 This is Lisa Larson, Animal Communicator. I'm here with Alicia Aletrieste. How are you doing, Alicia? Hi, Lisa, how are you doing? I'm doing fine. What about you? Pretty good, pretty good. And we have been chatting and laughing. And so that's why we're like this, so. OK, so today, we're going to be talking about something very, very close to my heart. And that's getting medical insurance for your animal family member. It's just it's so important to me. And I thought it might be a good podcast episode to get so that we can give you guys some of the information that we've learned from this. What do you think, Alicia? Yeah, and I really, really think it's very important. I we bought pet insurance for my cat. And at the end, we thank God that we did. It's financially, it makes all the difference in the world. It makes all the difference in the world. And I mean, yeah, I don't know how you thought to get it. But for me, the reason why it's so important to me is because when when we first got Makana, he had pika. And I don't know if you guys know what pika is, but it's eating things. And he ate curling ribbon and it got caught in his colon. And he had to have it surgically removed. And that was a lot expensive. And you know, and people I remember people talking to us at the time saying the most horrible things like how could you spend so much on an animal? And it's like, first of all, we would have mortgaged the house if we would have needed to. This is our family member. How would you say that to somebody if this was your human family member? But it also made us understand after all of the years that I've had animals, it made us understand the importance of having insurance on him, medical insurance on him. And it came in handy the next time he ate something, fortunately for us financially, unfortunately for him ate something, but he was OK. He got his medical, he got his surgery, he got everything that he needed, and we were able to pay for it. So you know, this is why I think it's so important. Because like I say, would you leave your human child uninsured? If these are our kids like we've talked about before, why would we keep them uninsured medically? And the problem is, and the things that I heard after Makana, and the things that I hear from many clients, is the problem of having to make a medical decision based on finances. How do you, yeah, how do you do that? What, you know, you just want to let them die because you don't have the money, it makes no sense. We would never do it for ourselves. So why would we put our animals in that position? Yeah, and you know, with Chiki, when we, in my case, how was the way that I found out about insurance, it was through my vet. So how do you explain to your viewers where to go and how to decide? Yeah, how to look for insurance. Well, yeah, asking your vet is good because they may know, they may hear stories about what claims from different companies are like. But there's also, of course, now with so many sites on the internet have comparison sites. Now, there's good and there's bad. For one thing, you want to go to a vet insurance comparison site that is not run by a pet insurance company. You want something like Forbes or good housekeeping or something like that. Some days that doesn't have no pun intended a dog in the game. But you can make those comparisons and look for different things. But I think it's also important, like you say, to talk to your vet or to talk to other people to get word of mouth. Because some of these sites, as well, they might not really understand. They might research the companies. And just because the company has a good name, they put it in there. Or they don't really have customer reviews. They compare plans. They compare prices and stuff like that, which is very good. You need that stuff. But you also want to hear from people. Like, for instance, I know there's a lot of people that I've talked to that have or have had true panion and have liked it. But they were the most horrible insurance company that I ever had for pet medical. They just completely denied everything. I had the nerve to send me a, sorry, your cat died. So there's going to be good and bad experiences for everybody. But you can look at the different plans and stuff through those places online. And I was thinking also, maybe your viewers can put in the comments some of the insurance plans that they use. So the people that are watching you, they can read and then research. Because they're not paid for by anybody. That is a great idea. Thank you for that. Yes, if you guys are watching and you particularly have a good experience or particularly have a bad experience with a animal insurance company, please let us know. Because there's so many things out there. And people really don't know what to choose. There's so many different kinds of plans. There's comprehensive plans that cover pretty much everything, regular vet bills, medication, preventive care, and all of that. There's illness only, which is no accidents. So if something happened by accident, it wouldn't cover it. It would only cover an illness. Doesn't cover routine care. I'm not a big fan of illness only. I'm not a big fan of accident only. I mean, I want, whether it's illness or whether it's accident, I want to be covered. But I will. And then there's accident and illness, which is either comprehensive if you can afford it, or accident and illness. I mean, there's other ones that I don't think are worth it. And those are the ones that are like, they might be called wellness plans or routine care. I mean, you're going to pay a deductible anyway. So why wouldn't you just pay that money for a routine care vet visit? And I will tell you that one of the most heartbreaking clients I ever had was she had never had a dog before. Her dog became critically ill to the point where she was going to have to euthanize him after all of the stuff that he had gone through fighting this illness. And she thought she had full coverage, because maybe I better not say the name, but it was an insurance company where the vet is part of a pet store. And big pet chain. And they talked her into this wellness plan. And she thought that he was completely covered. And this was like $10,000 worth of stuff. And she tried to do everything right. But I feel that some of these insurance companies, especially I would not get them through a pet store, especially these types of places that want to do wellness plans. If you're going to pay that kind of money every month, you're paying more there than you would pay once a year for a wellness checkup. It doesn't make sense. But other insurance does. I mean, you do want to know. And when you get that word of mouth, you want to know how they pay their claims, what are their ratings. How fast, how easy is it to put in a claim? How fast do they get the money back? And the other thing is that some insurance companies will, your vet can actually put the claim in for you. Now, that I don't think is very common. It's not been with the insurance plans that I've had. More often with the insurance plans that I've had, I have to pay for the services and then submit the claim. And then they reimburse me. And whether you're going to do, depending on the plan of how much you get back is how much they reimburse you. Yes, we do the same thing. We pay and then the vet sign up form, send it to them. And then we receive a check. And yeah, we did the same thing. You know, that was like six, seven years ago. It's all online now. Like I have to submit a claim for Hanna when we took him a couple of weeks to go to ER for a UTI. So I went and I looked to see how my insurance right now, right now I have pets best. I had them for Cuba and they were great. I don't know what they are now. So I'm not going to say yay or nay. They're who I chose. So we'll see. Maybe I'll come back with an update and tell you how my claim went once I put in the claim for them. So hopefully we just put in the claim and we get it, you know, but it does depend on, you know, what you got in terms of coverage and stuff like that. Yeah, you know, one of your viewers is asking, what do they look for in terms of coverage and benefits and in your experience? Okay, so yeah, so I kind of segwayed into that. I segwayed into that anyway. Yeah, it just depends on your needs. You know, I mean, my thing is I don't want to make the decision based solely on money. You know, I mean, obviously you want to get something that you can afford, but you know, I mean, that's why I think so many of these wellness plans sound so good to people is because they're inexpensive, but you're not getting anything for them, you know, you're getting less for what you pay than it's worth. So you want to look at, you know, what is the percentage split? You know, is it, you know, they pay 80, you pay 20%. It's not unlike our coverage, you know, they can be a 70, 30 split and 80, 20 split, a 90, 90, 10 split so that you're only paying 10%. But of course with each of those, you know, if you go up to say a 90, 10 split, then you're gonna be paying more in premiums, you know? So it just depends and you're gonna be paying more in a deductible. So it just depends on how much, how much, you know, you feel that you can afford to pay in a deductible. I think right now we have a $500 deductible, you know, you can go 1,000, you can go to, I think the common ones are 250, 500, 1,000, you know? And of course the 1,000 ones that we're talking about something that really, you know, catastrophic that happens, you know? But you know, if you have a higher deductible, you're gonna be paying less in premiums, you know? So it's, you know, you're just gonna have to look at that and you're gonna have to look at reviews and there's other things too because there's other benefits. So in other words, now there are some insurance companies that will cover complimentary care. Now I don't use, I don't, you like to use the word alternative health. I like complimentary because I believe it's a balance, you know, I really believe in Western medicine. You know, if my cat is ill, I'm gonna take him to a Western medicine doctor. But it's nice if they have a holistic bent and they understand holistic medicine as well. Or they at least, at the very least, they don't roll their eyes at me when I tell them I feed raw or I wanna give supplements or something like that, you know? But, you know, some of these things will have coverage for maybe chiropractic, massage, acupuncture, and I didn't catch what you just said. That, just like that. Acupuncture, okay, yeah. I don't think they have it for animal communication yet though, so. I think we're a ways off from them covering me as part of the health care team. I wish, you know, how many people will be benefits from animal communicators? Well, and I do consider that I, you know, I'm proud to call myself part of the care team when I'm working with an animal who is very ill and they've got their acupuncturists, they've got their vet, they've got their massage or physical therapy, but my clients feel that I'm part of their care team and I'm proud to be that. And that could be whether it's animal communication or energy healing, Reiki and shamanic healing, which I also do, and we're gonna do another, we're gonna do a podcast just about, you know, Reiki and shamanic healing, but so, which again, not part of insurance, even the energy healing, I don't think they've come that far yet, but it's part of being aware and being responsible. And I think knowing, researching the, how you want to care for your animals, doing the research to get good insurance is part of all of that. And it is important to me, it's very important to get them insured as young as possible, because when you get them insured as a kitten, as a puppy, when they're just a little baby, then you're not gonna be paying that much, obviously, because there's no reason to think that there would be something that happens, although Makana was only a year and a half when he ate that curling ribbon. So, you know, that's why we decided to do that. But it's also important, even though your premiums will go up as they age, you're also connected and have a history with that company, which is important because I think they look at that as well, if you've been with them a long time, you know, I mean, not to say that if they change hands or they do something wrong, you shouldn't change, you know, you're unhappy with them, you shouldn't change, but it is much harder, much, much harder to get insurance for animals who are getting to a more advanced age. In fact, that's the reason with Cuba that we ended up going with pets best because he was, I think, 14 or 15 at the time and he was just at the cutoff where everybody else wouldn't ensure him at all and pets best insured him. So, and they were great at that time. Like I said, I don't know what I'll find out now, how they're doing, but they were great at that time. So, you know, it really, there's just so many companies out there right now. And well, I'll just go ahead and say, I know that was one of the questions that you had about different companies, right? Yeah, yeah. So like I say, my personal experience with True Panyin, I would never recommend them, you know, but that's just my personal experience. And, you know, mine is not the be all end all. There are a lot of people that I hear that really love them, but I would not recommend them. I'm not real fond of some of these bigger ones, you know? I mean, I don't even know if nationwide still exists, but there are some other ones. There's ones that have been around for a while, but like pets best, pet plan. I went with pets best because it was less expensive than a pet plan was. And we were with pet plan and they were great. I had no qualms about them in their claims, but they just got too expensive. They just raised their prices when they got older. They raised the prices too much, but they were a good company. But other people, my vet swears by healthy paws, little bit more expensive, does cover. I think they cover some alternative care or complimentary care. Embrace is another name. I've not tried them, but I've heard good things about them. There's Figo, Pumpkin, Lemon. I think there's one called Lemonade or something like that. There's a couple of brand new ones called Pumpkin, Lemonade. So I haven't researched it since those have come out, but they're worth looking into. But yeah, I think the ones I would stay away from are the ones that at the pet stores and stuff like that. And I think there was one, I don't know, the owner, it was a thing with me. The owner I found out was a hunter. Like how can you own a pet insurance company and be a hunter? I know. You know, so, you know, but it's all experience, word of mouth, talk to, you might be surprised how many people have pet insurance. Because you won't be surprised at how many people tell you it's worthless. A lot of people will tell you it's worthless, but you might be surprised at how many people have it. I was surprised when you said today that you had a frichigae. Yeah, since she was a kitten. And like I mentioned to you, we went to the top one that covers cancer and all this kind of stuff. We never thought that she will at the end have cancer, but we have insurance and thank God. I wanted to say to your viewers that maybe if they have questions for you to me put it in the comments. Yes. Right? Yeah, so I forgot to say that last time, perfect, yes. So then in the next podcast with, maybe we can answer questions from your viewers. Mm-hmm. Yeah, please you guys ask your questions in the comments and same thing if you have a particular topic that you'd like us to cover, put those down in the comments. We're really open to all of that. So yeah, great. Thank you for reminding me of that. And then can you mention where can they look for you like in your website? Yeah, yeah, pausetalk.net, P-A-W-S-T-A-L-K dot net and have all my information on there, email, phone, but also the information of how to order it. I think I have it pretty well. I used to be a college professor, so I'm like an organizing maven. Yeah, and then there's a book, the wonderful book. And my book, and my book, yes, on Apple Books and Amazon. On Amazon, it's both print version and eBooks and Apple on Apple, it's eBooks. So thank you for that, yes. Even in your website, right? You can, we can order from your website, your book. Yeah, there's a link on my website to Amazon and Apple Books. Yeah, actually and to Barnes and Noble, but nobody ever loses. I don't know, does anybody use Barnes and Noble online anymore? I'm not sure. And you do pet boarding in the San Diego area and at ckittyresort.com for pet boarding. Thank you, Lisa. Did I get that right? Yeah, you got it. It took me long enough. Thank you. Remember. Okay, so thank you guys for joining us. Please, if you are enjoying this, please hit that like button and subscribe. And if you wanna be notified of future videos, hit that bell and we really appreciate it. And we will see you again soon. Thank you, Alicia. Thank you, Lisa. Have a wonderful day. Take care. Thank you, bye-bye.