Pets Best vs. Trupanion Pet Insurance Comparison 2024: Which is Best?

It takes just one hefty veterinary bill to consider pet insurance. Shopping for any insurance is tough. And what makes it worse is all the policies, deductibles, and claims processing jargon— it’s enough to pull your hair out! How do you know which one to choose?

You may be tired of hearing this, but one size doesn’t fit all, especially with insurance companies. Today, we’re comparing Pets Best and Trupanion pet insurance companies. We’re reviewing what they do (and don’t) cover, reimbursements and deductibles, types of plans, and additional perks.

We hope you’ll have decided by this post’s end if you’re on the fence about which company to choose.

Let’s dive in!

A Quick Comparison

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Brief Overview of Pets Best

Pets Best has been in the pet insurance ball game for 15 years. The company was founded in 2005 by Dr. Jack Stephens, the same person to launch the first pet insurance company in North America in 1981 and uses American Pet Insurance Company to underwrite their claims.

Pets Best offers three tiers of dog and cat coverage. They also provide two wellness plans covering routine care and an accident-only plan.

Let’s learn more about what they do and don’t cover first.

What’s Covered?

Pets Best is different from Trupanion because they cover behavioral consults and prescriptions for no additional cost. Accident and illness coverage varies based on the plan you choose. We’ll discuss this further down the post, but overall, they cover the same essentials as Trupanion.

What’s Not Covered?

Like most insurance companies, Pets Best doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions.

They won’t cover elective and preventative procedures, including anal gland expressions and removal, tail docking, ear cropping, cat declawing, and dewclaw removal. Nail trims of any kind are not covered either. You also won’t find herbal and holistic therapy coverage with Pets Best.

Typically, parasites aren’t covered, but you can add limited coverage for parasite testing and prevention in their wellness plans.

Most insurance companies don’t cover wellness because you can usually plan for these services. With Pets Best you have the option of wellness and veterinary exam coverage for an additional cost. 

Another extra add-on is acupuncture and chiropractic services. Most plans are eligible for these services except their most basic plan, so we’ve included it as an add-on.

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Brief Overview of Trupanion

Trupanion is one of the top pet insurance companies recommended by vet offices everywhere. The company started in 2000 and, like Pets Best, uses American Pet Insurance Company to underwrite its claims.

Trupanion cares about pet safety and supports vet and pet charitable organizations. They only cover cats and dogs at this time.

Trupanion offers four-tiered plans, customizable monthly payments, and two optional riders. Let’s take a look at what they do and don’t cover.

What’s Covered?

Trupanion is straightforward when it comes to coverage.

What’s nice about Trupanion is its coverage for herbal therapy listed in the essentials package. If you want extra holistic coverage, you’ll have to add the Recovery and Complementary Care coverage.

What’s Not Covered?

Unfortunately, Trupanion does not cover annual wellness care or exam fees. This means no general practice exam fees, vaccines, yearly blood work, and dental cleanings. They also won’t cover pre-existing conditions, pet taxi fees, cloning, or parasites.

Extras

Trupanion offers a couple of add-on options for an extra monthly fee when you enroll. You can augment your coverage by adding recovery and complementary care. This covers all the extras we listed above.

Unfortunately, Trupanion offers end-of-life services as an extra fee, unlike Pets Best which includes it in their essentials list.

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Other Top-Rated Pet Insurance Companies

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Pets Best vs. Trupanion: Plans Available

Pets Best

Pets Best has three tiers to choose from, ranging in price and coverage. Surprisingly, we noticed that the initial pricing for the three options didn’t differ that much, so it’s much easier to switch to a plan with better coverage.

Each plan is customizable based on your preferred annual coverage, deductible, and reimbursement level. Each plan is eligible for unlimited annual coverage and $5,000 annual coverage.

After you’ve customized your pricing and coverage level, you can choose from two plans to cover wellness as an optional add-on. These plans are the Essential Wellness Plan and the Best Wellness Plan.

Each plan covers what we mentioned above with a few differences. One of those is spay/neuter and dental coverage. Only the Best Wellness Plan covers these surgeries. Each plan also has different monthly and yearly costs.

You can check out their accident-only plan if you don’t require a fully customized policy. This plan covers accidents like broken bones, snake bites, accidental swallowing, and any other accident you can’t plan for. This plan doesn’t cover medical issues like cancer, but it will cover those freak accidents.

Trupanion

Trupanion offers four different plans and charges a one-time new customer fee of $35 when you start a plan. The deductible determines the plan level and your monthly fee and includes all the essential benefits described above.

For example, if you want Plan 2, you’ll pay $75 a month and expect a $200 deductible every time your dog or cat is diagnosed with a new illness. Or you could select Plan 3 and pay $45 monthly with a $700 deductible. Keep in mind that these numbers are only used as an example and do not reflect the actual price of the plans since each one differs.

The customizable option allows you to choose your deductible price and see how your deductible regulates your monthly fee. Each plan encompasses unlimited annual coverage, so there are no payout limits when your pet gets sick.

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Pets Best vs. Trupanion: Reimbursements and Deductibles

Pets Best

Pets Best offers three options for reimbursement and six different deductible rates to help fit your budget. You can also choose $5,000 or unlimited annual coverage.

Trupanion

Trupanion’s deductible and reimbursement are different from Pet’s Best. There’s no annual deductible with Trupanion.

Instead, it has a lifetime condition basis. Whenever your pet is sick, you pay the deductible one time for that illness only. You’ll only pay another deductible when your pet is diagnosed with a new condition.

Trupanion keeps reimbursements simple by only offering 90%, which is a good deal. This percentage remains the same with specialists.

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Pets Best vs. Trupanion: Additional Perks

All pet insurance companies offer different perks. Some choose not to provide as many perks, while others offer several. Still, perks help shoppers finalize their decisions. So, let’s see what Pets Best and Trupanion have in store for us.

Pets Best

By far, Pets Best has the best discounts. If you have multiple pets, you can add as many to the same account and receive a 5% multi-pet discount. And if you’re in the military, you can receive an additional 5% military discount. The only downside is these discounts aren’t available in Alaska, Hawaii, and Tennessee.

In addition, you also have a 24/7 emergency pet helpline to get answers to your pet’s health at any time of the day or night. This includes phone calls, video chats, and email.

What’s also great is Pets Best offers direct vet payments, so you don’t have to struggle with being the middleman.

Trupanion

Trupanion doesn’t offer any discounts. Otherwise, they’d have to raise rates. Most of their perks lie in their unlimited annual coverage, customizable deductibles, pet owner’s assistance package, and recovery and complementary care, which you have to pay extra for.

The best perk to Trupanion is their direct vet payments and $0 deductibles. Mixed with their pet owners’ assistance option, it’s a great deal as long as you can afford the monthly payments.

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Company Verdict: Which One Has the Edge?

Customer Service📞

• Edge: Trupanion

Both insurance companies have good customer service, but we’re giving Trupanion the edge because of their claims process times.

Pets Best takes a while to process a claim. This is probably because they’ve gained more customers than they can handle. But until they can improve their time, Trupanion is the winner.

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Price of Plans💲

• Edge: Pets Best

Trupanion does have high monthly fees. But they make for this with unlimited annual coverage for all their policies. Plus, they offer $0 deductibles.

However, Pets Best matches the same unlimited annual coverage and offers lower monthly rates and wellness coverage. They also offer more discounts. For this reason, we feel that Pets Best has the better prices.

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Areas of Coverage🌐

• Edge: Pets Best

Choosing the winner in this area was tough because both insurance companies offer great coverage, but we decided that Pets Best was the winner. Ultimately, their accident-only coverage is a great option for pet owners wanting a small amount of coverage. This saves owners from spending money on services they don’t need.

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Perks📱

• Edge: Pets Best

Pet’s Best wins because of the discounts, direct vet pay, and the 24/7 pet helpline. These services are offered to any customer despite their coverage level and seem more enticing than paid perks.

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Conclusion

	Pets Best	Trupanion
Our Rating	Our Rating:	Our Rating:
Multi-Pet Discount	Multi-Pet Discount:	Multi-Pet Discount:
Alternative Therapies	Alternative Therapies:	Alternative Therapies:
Exam Fees	Exam Fees:	Exam Fees:
Behavioral Issues	Behavioral Issues:	Behavioral Issues:
	Compare Price	Compare Price

Trupanion and Pet’s Best are both great insurance companies. They both have pros and cons and will appeal to different pet owners. We do think Trupanion offers more consistency across the board, but Pet’s Best is more affordable and has better perks.

They could use more work on their claims processing time, but we hope to see that change as the company continues to grow!

• See Also: Pumpkin Pet Insurance vs. Lemonade Pet Insurance