Health insurance is a tricky thing to navigate for both us and our pets. After spending hours sifting through various plans and pricing options to settle on a policy, we still get hit with unforeseen loopholes when emergencies strike. Subsequently, we end up paying all kinds of costly medical bills. This keeps many owners from getting their pet the treatment they need to recover—and makes insurance alternatives like Pawp all the more important.
Pawp isn’t your traditional pet insurance plan, but it can be a useful alternative for anyone needing continuous professional care for their dog or cat. The platform’s stand-out feature is its telehealth service, available to all members for a flat rate of $99/year. This gives you access to professional advice 24/7, which can be life-saving in situations where you’re unable to take your pet to a traditional vet clinic.
The most important thing to keep in mind with Pawp is that it’s not pet insurance. Unless you pay an additional $19/month for a $3000/year emergency fund, Pawp will not cover any of your pet’s medical expenses. Even with the add-on, the company only covers one emergency per household per year, and they have relatively strict terms on what constitutes a true medical emergency.
Overall, we think Pawp is a great resource for pet owners if and when accidents pop up—but it should only supplement in-person vet visits, not replace them.
Unlike traditional pet insurance providers, Pawp doesn’t offer insurance plans. The standard membership covers the 24/7 telehealth services and, for an additional $19/month, the emergency fund. This benefit can be used once per year, following a mandatory 14-day waiting period after signing up. Other key features of Pawp membership include:
Pawp is totally unique among pet insurance options. As such, it comes with a unique set of advantages and drawbacks that are important to consider before signing up.
It can be tricky to make direct comparisons between traditional pet insurance companies and services like Pawp since they’re not subject to the same rules and conditions. When making this table, we looked at the factors most important to pet owners. Still, it’s worth looking further into each provider individually to better understand the services and coverage they offer.
Online reviews of Pawp vary drastically, depending on where you look. It’s always best to take customer feedback with a grain of salt, but it’s still well worth considering when deciding on something as important as your pet’s health care.
Overall, users find Pawp useful for getting professional advice on potential health problems as soon as possible. On the other hand, many users feel the terms of coverage could be a little broader, and that the emergency fund could apply to more than just one situation per year.
Below, we break down the specifics of Pawp feedback across multiple review sites:
Pawp reviews on the Better Business Bureau are overwhelmingly negative, though most center on the terms of their emergency fund. Many customers on this site claim their pets didn’t receive the care they needed because the terms were so limited—which is why it’s so important to remember that Pawp doesn’t work like traditional pet insurance. If your pet requires in-person care multiple times a year, a traditional policy would be better suited to their needs.
Reviews are better on TrustPilot, but overall mixed with an average rating of 3.2 out of 5. Negative reviews complain about not being reimbursed for emergency services, being denied for emergency services, and the company’s lack of customer support over the phone. However, 74% of these reviews give Pawp a perfect 5 out of 5, particularly for the service’s ability to provide owners with immediate feedback on potential health crises as they pop up.
Naturally, Pawp’s own website only displays positive reviews. Much of this praise goes towards the utility of the service. More specifically, members love the fact that they can ask a licensed vet questions on any issue with their pet at any time of day. Users also find that Pawp saves them a ton on in-person trips to the vet’s office.
Pawp is an annual membership service that provides pet owners unlimited access to phone calls, video calls, and other telehealth consultations with licensed veterinary professionals. It differs from traditional pet insurance in that it doesn’t cover the cost of in-person medical services, but members can upgrade their plan to include reimbursement for up to $3,000 on one pet emergency per year.
No. Pawp membership only covers cats and dogs, though one membership can cover up to six dogs and cats in the same household.
The Pawp website defines an emergency as an “unexpected, life-threatening medical situation.” Pawp classifies emergencies as things like toxic ingestion, allergic reactions, exposure to poisonous animals, cluster seizures, and being hit by a car. It’s important to note that the service does not cover emergencies that are present before the sign-up date, or that develop during the 14-day waiting period.
It depends on the situation. Pawp doesn’t require any medical records to become a member, but they do require a complete copy of your pet’s medical records from every treating clinic when submitting an Emergency Fund application.
