5 Best Pet Insurance With Dental Coverage: Nurturing Your Pet’s Teeth
DailyTails recommends: Top 5 pet insurance plans covering dental health – ensuring your pet’s teeth stay strong and healthy
Published February 5, 2024.
Like humans, our furry companions rely on healthy teeth and gums to thrive. Poor dental health can cause pets serious pain, undermine their overall well-being, and even shorten their lives. That's why regular dental care is so vital for our pets.
Regular dental cleanings and exams by a veterinarian are essential to maintaining pets' dental health. But just like human dental work, these procedures can be quite costly without pet dental insurance.
Pet dental plans can provide reimbursement for cleanings, x-rays, extractions, and more. This coverage alleviates the financial barriers that may prevent pet owners from prioritizing dental care.
5 Best Pet Insurance Companies with Dental Coverage
1. Lemonade - Best Multi-Pet Insurance
Baseline coverage does not include dental care coverage, but Lemonade’s Preventative+ package would include coverage for routine dental cleanings up to $150/yr, assuming 80% co-insurance. With a Lemonade pet policy, you can choose co-insurance levels of 70%, 80%, or 90%.
They offer a “dental illness” add-on that covers items such as crowns, extractions, root canals, dental surgeries, and treatments for gum diseases like gingivitis and periodontal disease. It does not cover dental illness related to a pre-existing condition, orthodontics, preventative (homecare) items, or routine dental cleaning (see Preventative+ package option above).
Why We Picked It
Overall, Lemonade offers good options for pet owners seeking different levels of dental care coverage, especially for younger dogs and cats. Their website explains the different options in detail and clearly states their dental illness policy: “We recommend this coverage for dogs under five and cats under three.”
2. Wagmo - Best Pet Insurance for Seniors
Wagmo offers simplified coverage and includes preventative dental care and dental illness care in its baseline plan. Their plan is simple to understand and does not require additional “add-ons” for dental coverage.
Why We Picked It
Overall, Wagmo is a good option for pet owners who prefer a simplified approach to insurance and are “lumpers” rather than “splitters.” It may also be a better option for those with senior pets who may be excluded from coverage in other plans.
3. Fetch - Best Affordable Pet Insurance
Fetch is another great company for pet owners looking to really customize their coverage. They offer a variety of reimbursement levels and a range of coverage options and deductibles to fit your budget.
Like other companies, Fetch may reimburse up to 90% of all costs, but procedure payments are reimbursed by Fetch based on the circumstances, so you’ll have to file the claim and wait for a decision up to 14 days before reimbursement. Fetch Pet Insurance covers injury and disease in every adult tooth, periodontal disease, oral tumors, trauma, and more in its standard plan.
Why We Picked It
Overall, Fetch offers great coverage for pet owners who want to customize their plan for their individual pet’s needs and want a fully comprehensive plan, including specialists. Its baseline plan is one of the most comprehensive for the dental health of those discussed here. It also has no upper age limit for enrollment, so it’s ideal for senior pets.
4. Embrace - Best Flexible Pet Insurance
Embrace offers coverage for dental illness and injuries with varying reimbursement according to the relative likelihood of the issue. In their standard plan, dental cleanings are considered part of preventative care and are not covered by the insurance. However, Embrace does offer optional “Wellness Plans,” which could provide pet owners credit for these procedures. They offer a variety of reimbursement and deductible choices.
Why We Picked It
Overall, Embrace is highly rated by multiple sources for its coverage options, general accident and injury coverage, and optional wellness plans. It may be an ideal choice for pet owners who use credits from wellness plans to cover routine dental cleanings or pay for routine care out-of-pocket and mainly use insurance for dental injury/illness. However, the 1K cap per year could leave some pet owners with additional dental bills, depending on the veterinary care rates in their area and their pet’s individual needs.
5. MetLife - Best Comprehensive Pet Insurance
MetLife offers simplified coverage, including dental illness care in its baseline plan. They have up to a 90% reimbursement rate for enrolled pets 8 weeks and older and do not exclude senior pets or breed predispositions.
Why We Picked It
MetLife is a good option for pet owners who prefer a simplified insurance approach and can cover routine dental cleaning outside an insurance plan. It may also be a better option for those with senior pets whose certain breeds may be excluded from coverage in other plans.
The Importance of Pet Dental Coverage
Good dental health is paramount to keeping a pet’s overall health and well-being aligned and providing the best quality of life for the pet. Both pet owners and insurance providers need to recognize that disease in the mouth can lead to chronic pain locally and potentially systemic infections, which can become life-threatening.
The old saying “it’s just doggy breath” is misleading and could result in dental and periodontal disease (both of which can cause halitosis) being left untreated and preventing the pet from living its best life.
What to Look For When Seeking Pet Insurance with Dental Coverage
Appropriate and comprehensive dental care coverage should ideally include both prophylactic oral exams/dental cleanings/baseline radiographs as well as treatment of disease conditions. Ideally, the plan should not exclude the pet based on “pre-existing conditions" or “breed predisposition,” as this could exclude pets adopted as adults that have already developed dental/periodontal disease, as well as small breed dogs or Greyhounds, which are breeds known to commonly have dental problems.
The coverage would ideally outline if treatment of common problems such as gingivitis, periodontitis, dental calculus, retained deciduous teeth, fractured teeth, tooth root abscess, oronasal fistulas, gingival hyperplasia, tooth resorption, and oral tumors are included.
A pet insurance company should also note if referral to a veterinary dental specialist for more advanced procedures such as root canal/crown placement and endodontics would be covered.
What Coverage to Expect from Pet Insurance Companies
Dental insurance may be divided into “baseline” and “add-on/illness/additional” coverage. Most work on a reimbursement basis, meaning you’ll still need to pay your vet bill up front. Then, you can file a claim with the pet insurance company, and you would receive reimbursement depending on what your policy covers. You’ll need to consider co-insurance, deductibles, and policy coverage limits.
For example, if you mainly want insurance for “catastrophic” illnesses/injuries, you may want a lower co-insurance since it will lower your monthly premium. In this case, you’ll pay out of pocket for routine care, medications, and veterinary procedures.
Then consider your coverage limit - this is the maximum amount of coverage your insurance company would reimburse you over the course of a year. Higher coverage limits will contribute to higher monthly premiums, but you’ll have a bigger “safety net” to cover larger unexpected expenses. Pet owners should focus on what they want covered and how much they can realistically afford to pay out-of-pocket.
DailyTails: Your Gateway to Pet Health & Insurance Wisdom
Discovering the best pet insurance with dental coverage for your beloved dogs and cats involves careful consideration and comparison. Exploring DailyTails offers great insight into pet health insurance companies and their coverage, helping you secure insurance covering the oral hygiene needs your pets need and deserve.