Get the most from your pet insurance

Tonight’s webinar on getting the most out of your pet insurance is brought to you by PetSure and Dr. Oliver Conradi.  Prior to joining PetSure, Dr. Conradi worked as a small animal veterinarian in Sydney treating dogs cats, pocket pets and native wildlife. Having grown up with dogs and cats, he quickly developed a passion for all animals large and small. He undertook his veterinary training at the University of Sydney and came to the realisation quickly being a veterinarian and working with animals with the pig feet. Feline medicine and Infectious Diseases at areas of veterinary medicine he finds particularly fascinating is interest for these led to research into novel feline herpes viruses and he contributed to published research do with all aspects of being a vet, but particularly acting as a steward for the health and welfare of animals and helping foster the incredible bond we have with our pets? Lovers pictures customer relations manager and with the tenure close to five years as intimate knowledge and experience of pet insurance. Using his veterinary knowledge and experience. He leads a team responsible for supporting vulnerable customers managing complex claims and disputes as well as contributing to enhancing pet shows products. Working in clinical practice and things firsthand the significant benefits offered by pet insurance for animal welfare pet owners in bed. He was particularly drawn by the opportunity to work at Pet Shop. Oliver and his wife are proud parents to Jack a very loved and spoiled three year old to our cross through their rescued from Blacktown pound. So without any further delay, I would now like to hand you over to Dr. Conradi.

Thank you all for joining me. And tonight is all about teaching your how to become a pet insurance expert and how you can get the most out of your pet insurance policy. Just a reminder that any advice provided is general only and hasn’t considered your personal circumstances may not be right for you and your pet. Okay, so let’s have a look at the topics we’re going to cover up this evening. So first of all, do what I call basic training for pet insurance. So looking at those fundamental features of pet insurance policy, so what policies cover what they exclude, how claims are calculated, and other important services, such as pre approvals, which allows you to check whether or not an upcoming treatment will be covered or not. Next we’ll have a look at claiming. So the different methods of submitting a claim and how to ensure your claim is processed as quickly as possible. And then finally, we’ll have some time for Q&A at the end. Okay, so first of all, let’s take a look at what is pet insurance. Pet insurance is a generalised insurance product, and it’s in the same class or category as other insurance products such as home, motor and travel insurance. Now it does operate differently to human health insurance. So that is a key distinction there. Now the purpose of pet insurance is to cover those unforeseen health emergencies which can cause significant financial burden for pet owners. And pet insurance really does provide on the mind of knowing that your pet may be covered out of pocket expenses. Now we don’t want you to have to choose between money and making the best decisions for the health of your pet. That’s what we’re here for. And while you might may be able to budget on ongoing day to day expenses, such as vaccinations and detecting those routine things, those unforeseen misses or injuries that can really bounce up to $1,000 in vet bills, and that’s where pet insurance comes in. One case that our members put in clinical practice a little town called Brown. He unfortunately suffered from IVDD or intervertebral disc disease. So deaf sounds to be more prone to this condition and resulted in our little round me being hospitalised having unplanned surgery for about a week. And it costs $1,000 And if it wasn’t for pet owners, at the time having pet insurance, it was unlikely that they were going to be able to afford refuse treatment so the best possible care. So just quickly as a highlight, there is a range of different pet insurance policies out there from different pet insurance providers. So you can find detailed information about the different levels of cover on our website at short or conduct au or slash find a policy. In summary, there are some low levels of cover there’s an accident only policy providing cover for dated accidents ranging to more comprehensive levels of cover, which provides cover best accidents as well as Jonas’s and then everything in between. Okay, so this is basically just taking a little bit more of a deep dive into some of the different levels of cover. So on the left hand side, we’ve got an accident only policy. So an accident only policy mentioned previously may cover things such as motor vehicle accidents, electrocutions and a number of other different injuries there as defined by the policy. And then on the right hand side, we’ve got an accident and illness policy. Which is the more comprehensive policy that will cover those accidental injuries defined by the policy, as well as illnesses such as cancer, or any air condition. skin conditions and a range of other things. Okay, so, now that we’ve had a look at the different types of policies that are out there, I have a look at what’s covered and what’s not covered. Now, like all insurance products, and the policies and to have some exclusions, and that’s in order to keep premiums reasonable, and we’d like to cover every expense you incur. However, this would increase the premium cost and therefore, we prefer to provide to cover unexpected expenses relating to accidental injuries and illness. Depending on the type of policy chosen. Some of the things that aren’t covered, generally, things such as pre existing conditions, which we’ll cover in a bit more detail in the coming slides are listed procedures. So these are the things that you can plan for ahead of time, and unexpected against things like the sexting and vaccinations. Ban, grooming and bathing is your Pet Pet accessories such as toys, treats, crates, cold waves, breeding and food, and then dental treatments are also exclusions of policies. With dental treatments, some of our policies actually do include colour for dental condition, and others may have an optional benefit that hey, provide them a small benefit for dental treatment. So it’s important to check your PDF and get an insurance for your cover. And if you haven’t got a policy started if you’re looking for dental cover, there is some of that available on some products to make sure that you look for that when you’re starting up new policy if you don’t already have a policy in place. All right now having a look at premiums and how they’re calculated. Now the premiums on the policies are calculated using your data and a range of factors such as the breed and age and your pitch, and importantly the type of what you have chosen as well. So the comprehensive policies obviously provide more covenants and have a higher premium compared to the lower levels of cover. So depending on which I keep pet insurance fair for all customers, particular breeds to pay a higher premium compared with breed to have less prone to health concern with some bracing prior to various health problems throughout their life, whereas others remained relatively healthy. Now the premiums are calculated based on years of claims data, as well as other information. Your premium will be affected by data relating to the health of pets that are of similar age and breed to your particular pet. For example, a seven year old Great Dane who’s considered quite elderly will have different health concerns and health needs, compared to a healthy one year old Jack Russell Terrier and different vet expenses. At that time in their life, expect to pay a bit of a different premium to cover for those two pets. And you should also be aware that when your policy renews, the premiums are recalculated based on those factors. Now the premium to increase as your pet ages. And that’s true for two reasons. First, of all, the age of your pets increasing to just like us humans, the older I get, the more likely they are to pick up with cats and dogs ageing faster than we do doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to require a bit of pre treatment as they grow older and as a result of premiums increased. Now another factor is on advancements in veterinary care and treatment. Now in recent years, there have been advancements in medical treatment and surgical treatments available for veterinary patients. That is a great benefit for improved technologies and outcomes and what we’re treating our patients which is great news coming across our premium take into consideration that was trend in the community as well.

Okay, so having a look at some of the penetrance lingo and terminology. So what is an excess? So you may be familiar with how it applies on your car insurance policy. So operated C similarly, they can choose to have an excess on your policy and that will help to reduce the price of the premium that the excess is a sum that you pay once per condition, per policy period or each year. And the access is typically range from 50 to $200. Now, the excess is deducted from your claim payment, and that’s calculated by using your benefit percentage. So what is the benefit percentage? That’s basically the percentage of reimbursement of those eligible expenses which will be paid to you has been assessed and it has been found to be eligible for covered in. So if you have $1,000 in the vet expenses and within a benefit percentage it’s an $800 benefit is it $100 expense on the policy. The final benefit will be $700 and then the out of pocket expenses will be $300. Okay, so taking a bit of a deep dive and closer look at our pre existing conditions. So pre existing conditions, means any condition or symptoms or signs of that condition, occurring or existing in any form prior to the commencement of the policy or during any applicable waiting period. A diagnosis doesn’t necessarily need to be made for science or creating conditional policies. Looking at an example of that, if your pet has enough on that lineup for a two month before policy stance, and that’s lameness continues into the policy, and then the lameness has been diagnosed that cruciate ligament condition and so cruciate ligament is one of the ligaments, important ligaments in the knee. And probably football fans out there is actually one of the conditions which dogs and football players have in common. But football players often rupture their ACL sort of Christians again, the same thing, and it’s common in adults. That they can actually ruptured excreted, as well. So in this example, the cruciate ligament would be considered a pre condition because the signs of that that issue were present before the policy. Now one of the best ways to avoid having conditions on policy is to take out a policy when you’re when you’re young, and that means there’s less chance of it’s going to be fun in some of the conditions or the policies. Okay, now, even if it has been an exclusion on a policy for a preexisting condition, there are there is a service available called policies to have a review of that pre existing condition. Now, that is dependent on your bet certifying that your pet has been free of symptoms or a currency condition or any other conditions arising from that condition with the date of receipt of pre existing condition review form. And that period from the commencement of your policy up until completion of that form. We no less than a month from the original start date of the policy and we have this pre existing condition exclusion brigade form so you can request that from your insurance provider and they get your bid to fill that out and send that back into it. And then we’ll make an assessment on whether or not the exclusion can be removed. There are some conditions where fortunately, exclusion won’t be removed. So incurable, chronic conditions or permanent conditions such as arthritis or diabetes, that exclusion may not be removed. But for those ones, acute things that are curable, such as if your head has on the blinking caused by a strain, or soft tissue injury, and other signs of that, and then also gastroenteritis, so if you don’t go into the rubbish and something you shouldn’t have an exclusion for that. Now, another thing to consider regarding pre existing conditions and waiting periods. Now, each policy is different. But generally, there is an illness condition waiting periods between 20 to 30 days, and often a six month waiting period for cruciate ligament conditions. And the good news is you can make an application to waive that cruciate ligament waiting period for again, there’s a form can be submitted to us. Completing an examination of your purse indicated that no signs of exclusion condition or laminate and then we receive that form back within 14 days of that examination, but it will be reviewed and generally there’s no signs of lameness issues, and then that six month waiting period can be waived. Okay, so taking a look next at our approval process or pre authorization. Now, this is a fantastic service and actually helps to provide that peace of mind to treatment. If you’ve got upcoming treatments for your pet that that is going to be covered, or we make an assessment on whether or not they will be covered for you. So, again, the form that you can request through your insurer and complete this with your bid. So the topic section here will be there to be completed by your vet, to outlining the name of the procedure so that they may put an upcoming surgeries video, your dog was going to update that dog and you want to see whether or not that’s going to be covered. So this pre authorization form, take into our bed and they’ll go through and complete the top section. And then when it’s complete, the bottom section is the pet owner, which is basically a check with the indicates that we’ve got all the required documents that we need to that pre authorization that can be completed successfully. So once we’ve completed that form, and the other documents that we need is an estimate from the events or the upcoming treatment or surgery for your vegetable and print that off and you can send that into it with the completed pre authorization form and then also need to fit in the history of your past maintenance assessment authorization. Now good news is if you’ve already been submitting claims, very likely you’ve already submitted that history to us. So no cases, requirements to submit all your history again, to be completed pre authorization form and estimate all recent documents. Now once that time has been submitted throughout, definitely we provide an outcome within two business days. We get a response back to you quickly whether or not that treatment will be eligible for pre authorization can also be submitted for our gap only service. And we’ll go into a little bit more detail about what cap only is in the coming slides. Okay, so now we’ve gone through all the basics about insurance policies and how they operate and different terminology. Let’s have a little bit more of a look about when it comes time to claim. Now, there’s a number of different methods submitting a claim through to us. Now that being direct from your best now some vets have the ability to submit their claim directly through to through their practice management software. And this is known as an E claim that you bet will send the clinical records and invoices for the treatment associated with the claim directly through outside of GAAP only this is the fastest way to claim your claim. And it’s available of more than 1000 across Australia. Now, best practice management software there is lots of different options out there, and we need to integrate our claim system with those different service and software providers. So we’re trying to get to everyone and that number is increasing so we on weekends we get more events and have that functionality available right now gap only is an exciting new service and that basically work in partnership with BIM and allows claims to be submitted on the spot while you’re still the best and the pet owner you’ll only pay the gap and that’s a difference between the invoice and what’s covered under the policy. And it’s really helps to save on out of pocket expenses at the time of claim and the fastest way to claim to be submitted and processed with a read through. Get only a little bit more detail and find our next movie ones that have portal. This is a customer portal where you can log in to your computer or mobile phone or other device and you can submit claims through that. So we’ll go through that in a little bit more detail in the coming slides as well. And then finally, paper claim within the traditional the first method that we had to have in claims submitted and that involves printing the invoice and their clinical records for the client and posting them through to us. And we can organise all the documents from the event and then pop them in the post and obviously going by snail mail.

Great claim to get through to us the digital methods portal or submitting directly through your bet we’d get only the fastest method. I mean, definitely do have a little bit less of an impact on the environment as well. We’re not required to print out the document. Okay. So once your claim has been submitted and then we’ll see how much you get back depends on whether policy covers that treatment and some of the policy features that you’ve chosen. We’ve spoken a little bit about the benefits percentage and how that works. We’ll have a look at a few more examples there. On the left hand side here we’ve got a basic care policy. So with this one, this policy of a 90 cent benefit finish with $1,000 annual Walk condition limit. The annual condition limit is the maximum benefit that can be paid or condition each year with this claim we had $700 of expenses claimed a nice benefit of 550 the annual condition limit is 1000. So 10,000 And that leaves us with an out of pocket expense of $500 or $1,500. And then on the right hand side, we’ve got a comprehensive policy with an 88% benefit and $200 exit option for this claim is $8,000.08 benefit that totals 6400. And with a $200 excess that reduces to a benefit of 6200. And then the out of pocket expenses is $1,800. The different pet insurance policies, those options can be configurable. So some you can choose your benefit percentage and the exit options as well. You can choose an option that’s up to you and generally speaking, the price of that policy goes up and the higher the benefit if there’s more cover there. Now all policies potential to provide a new option and the access isn’t mandatory. So totally something that’s up to you when you’re choosing what what fits best with you. Now when claims have been submitted through to us with all the required documents, they’re generally settled within five business days and then funds transferred if you’ve selected to have your funds paid into a bank account. Generally after that five business days, the next business day appointments are nice and quick. You have chosen to receive your reimbursement by cheque that will take a little bit longer so that it’s something that you can call your insurance claims paid into a bank account to get to claim benefits payments and quickly Alright, so introducing Jeff only. This is an extremely exciting new service and I think it’s actually get only first birthday this week. Very exciting day. And while working in clinical practice, and this is one of those services that I really wished it was available and understood the challenges faced by pet owners who can on occasion be faced with large unexpected vet bills and having to worry about gathering money before pursuing a course of treatments and can cause some significant financial stress. Now definitely works really well to minimise the branch out of pocket expenses and to reduce that financial stress and really allows pet owners to focus on caring for their pet and choosing the best treatment options available and to get the best outcome. Okay so over the past 12 months been busy getting that partners up and running with GAAP only and a number of different pet insurance brands with apparently service we can see here on the list. The different types of insurance providers and brands were given only as available and then on the right hand side with Australia and then indication of how many clinics that connected to a gap only service to how do you know whether or not your test is enabled for that service. So if you jump online and go to gap only.com that I use and then searchable feature on there. Have a look at each individual bet and whether right now looking at it differently and how it works. Okay, so if you checked you This is enabled the gap only and you couldn’t take your dog or kitty in for some treatment. So when you book your appointment, you can when you call a vet to book that in, you can say I’ve got a pet insurance policy that enables to get only and wanting to do a gap claim or by come in yeah when you come into your visit. It hits treatment is covered under the policy so that will lodge that gap only claim for you in clinic and then on there. Once the claim has been assessed and approved. It is eligible for cover and you only pay the difference between the bid invoice and what’s covered under your pet insurance policy. So that’s what that’s what’s called the gap there. Let’s just say you’re going in for an expensive surgery $10,000 You’ve got a policy with a 80% benefit percentage. So you would need to pay the 20 other things. Yeah, but the $2,000 He wouldn’t need to pay the $10,000 I don’t need that 20% But it really greatly minimising out of pocket expenses at the time of the claim then now we’re talking about pre authorizations. A little bit earlier on their pre authorizations are also available and part of the gap only service. If you want to find out eligibility of that treatment that your pet may need. Your vet can contact our vet helpline talk through the upcoming treatment and then get pre authorization completed. Find out whether or not that upcoming surgery or other treatment is going to be covered. All right now having a look at the pet portal.

Okay, so what is the pet portal? Now at portal the digital tour pet insurance customers in order to submit your claim and access policy information now the portals are fully mobile and tablet responsive as well as basically pet insurance policies summarised in one place your convenience delete accessible anytime of the day. Now it’s important to note that not all headquarters have the same functionality and functionality is dependent on your insurance policy. So I’m going to highlight for most of the features available. Some of these may not be available in your portal. So my pit so you’ve got detailed information about your cover policy documents, such as a Product Disclosure Statement and certificate of insurance. I’m have a health centre and frequently asked questions and then also my profile section with your personal information, including banking details, and the ability to base banking data. And to help with your pet insurance claims. Make sure that we can present that as quickly as possible when submitting ensure that you’ve got all your supporting documents with the claim so the invoice and associated clinical records or consultation notes to get from events, ensure that your banking information is up to date and ensure that your details are up to date so that we can contact your best if we need further information about a claim for any reason. Okay, so this is just having a look at the portal how it looks in action. So this is submitting a claim. So we can see here on the left hand side, we can upload the invoices and consultation notes and other associated documents that may be relevant such as X ray results. And Kaino. This shows how familiar Chromebooks on a mobile device on the left hand side as we touched on previously, ensure to provide you a bit held back to your current desk or any privates as well. As we can see here on the right hand side. We’ve got Lucky’s policy and we’ve got heavy rain clinic Spring Valley that hospital and then roads every hospital. So on some of the portals you can provide a bit of details and allows us to contact them. We need to do that. Okay, then. One of the features of some portals is the ability to track and manage time show historical claims and the outcomes of your claim are visible as well. Okay, so on the screen, we can see our policy documents. So we’ve got a certificate of insurance documents up the top here for fluffy and moreover, certificate of insurance documents contain the key policy features and the Product Disclosure Statement contains the terms and conditions of the policy. And then in the middle section here, we can see claim documents and these are the claim documents are fluffy. So we can see the remittance advice and claim outcome information for fluffy there for those previously lodged claim. All nice and easily accessible and very easy to use. Okay, our final feature of enhanced portals is a frequently asked questions section, which looks at common frequently asked questions regarding the portal itself and how it works functionality well as FAQs regarding the policies people chose, frequently asked questions about certain terms and conditions and things like that. Okay, so we’ve had a look at the pet portal. Let’s move along to the important policy documents. So your policy documents and really important documentation that you receive and the policy for that. And then at each renewal as well for every year when the policy renews. You’ll be issued with a new certificate of insurance and PDF with any associated updates. So not a bit of terminology. FPDS is a supplementary Product Disclosure Statement. That’s if there’s any changes to the terms and conditions you may receive those on the policy renews as well. So very important to read through those documents. When you first start the policy. And each year as well fully understand your cover. And that ensures that you’re informed about what is and isn’t covered. And so there’s no surprises when it comes time to claim the certificate of insurance as that outlines the key features of the policy including annual benefit limit supplement, the excess premium premiums, and you and your pet details and information and important that you chose to get of insurance because some of those details the your new pet details does influence impact on the cost of the premium. The Product Disclosure Statement this is the complete terms and conditions of the policy includes a range of information regarding policy definition, how premiums are calculated claims process and contact details and other information. All right. So here’s an example of a certificate of insurance being one if you might not have a pet insurance policy, but if you’ve got a policy if you’d like it’s definitely a statement. So off the top here we’ve got pet details, named species gender, date of birth and breed and then moving along to the policy detail. So there’s policy number, when we’re looking into the pet portal and registering, we need to get quality numbers. And that’s where you can find a policy number Institute of insurance selected cover that we have in place when the policy commenced and important to note that policies generally commenced at 11:59pm was on the first day of cover and generally you asked for a period and here we can see the level of cover who would have benefited percentage of 80% and then under that, that premium details. So frequency of premiums. With premiums you can choose to pay them in instalments on a monthly fortnightly basis or in prefer on an annual basis. And then the method of payments there. The actual premium details itself underneath not shown on this picture here. And moving across to the right hand side. We have the annual benefit limits and sub limits for this policy. We can see here there’s an overall annual benefit limit to $10,000. That’s the most that can be claimed in one year. And then there’s also sub limits for trousers take treatment, moving supporting consultation fees on cruciate ligament conditions and conditions. Policy is different. As we’ve spoken about there’s a range of different policy options. Your certificate of insurance will reflect the cover that you’ve selected and have been placed. Okay, and lastly, we’ve always have a great range of pet insurance tips and tricks on our website, and social media platform. But for more tips on pay insurance, we have a great range of resources and videos in jump onto our website. And this covers off a lot of what we’ve spoken tonight and there’s great videos out there as well. So if you want to go back and get more detail on more information, jump onto the website. And we also share frequent updates regarding gap only on our social media channels as well as other pet insurance. Okay, so that brings us to the end of my webinar for tonight.

Thank you so much Dr. Conradi, and now we’ve got a few questions that have come through. So the first question is the attendee is wondering what the difference is between pet insurance and a wellness plan that might be offered.

Okay, yeah, really great. Question. The wellness plan offered by that was basically a subscription service from that, for which you pay a regular instalment, and often it’ll be a yearly instalments. And sometimes they can be monthly instalments. It really depends on the vendor, and they often provide benefits for routine treatments, such as anti parasitic treatments for your flea, tick or worm control. You may be up your subscription and then you’ll get those treatments throughout the year. Sometimes they’ll provide free or complimentary consultations and there is a range of days wellness plans available to vary depending on what’s been developed for each individual event. Different depends insurance whereas pet insurance is there as an insurance product, providing cover for accidental injuries and illnesses.

Perfect thanks so much. The next question is this attendees wondering if they can change their access at any time during their policies? So for example, would be they be able to decrease their access on a policy?

Yeah, and something that people do? Commonly, individual circumstances change and they have originally What does have the access on our premium want to remove that to the can conduct your insurer change your policy to remove that access? However, that is dependent on whether or not you’ve submitted a claim against the policy to terminate the claim made in the policy year. You can’t change the policy and remove access until the renewal date, and then you can change your day.

Great, thanks, Ali. And then the next question is, can they upgrade their policy, even if they’ve claimed on the policy previously, so they want to increase the average annual benefit?

So similar to within access? So if you’ve made a claim under the policy, then you can’t change the policy or the cover until the renewal date?

Perfect. Thanks, Ollie. And then another question here is, do insurers offer multi pet discounts if we’ve got multiple pets in the same household that the pet parent would like to insure?

Yep, great question. And it’s really dependent on the pet insurance. policy that you have in common for insurance policies to have multipitch discount. So if you have multiple pets and ensure that the same insurer there are policies out there that provide a bit of a discount on your premium generally having pets insured with the one one Bradman,

the perfect and then another attendee is wondering why there isn’t able to lodge claims online.

There’s a whole range of different providers for best practice management software and there’s quite a lot in Australia as a touchstone for briefly earlier, we’re trying to connect your claim system with all those different providers and to know that potentially you may be on one of those software that isn’t connected without claiming system. And unfortunately, that means the quickest way to get a claim to it would be to jump onto the portal, potentially, to up but yeah, we’re definitely making an effort to attempt to get to all the different software providers for that, so that we can enable all that’s out there to claim can be submitted through to us.

Excellent. And then there’s a question regarding gap finally, so the question is, is there a minimum amount that can be processed through gap only so for example, if his pet parent goes to the veterinarian and the invoice is only $60 If the gap if the vet offers gap only can that potentially be processed as the gap only payments?

Yes, certainly. So yeah, there’s no kind of minimum there for gap only claims for everything from consultation from urine infection, follow up or skin allergies and there’s just a really quick recheck and maybe some medication, no lower threshold there. So you have a gap in services available for any size claim regarding the value that

The only and then we’ve got a pet parrot from Tasmania, my favourite state in Australia and and they’re wondering if there’s a plan to potentially increase the gap currently being offered in TV is they’re finding it hard to find a gap only bit.

Oh, hello from Tasmania, and I haven’t visited Tasmania myself, but I definitely want to get down there. Down there at the moment. Yeah, at the moment we’re working with and really wanting to get as many bits connected as possible as I understand that invaluable service. And I’d encourage you to have a chat with your best if your local Best isn’t connected on together only really highlight those benefits there. And then hopefully that’ll help a bit too motivation or look into getting that gap only service.

Perfect. Thanks, Ali. And then we have a pet parent who’s asking about pre authorization. So their pet unfortunately requires some surgery and they’re wondering what the average timeframe to get a response once a pre authorization is submitted.

Yeah, so the average timeframe is within two business days. Now, if you do have something that requires if your pet requires urgent treatment, you can call into the customer service department or your pet insurance. Branch. And I request that to be prioritised sooner, but generally get within two business days. So very quickly that for you.

I think that’s great, Ali, thank you so much. And thanks once again for all of those questions. We hope you enjoyed this session a very special thank you to Dr. Karate for putting today’s presentation together, and for giving up his time to share his knowledge and experience with us. IGood evening pet parents