccination etc? As basic as if you are covering very basic it can even start at 1 or 2 rupees per day A slightly more product which will be able to cater to most of the needs It would be about a 5,000 kind of an annual premium And if you put in almost all the add-ons you want hospitalization, inpatient As well as critical surgery etc being covered as a part of the expenses That it can go up to anywhere between 15 to 20,000 annually as well Alright, okay Vinit thank you so much for joining us I have so many more questions that have come up I am going to have to answer all of them on social media Thanks so much for joining us Thank you so much for having me over, all the best