Healthy Paws | Pet Insurance Review

I wanted to take the time to write up a thorough review for Healthy Paws after a recent experience with my cat, Ava. I adopted Ava in January of 2018 as an 8 week old, healthy little kitten. While I had been wanting to adopt an older kitty, I thought that by adopting a younger one that I could perhaps avoid the older cat health problems for the first few years. However, I vowed to be the best cat mom for Ava that I could be, and I looked into insurance for her. I did extensive research on this and ended up picking Healthy Paws for her. They had reasonable prices, great coverage, and awesome customer service. The first year or so went by and I did need to utilize her insurance once for a minor health issue, and I was very pleased with how smooth the entire claim and reimbursement process went. I should add now that I am both a veterinary technician and a third year veterinary student. I have access to far more services, people, and resources than most people being such an involved member of the veterinary community- and even I still desperately needed the help of pet insurance in the story I am about to share. A few weeks ago, my perfectly healthy, ONE year old cat very suddenly developed an extremely deep rectal fistula. No one can figure out how this happened, and it has mystified everyone who has seen her. It is basically a very deep draining tract into her body. A completely freak thing that is incredibly rare in cats. I brought her straight into work where the veterinarians at my practice then referred me to a speciality hospital in hopes that they would have more experience with this type of defect. Long story short, over the past 3 weeks, Ava has gone through 3 emergency visits, 2 hospitalizations, a CT scan, and an eventual 4 hour surgery. She continues to need extensive medical care over the next few months as she heals. And as a bonus to this all, she also was incidentally diagnosed with the start of feline asthma through this process, and will require a consult with an internist and life long treatment for that once we get her all healed up from this surgery. Even for someone with many connections within the veterinary community, this ordeal has been incredibly expensive. When Ava’s surgeon came in to go over my surgery estimate with me, he began by saying he had tried to come up with a plan that was as inexpensive as possible and only did the bare minimum necessities as he knew it would be very financially difficult for me as a student. The relief that I felt when I was able to tell the surgeon, no, I want the absolute best care for Ava, please do all that you recommend so that she has the best outcome possible is indescribable. Having Healthy Paws insurance allowed me to get, and continue to get, the best possible care for Ava without having to worry so much about the financial burden that goes along with it. Healthy Paws has been prompt and fair with reimbursing me for the many claims that I have needed to submit thus far through this whole process. They have personally checked in with me to see how Ava is feeling, and truly made me feel like they cared. I cannot strongly urge every pet owner out there to look into pet insurance for their pets, especially Healthy Paws. If it can happen to me with my one year old healthy cat and a member of the veterinary community, it can definitely happen to you too. Ava is my best friend and I cannot express how grateful I am to have her on the road to recovery with the help of Healthy Paws.

I am reluctant to leave this review, but this cannot be the best pet insurance company or else it is a sad state of affairs. They don't do anything that could be considered good customer service, nothing.

I discovered that our 7-year-old Golden Retriever had a large liver tumor, which turned out to be a hepatocellular carcinoma. It was removed in surgery, during which she had 2 lobes of her liver and her gallbladder removed, along with the tumor. The first week after surgery was very rough, and we had to take her in for emergency evaluation and treatment a few days after surgery. She responded well to that, and although she was looking much better, her doctors were concerned that her liver tests were remaining higher than they should be after surgery, requiring more testing. After surgery, our dog saw a veterinary oncologist, and he has requested some additional testing, but overall, he was very optimistic about her prognosis. She will need some ongoing monitoring with ultrasounds and blood tests, but the oncologist said that, given her surgical outcome and postoperative results, we can probably look forward to between 3-to-5 healthy years with our sweet Golden Retriever. The cost of our dog’s care has been many thousands of dollars, and I shudder to think of the decisions we would have had to make if we did not have insurance to help cover these costs. I am very grateful to Healthy Paws for being with us through this very tough time, and the service from Healthy Paws has been awesome – claims were processed very promptly, completely, and payment was direct deposited in our bank account within a few days after submission. Our dog is an angel, and on a weekly basis she serves injured active duty military members in treatment, in addition to being our family member - she is a very special dog indeed. We are very grateful to Healthy Paws for helping us to give her the best care and the best life she can have, in spite of being a cancer survivor. If I have another dog in the future, I will definitely want her to be insured with Healthy Paws.

I decided to look into pet health insurance for my dog after a trip to the vet post-snake bite cost me $2,500. I did some shopping around, as there are lots of options out there nowadays. Healthy Paws seemed like a great plan because there weren't as many limitations on coverage. I went with the 80% plan, and boy, am I glad I did. Not but a year later did my dog tear his ACL and needed surgery. It was a no-brainer for me to get him the surgery because I knew Healthy Paws would cover 80% of the $5,000 surgery based on my plan. They were super responsive once I submitted my claim, and the money was deposited into my bank account within one week. Fast forward another year later, my clumsy dog tears his other ACL! So once again, here we were, another no-brainer. Same experience the second go around, and I'm SO grateful to have gone with Healthy Paws the past couple years, where I can put all my energy into rehabbing my doggy and not into claims messes. Thank you, Healthy Paws!!!

My dog ended up having to have a tplo surgery. The claims processing was done so quickly I had the money in my account within 3 days. Filing the claim was extremely easy and quick. They made a very stressful time easier. After his surgery, he had some some complications and they process post claims quickly as well.