| Date Submitted: | April 20, 2010 |
| Pet Insurer: | Veterinary Pet Insurance |
| Coverage: | 1 out of 10 |
| Claims: | 1 out of 10 |
| Customer Service: | 1 out of 10 |
| Cost: | 1 out of 10 |
| Recommend: | No |
| Review: | DON'T Buy VPI, beware of the UCR chart. This company is a complete rip off. Stay away. You have to watch the fine print of the policy. They have a Reasonable and Customary Cost chart for procedure. This is where they scam you at. They tell you have $9,500 in coverage, but the reality (using the reasonable and customary I was looking for Pet insurance for my two Golden Retrievers. I wanted something that would cover catastrophic/expensive types of issues (Any type of procedure that would be $1,000 +). Now I did not expect my plan to cover basic/yearly vaccines and such. I realize that insurance companies are out for profit. So any pet plan that covers this yearly type stuff is going to have cost + profit built in for them. I could not find anything that quite fit what I was looking for. So I settled on VPI. They claimed to cover me up to $9,500 a year. There was a $50 deductible. For this I was paying over $700 yearly. So this was more expensive then I wanted, but I settled for this. Well my beloved dog Miller was limping would not put any weight on his back right leg. Even when chasing his Tennis Balls. I knew there was a big problem and did not want him to aggravate the injury. So I took him to have the vet check him out (I live in Atlanta). The Vet gave him an exam decided to not X-Ray and determined it was a sever sprain/partial tear of the ligament. He prescribed an Anti-inflammatory medication, Pain Medication, and rest/restricted activity to let it heal. For this, I had a bill of: $58 exam, 60 meds, and some taxes. Very reasonable. I don’t have the cheapest vet, but not the most expensive either. It is a wonderful practice that my Rescue Organization used. While this was not the type of injury I was originally looking for when I bought the insurance, I figured I was paying for it. So I submitted the claim (Considered Soft Tissue Damamge). I submitted the claim, and figured I would get the 90% reimbursement minus the deductible (Somewhere around $50 back). To my shock, (And after many weeks and many calls about the claim) I was reimbursed $6.70. I figured they had screwed up at VPI and almost thought it was not worth the time to complain. But I finally called and asked for some sort of sanity check here. Well the VPI Representative said that for this type of procedure (Soft Tissue Damage), under their Reasonable and Customary practice, they would only cover up to $58. Well tell you, there is no license vet in Atlanta that will charge less the $50 just for the exam. Let alone any sort of treatment (In my case the medications). To say I was upset, was an understatement. I then began to look over their Reasonable/Customary fee practice sheet and I was appalled. Even the most severe type surgery, there reasonable fee schedule was $1,200 max. For these types that they covered $1,200, my vet bill would be well above $5,000. I challenged VIP to find any vet with in 30 miles of my location where this $58 would cover this and demanded how they came up with this customary expense sheet. They could not, you “Just have to trust them.” An honest assessment of my policy, for me to collect the $9,500, my dogs would have to have had 8 separate yet major types of surgeries (These types of events would require me to see a specialist. Most likely have to go to University of Georgia in Athens or Auburn University that have these Majors). That is unrealistic, and if it did happen, conservatively my vet bills would be $50,000+.. VPI Reasonable rate chart basically covers approximately 15% to 50% of the true cost you will see. And the more expensive types, the closer to 15% you will get. Not really why you buy insurance. There is in the fine print a notice of this reasonable/customary fee schedule. However, you will not see the actual amounts assigned until after you have already signed up and paid. For you to discover this, you have to sign up, pay, then read this schedule payouts. Then cancel. Most people don’t. I was lucky, I found out on a relatively inexpensive issue. I have seen many reviews from people who did not run into this until after they had huge vet bills only to see that VPI Customer Fees were around 15% of the true costs. |
| Submitted by: | Greg T from Atlanta 39 year-old :: Male Reviewer :: Atlanta |
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