Is the reason you’ve been putting off pet insurance due to a pre-existing condition in your pet? That would be a crying shame, but cry no more because it’s time to talk about the pet insurance that covers pre-existing conditions: Oneplan Pet Insurance.
There are a plethora of reasons why your pet would have a pre-existing condition and be uninsured – perhaps they have come into your home from an old home or maybe they’ve been rescued from a shelter (which is great, by the way!). Either way, it can be stressful knowing that your pet has an expensive condition you may be paying for indefinitely and this may deter you from looking into pet insurance – because why would an insurer pay for a pet they know is going to cost them money?
We can’t really tell you the why for Oneplan – our guess is that they just genuinely care about giving people across the board in different situations with different needs the opportunity to save money (in a major way) and give their pets the care they need when they need it.
What constitutes a pre-existing condition?
Pre-existing conditions aren’t a difficult concept to understand – all it means is that your pet has an already present illness before they have been insured. So essentially your pet will have been diagnosed and shown signs of an illness or condition before they have been with any insurer.
Your pet can develop an expensive condition at any point in their lives – whether they are young or old. Congenital illnesses (conditions your pet was born with) and hereditary illnesses (conditions that have been/could possibly be passed down to your pet through family) often fall into the pre-existing condition bracket and you can keep an eye on them by getting access to up-to-date medical records provided by your vet, shelter or breeder.
Oneplan’s Plan
Under the protocols of most insurance providers, this would perhaps pose an issue. With Oneplan, however, they have an incredibly open-minded approach towards taking on pets who have been diagnosed BEFORE they had a kind of cover. Oneplan offers a 12-month waiting period for pre-existing conditions (and the same waiting period applied to hereditary and congenital illnesses) Let’s look at an example:
If your dog were to get diagnosed with throat tumours and you have the good sense to jump on insurance immediately, you will only end up paying for one year of treatment as opposed to possibly 5 – 10 years of paying for chronic medication (which, trust us, is so expensive it hurts). If you choose to forego insurance based on the 12-month waiting period, your impatience could end up costing you a lot more than you bargained for.
Does it matter how old my dog is?
For most insurance providers, yes. The usual parameters for age and pet insurance lie between 8 weeks and 9 years. So, I decided to check with the Oneplan Pet Team, and they had an interesting take on things.
Oneplan is passionate about looking after your pet well into their golden years – which is why they don’t have an age limit for their Accident Plan, which is the ideal plan for older pets who need more routine care or vet visits. If you think that pet insurance is not for you because your doggo is a little older and has a pre-insurance diagnosis, please believe us when we say that there IS a comprehensive policy out there for you.
Hassle-Free Insurance
If you’re like us, you like your insurance the way you like most things: minimal sweat and minimal stress. Fortunately for us, Oneplan Pet Insurance is on the same page. You would think that because their policies are so inclusive that they would perhaps be a bit tricky to apply for, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. To test out just how quick it is to enroll in a pet insurance plan (with a pre-existing condition), we hopped onto their streamlined Oneplan App – where you seriously can become a part of their client base in minutes. It’s little more than a hop, a step and a click before you’re protected by the Oneplan Team.
Another benefit that goes hand in hand with the Oneplan App is the creation of the Onecard: a debit card in function and an absolute dream in purpose. The Onecard was developed to change the claims game, fronting you with cash before you visit your vet and eliminating the claim/reimbursement model we’ve become used to.
Across all of their touchpoints, Oneplan remains impressive with how well it looks after the needs of owners and pets alike. If you are looking for a human-centric, solution-based pet insurance provider, we know who we would recommend.
Until next time,
The petinsurance.co.za Team