THE Cambridge Connection - Episode 62

So this article that was published on November 18th, the author is Jessa Dickler and she’s from CNBC and that kind of pivots us into the next headline from CNBC, which was same author on November 16th. Credit card balances jumped 15%, highest annual leap in over 20 years as Americans fall deeper in debt. Right. And I think a lot of that is everyday living expenses. Everything costs more.

Right. It doesn’t mean people are making more. Exactly. And you gotta eat. It’s up 11% right now.

I want to use your example. If people were expecting bonuses this year and companies had to cut back and they were relying on the bonus, just like the economy going the wrong way, when expenses get higher, your income does not get higher. Things get put on credit cards, right? So if you don’t get that bonus and you’re planning on that being your holiday spending budget, now you’re going to have to do something, which most likely would be putting, putting it on a credit card. So I understand with Cambridge Credit Counseling, there are two major events of the year where people really reach out.

One of them being after Labor Day, after vacationing and summer spending, and one after the new year in February. Yeah. Once those monthly statements start rolling in in January and people actually take the time and look at what they’ve actually spent, you have to understand they get you. Buy one, get one free. Well, that’s fabulous.

But when you’re putting it on a credit card, that one free item, you’re being charged interest on these items. So nothing’s free if you’re putting it on a credit card. No. And this show is about financial wellness, financial wisdom. A couple of key points.

As day-to-day expenses continue to rise, Americans are taking on more debt. In an economy that has produced the highest inflation rate since the early 1980s, Americans are struggling to keep up with day-to-day expenses. The holiday doesn’t make that any different, actually. It makes it worse. Absolutely.

Family budgeting and pet insurance teaser

So for our listeners, don’t, again, feel free to cut back. Feel free to tell your relatives that you just can’t do it this year. Feel free to set up some kind of a ... where everybody’s involved and gets one gift with a budget and amount. You know, Yankee swap.

Yankee swap. Put your names in a hat. You all saw that on The Office, right? How that worked out? Yes.

Yes. But don’t be afraid to tell your family members you just can’t do it this year. Your family members would rather be you happy than in debt, stressed and stressed out. And you know what? And don’t be afraid because you might be embarrassed because your family members are probably in the exact same situation you are, but just maybe don’t want to bring it up.

So somebody’s got to have the talk. Helps everybody open up. And on that note, we know that when we have pets, they are family members. Oh my gosh. Yes.

Lola. I have a shih tzu. You do. Oh, Lola. She’s got a whole fall wardrobe.

They’re expensive little things. I’ll tell you. Yeah. Well, that’s what we’re going to get into because we had Donna French on from All Pet Connect to talk about scams, expenses, the cost of dealing with pets. And our guests today, we’re going to get into talking about pet insurance and the reasons why you would consider having it.

What a fabulous time of the year, too, with pets getting into tinsel or pets being gifts. Yeah. Right. Or pets. Yes.

For younger children. Like the Easter bunny. Everybody wants the bunny at Easter. And two months down the road, the poor bunny’s homeless. Right.

Yeah. And this talk today is going to help us get into how to work on not having a pet or pets financially crush you. Responsible. With that said, we’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be right back.

Break and guest introduction

This is The Cambridge Connection right here on WHMP. Are you having trouble paying down credit card debt? Cambridge has been helping people safely pay down their debts for more than 25 years without settlements or bankruptcy. Call us at 1-800-CAMBRIDGE. Welcome back, everyone, to The Cambridge Connection.

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie. And it is an honor and a privilege to introduce our special guest, Alyssa Lungy, who is the lead sales representative of Comparion Insurance Agency, a Liberty Mutual company. Alyssa, welcome to The Cambridge Connection. Thank you all so much. It’s great to be here.

It’s great to have you. All right. It’s exciting to have you. Absolutely. This is a big deal.

This time of year. Absolutely. And I want to thank you for being on because we just had Adonna French from All Pet Connect talking about all the nuances. So many people with great hearts wanting to help with rescue dogs. I have a story of my own that I can get into on that.

But to segue that, to help our listeners, the cost of having pets just to maintain them, keep their health, is tremendous. So before we get into that, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and what you do. Obviously, I’m here to talk about pet insurance. I am a huge animal lover, big advocate for dog and cat rescue as well, work with a lot of rescues in the area. I’ve been at Comparion for over nine years now.

My dog and cat owner clients are my favorite to work with because they love their pets like family. And I’m able to help them with their pet insurance as well as all their other insurance needs. So important, and here’s why, Tina Marie being a counselor, we’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people with debt problems, and this pet situation is one that’s the perfect example of when people have a tight budget and we’re in a very down economy right now, so things cost more. Debt expenses that are unexpected, let alone expected, typically are not in the budget and are funded either by a loan or a credit card, and the expenses are very high. You know, it’s ironic, Gordon, that you would even say that because it is true, obviously.

There are people that come to us. That when we ask them, okay, what got you in this situation? Their pet got sick. And like you mentioned, it’s family. What are you going to do?

Your dog gets sick, you take it to the vet. If you don’t have pet insurance, now it’s all out of pocket. And I have a family member, love your animal, becomes a family member, just like we talked about. Got cancer, did test upon test, probably spent about 12 grand trying to find a solution and ended up having to put her animal down. So again, many people have these stories.

Pet insurance basics and costs

So Alyssa, again, grateful to have you because this is such important information. If they’re going to get into having a pet, let’s talk about what that means. So what kind of animals can be insured with pet insurance? So the animals that I can help are dogs and cats. And it’s the majority of what I’m asked about anyway.

What’s interesting is Liberty Mutual did a survey last year, 74% of pet owners don’t currently have any pet insurance coverage at all. Let’s see. That’s incredible. So almost 70% know that coverage is available. They just don’t have it because they’ve never been offered it before or never looked into it themselves.

What’s also striking is that two thirds of pet owners admit they couldn’t afford unexpected medical care for their pet. And veterinary costs have more than doubled in the past decade. I’ve noticed it recently at my veterinary and I had to take both of my dogs this year for their routine exams and the prices have just increased. And of course, you know, we pay them because again, our pets are family and we take care of them. So we’re closer to inflation as far as it’s not because more pets are getting sick.

It’s just routine medical. Exactly. Just like you notice the cost of everything else is going up that you were talking about, you know, before. Business owners have raised expenses also. It’s not just the consumer.

So all of that said, and this is where Tina on the budgeting side, I think what happens here is people when they get a pet, it’s just like life insurance. We have friends that are life insurance agents and a lot of people will just say no, not because they don’t understand the ramifications if something does happen in their families left with debt problems as a result of it, but or not being able to take care of themselves because of the financial change in their life. They just don’t want to make the payment. Well, is it affordable? How much does it cost actually?

I mean, so that’s a great question because there’s so many different factors that affect the rate, the age of the pet, the breed, especially of dogs, you know, matters a lot. Small dogs, dogs, you know, fun fact, generally cost less to insure than a purebred dog because they have less, you know, genetic predispositions and things like that. They’re generally overall a little healthier. The size of the dog, small dogs cost less to insure than the larger dogs because they have longer lifespans and their injuries generally cost a little less to, you know, fix if they have an accident. And cat versus dog, you know, cats are often less expensive to insure because they are not as clumsy as dogs are, you know, they usually land on their feet so they don’t get into quite as much trouble as the dogs do.

And the nine lives I’m sure helps out, right? Absolutely. And again, I want to give you another example. My dad got a rescue dog recently again and the dental report was checked off on as if no problems and he did his own, take it to the vet, get the dog analyzed and it ended up he had gingivitis, wasn’t really healthy at all. So we kind of had to go back to the rescue center and kind of work on getting some kind of a rebate because he had, it was about $1,500 in treatment to get things back to normal.

Just like buying a used car, take it to your mechanic, right? Right. And because that’s, I’m assuming you would agree that that’s the first thing you probably should do when you get a new pet, regardless of rescue, not rescue, is make sure it’s evaluated by a vet to see where your baseline is. Yeah. And when you do rescue a pet, you do get that report from the veterinary and that everything’s checked off.

But again, every time I’ve rescued an animal myself, I’ve brought them to my vet and said, can you just check them out, make sure everything’s okay? Because I’ve worked with my vet for a long time and trust them. So as a person that helps people with pet insurance, will the insurance agency take that report and utilize it or will they need an independent evaluation? So what’s interesting is about pet insurance, which is a little different than human medical insurance, is that pet insurance doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions. So basically that doesn’t matter.

It’s a question that I’m asked often, you know, my dog has this, you know, can I still get insurance? Yes, you absolutely can. But the insurance isn’t going to cover any of that care going forward for that specific symptom or, you know, whatever the case may be. So all you have to do to get pet insurance is contact, you know, your agent. And if you don’t have one, I’d be happy to help you out.

What I do is I ask a lot of questions about your pet, you know, are they a dog or cat? What is their age? What’s their breed? A lot of people don’t know the exact age or breed. So we have options for that as well, especially for rescues.

Is it like insurance where you get a list of vets in your area that they’ll accept a report from? What’s awesome is that you can use any vet you want. So what happens with pet insurance is most of the time it’s used in the case of an emergency. So you go to them, it’s always in the middle of the night, right? It’s always at like, you know, midnight and you’re at the emergency vet and they tell you it’s going to be whatever the case may be.

It’s often around a thousand to $2,000 for an emergency case. Just to walk in, right? Yeah. So you’re just going to walk in and you’re actually going to pay for that. So they’re going to give you options at the vet to pay as well if you can pay it upfront.

But that’s, you know, how most of the pet insurance works. And then what you do is after you have that paperwork, you’re going to submit a claim to the insurance, pet insurance company, and they will reimburse you. But I bet it’s not like AAA where if you get a flat tire and you didn’t update your membership, you can just call and then pay and then they’ll come tell you or change the tire. It’s not like that, right? Correct.

You don’t want to let your coverage lapse. And you know, what I mentioned about the preexisting conditions is, is important because I have a dog. I have two dogs. One of them has, we’ve never used the pet insurance, knock on wood, that’s a great thing. The other one is a ball of anxiety.

And so she had to go to the neurologist several years ago. That was $800 just for that appointment. Just for the appointment. And it’s two hours away. So it’s a whole day for us.

And then I get the pay and all that. But what’s great is that now all of her medication going forward, any of those additional visits to the neurologist, they’re all covered because I had the insurance in place for her beforehand. So I don’t have to worry about that. So moving forward, it’s all covered. Correct.

Yeah. And again, we’ll get into this, we’re coming up against a hard break, but we’ll go over like the different types of insurances you can get. And just in the budget aspect of things, if you do it early enough and you get that money in your budget and you math it out, one little exam like that, neurologist exam, easy covers a year or two worth of premiums. So we’ll get into that because this is all about people being aware and knowing that they have that opportunity to cut or keep the cost as low as possible with a small investment for insurance. Going to take a quick break.

Getting quoted and preexisting conditions

This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back. If you’ve lost income during the pandemic and have fallen behind on your rent or mortgage payments, Cambridge Credit Counseling can help. Talk to one of our HUD certified counselors at 1-800-CAMBRIDGE. Welcome back everyone to The Cambridge Connection.

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie and special guest, Alyssa Lungy, lead sales representative for Comparion Insurance Agency, a Liberty Mutual company. Alyssa, this is extremely important information. This also becomes a national podcast. So I just want for our listeners, if they’re listening in Washington or Nebraska, if they reach out to you, can you get them in touch with an agent in their area to talk about pet insurance? Absolutely.

I’m licensed in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, but I have colleagues all over the country that would be happy to help them. Awesome. Okay. Thank you. Let’s talk about getting quoted for insurance.

Sure. How does, and again, you said that the earlier the better, so we already know that that’s typical with insurance, just like a human being a little later, it’s going to be different in rate. So advice number one would be as soon as you get a pet? Yes, as soon as you get a pet, bring them into your home, whether you adopt them or get from a breeder, that’s when you want to get the pet insurance. There’s a 14-day waiting period on pet insurance as well, so you want to make sure that once you bring that dog or cat into your home, you get the coverage in place so that it’ll start in those two weeks.

What happens if you actually find a pet, though? What do you mean? Well, say you find a stray dog on the street. Stray cat, stra-da-ba. Oh, no.

Oh, that number? Okay, anyway. You know, if you were to find a pet and you couldn’t find the owner, and now you took on a stray dog or a stray cat, I mean, are they eligible for the insurance? The first thing you should do if you find a stray animal is to bring them to the shelter and make sure they don’t have a microchip or something like that and belong to somebody. Donna French talked about microchipping.

That’s awesome. She’s amazing. Yeah. Absolutely. Good stuff.

But if they don’t and you end up bringing the pet home, yes, any pet can get pet insurance. We don’t need to know the age of the breed. We can figure all that out and work with you and get some coverage in place for you. com for pets yet. I think there is.

Yes, there is. Oh, come on. I saw something advertised. I saw something advertised the other day. So it’s important because this is a great point.

As you want to get a rescue animal, if you’re trying to take an animal and get them off the street, that can have a cost to it too, right? Sure. So to your point, bring it to the shelter, get it checked out. Can they tell by some timeframe what the age of the animal is to help with the insurance? Usually the veterinarian can tell that.

Okay. It’ll be on the report from the rescue or the breed. The rescue will let you know. They can kind of estimate the age there based on the teeth. And insurance companies will accept that if it’s a certified vet?

Yes, absolutely. Cool. So we talked about preexisting conditions. They’re not covered, but that does not ... See, I think that that’s also where someone might say, oh, my pet has a preexisting condition, but it doesn’t mean other things won’t be covered and that are not costly if they happen.

Coverage types and deductibles

Correct. It doesn’t preclude you from getting insurance. So say you have a skin condition or something like that, where they have to take medicated baths all the time and you have to get that from the vet. Well, let’s just be real. If they go outside sometimes, they may get in a fight with another animal, right?

They might get, God forbid, and I’ve had friends with this, they get hit by a car or something bad happens. That has nothing to do with the preexisting condition. Correct. So you can get coverage for everything else. And so whether you get the accident only coverage, which I can talk about, or the accident and illness, or you add on the preventative care, you can still get coverage for all those things that might happen in the future.

Okay. So let’s go over the basics. If you were doing basic pet insurance, what does that typically cover? So it depends on kind of what the client wants. What I usually do for them is let them know what a few of their options are, because most people have no idea how pet insurance works.

Absolutely. So the two most common are accident only coverage and accident and illness coverage. So accident only coverage looks like my dog went outside and got into a scuffle with another animal. My cat jumped two stories out the window and broke her leg. Things like that.

Things that are going to require that emergency vet visit. Something unexpected. That generally costs less than accident and illness coverage, because you’re only covering for those things that happen randomly. You’re not covering for the long-term things. So you do a diagnosis with the client, basically asking them questions to find out what you think the best coverage that they should go after is, based on whether they rent, whether they own, what their property looks like.

Outdoor, indoor cats, maybe. Right. Yes. So that’s why I recommend the accident and illness coverage, and that is because the illnesses are what can become the very costly events in the future. Because it’s testing.

The testing. And medications. And the medication. And if it is something like cancer, or I had a client who had a dog that had a golden retriever and it had both of its legs, it had hip issues. And so that’s super expensive to deal with.

Sure. X-rays, right, probably. Exactly. So think about how much it costs when you go to the doctor. And we have insurance.

No kidding. So even when we get the insurance bill, that’s expensive, right? But you see how much it actually costs without that. And it’s similar at the vet. And our pets are family, and we want to take good care of them and make sure that they have all the testing, all the medication, and everything they need, and not refuse that treatment because we can’t afford it.

Okay. So a couple other things I want to make sure we get in. Number one, a lot of animals, because of allergies and food, the way it’s produced, what it’s produced with will have some stomach-type problems, and then they have to be on special food that costs more. Can that be rebated or included in an insurance policy? Yes.

And every policy is different, so it depends on kind of what we put as that coverage. What is the need for this food because of something that we’re covering? So I’m really curious, because I know dogs and cats, they have to get rabies shots annually. Does this cover something like that, just everyday expenses, or is it just for emergency and illness only? That’s a great question.

It’s one of the biggest misconceptions about pet insurance. Most pet insurance is there for the unexpected. There are add-ons we can do for you that include preventative care. They’re great for a first-time pet parent that has a difficult time budgeting for those routine costs. Right, right.

The heartworm, the things like that. The heartworm, the spaying and neutering, which is a one-time thing, the rabies vaccine, which is every one to three years, depending on your vet, things like that. We can add that in. The majority of my clients don’t select that, because the payout is often less than what you pay into it. I see.

But for somebody looking to budget, and that wants to make sure that all those things will be covered, they’ll have the money for it, that is an option. Pet insurance will cover prescriptions. My dog, Isla, is on a prescription for her anxiety, and ... But same like, there’ll be deductibles or co-pays? There’s deductibles, and there’s co-pays as well.

But again, like anything else, the deductible is reasonable, where usually the outright cost of these things are not. Right. So there’s an annual deductible every year. The most common one that I recommend is $250. So once you pay that, you have a co-pay, and it’s usually about 10%.

Liability breeds and contact information

Can you put coverage in, in case an animal attacks someone? Or is that something that, as an insurance agent, you will help them between their personal ... Because again, we talked about this recently, about how people minimize personal coverage, and then they get crushed when something happens and there’s a lawsuit, because they just didn’t want to pay a little bit extra to have a decent amount of coverage. So which would that fall under, or is it both? That would fall under your property insurance, your liability insurance.

That would be different than your pet insurance. But absolutely, it’s something that comes up often in insurance. Obviously when you buy a home or whatever, we ask, do you have any dogs? Sure. And that’s because they are a liability.

All right. So dogs and cats, how do breeds come into this? Is there a different cost for a pit bull versus a shih tzu, like the one Tina Marie has? Yes. Like I mentioned, mixed breeds generally cost less.

The larger dogs generally cost more, and the younger dogs cost less. So a small mixed breed young puppy is going to be a lot less to insure than an older purebred large dog. I find that interesting. Again, I’m no vet, but I just find it interesting that the purebreds are more when you would think that a vet could tell more by a purebred than a mixed. That’s only a genetic thing, right?

It’s a genetic thing. Yeah, because when you, if you have, you know, pets that are bred, it’s, it can, you know, lead to those dispositions where they’re, you know, German Shepherds, you often, I don’t know if you know this, they often have hip issues because of kind of how they’re shaped. And... Data. So they got all the data, right?

Exactly. How can our listeners reach out to you, contact you, even if they’re in Nebraska or Texas, if they have questions based on what we’ve talked about today, and you can get them to an agent, how do they find you? So I can be found on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at Insurance for Dog Owners. That’s the best way to contact me. You can also call me at 413-754-7013.

That’s at Insurance for Dog Owners. At Insurance for Dog Owners. Alyssa Lungy, you do incredible work. I know how much you love animals. You help people in so many different ways, and I can’t thank you enough.

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure. Absolutely. All right, we’re going to take a quick break and wrap up the show. This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection.

We’ll be right back. Hi, I’m Alyssa Lungy at Comparion Insurance Agency. My specialty is helping dog and cat owners with customized pet insurance plans. Pet insurance may sound like a luxury, but it’s not. With today’s cost of veterinary services, having pet insurance helps prevent those unexpected veterinary expenses when something goes wrong with your furry family member, such as accidents, injuries, or illnesses.

So if you live in Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New York, I can help you find the right insurance for your pet. Find me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at Insurance for Dog Owners. Again, that’s Insurance for Dog Owners, or call me at 413-754-7013. Again, 413-754-7013. Hello, everyone.

Closing thoughts and quote

This is The Cambridge Connection. I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Tina Marie. Got to budget, got to know what you’re getting yourself into when you’re bringing pets into the household. Right. I find it kind of odd that 67% of pet owners are aware of pet insurance, but only 26% actually have it.

I’m telling you, it’s because people lead with their heart. They don’t look into that side of it always. Because look, when you help people, they typically don’t have a budget. Right. Right?

But people do not like to budget. And when there’s costs associated, it’s not fear-mongering. It is preparation and research to know what the best and worst case scenarios could be. Again, if you have an animal and it attacks somebody on the sidewalk, do you have enough coverage to be able to withstand what comes from that, right? So there’s planning involved.

I think that’s a key takeaway from today. Another correlated percentage was nearly two-thirds of pet owners from Alyssa, 63% admit they couldn’t afford unexpected medical care for their pet. Yeah. Again, that’s correlating into 60% of people from the headline we read earlier are living paycheck to paycheck. That are calling, looking for help because they’re putting it on credit cards.

The amount, and this is the key. I would strongly recommend you reaching out to Alyssa. Talk to her about this because if you have a pet, see what it looks like. Look at what some of the costs would be if something happens. At least know what kind of coverage you’re getting and review with either Alyssa or an insurance agent that she can refer to if you have the right coverages.

All of these things are important. So again, financial wisdom, financial wellness. We know there’s so many people out there with great hearts and so many animals that need to be placed into homes with families to find love, right? So this week’s quote, owners of dogs will have noticed that if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are a god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.

That’s perfect. Special thanks. Special thanks. I have that about cats too. Special thanks to our producers, Leah and Lisa.

Always here helping us put on a great show to help our consumers with great information. We always try to bring great experts on the show like Alyssa to give information that will help people avoid financial pitfalls. m. org with your questions. com or you can find us where you listen to your podcasts.

We love for you to be a part of the conversation. org or feel free to call 1-800-CAMBRIDGE.