Routine care coverage is not offered by all pet insurance companies. Here we help explain the differences among some of those that do.
If there’s one thing every new pet parent quickly learns, it’s that the cost of routine care for your dog or cat can easily add up to hundreds of dollars per year. Here’s a break down of typical routine care costs:
- Puppy: $700 in the first year
- Kitten: $450 in the first year
- Adult dog: $350/year
- Adult cat: $250/year
- Puppy and kitten estimations include costs for spaying/neutering, wellness exams, and vet-recommended preventatives & vaccinations. Adult pet estimations remove the costs for spaying/neutering.
So naturally, we find many pet parents are looking for help managing these costs. Below you’ll find a comparison of routine care plans from Embrace, VPI, Pets Best, and ASPCA Pet Health Insurance. Trupanion, Pet Plan, and Healthy Paws do not offer help with routine care.
| Company/Product | Add to Any Policy | Reimbursement | Limits | Cost |
| Embrace Wellness Rewards |
Yes | Flexible | $250/450/650/yr | $18/32.50/46.95 / month |
| VPI/Nationwide Pet Wellness |
Yes | Fixed/Preset | per item | $22/month |
| Pets Best BestWellness |
Yes | Fixed/Preset | per item | $23.50/month |
| ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Advanced Wellness |
No | Fixed/Preset | per item | $26/month |
| Source: information obtained from each company’s website January of 2014 | ||||
Adding Routine Care Coverage to a Pet Insurance Policy
Each of the four companies provides you with options for routine care coverage. With ASPCA Pet Health Insurance you have to upgrade to a more expensive pet insurance plan in order to add a routine care plan. Embrace, VPI/Nationwide, and Pets Best allow their routine care plans to be added to any policy.
Why Flexible Reimbursement is Better Than Fixed
With Embrace, there are no preset limits on how much of your routine care allowance you can spend toward any particular item. This is the key difference between plans. When you have fixed maximums per item (e.g. $50 to spend on preventative medications) it makes it more difficult to get any value. In essence, you end up either paying for items you don’t need each year or getting too little back on the items you do need.
To help illustrate this point we’ve put together a chart showing ongoing routine care costs for an adult dog:
| Routine Care Item | Typical Price Range | Average Cost |
| Annual Check-Up | $30-$65 | $50 |
| Vaccinations/Boosters | $25-$85 | $40 |
| Bloodwork & Fecal Test | $40-$125 | $95 |
| Flea, Tick & Heartworm Preventatives | $140-$240 | $190 |
| Nail Trimming | $5-$20 | $10 |
| Total | $240-$535 | $385 |
When you calculate reimbursement with these costs, you see that Embrace’s Wellness Rewards is the only plan where you come out ahead:
| Routine Care Item | Average Cost of Care | Embrace | VPI/ Nationwide |
Pets Best | ASPCA Pet Health Insurance |
| Annual Check-Up | $50 | $50 | $30 | $50 | $50 |
| Vaccinations/Boosters | $40 | $40 | $35 | $30 | $30 |
| Bloodwork & Fecal Test | $95 | $95 | $65 | $75 | $95 |
| Flea, Tick & Heartworm Preventatives | $190 | $190 | $50 | $25 | $60 |
| Nail Trimming | $10 | $10 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Total Reimbursement | $385 | $180 | $180 | $235 | |
| Annual Cost of Wellness Product | $299 | $264 | $282 | $312 | |
| Dollars You Save or Spend | $86 | ($84) | ($102) | ($77) | |
| Source: information obtained from each company’s website January of 2014. | |||||
This comparison of routine care plans was wholly prepared by EPI Agency LLC. If you have questions about VPI/Nationwide, ASPCA pet health insurance, or Pets Best plans, prices, or coverage please contact a representative of the respective company