By Mark Kaiserman
I read with interest the article about pet insurance (“Health insurance isn’t just for humans anymore,” page 1, June 6). My experience has not been so glowing. I purchased pet insurance six years ago with VPI when we rescued a small dog. Previously, we had spent thousands of dollars on a diabetic cat and did not want to go through that financial drain again. We bought the superior plan from VPI and currently pay $51 per month (not the $25 to $30 mentioned in the article). Late last year, PJ came down with encephalitis of the brain and it spread to her eyes. She was partially paralyzed and blind for a while. Fortunately she is doing much better now although still on chemotherapy every six weeks, Prednisone twice a week, and gets four different medications in her eyes every morning and three of them at night. Her initial hospitalization was $6,895. VPI paid $1,578 under my superior plan. I have regularly been filing letters of dispute relating to my claims. My expenditures on PJ’s illness are approaching $20,000 and ongoing with reimbursement under the superior plan about 25 percent. This is certainly not the kind of protection we envisioned when we purchased the VPI superior (what a misnomer) plan.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 7, 2008. Read the original PDF.