How much is pet insurance?
Pet insurance costs will vary based on the type of pet, its age and other factors, but one national pet insurance company recently quoted us a policy online of $94.54 per month with a $200 deductible for a 6-year-old mixed breed, female dog. That number can go higher or lower depending on the deductible, very much like human insurance.
While becoming a more recognizable option, most pets are not privately insured. According to the North American Pet Health Insurance Association, there are 179 million pets in North America and about 1.4 million are covered by insurance. The most important tip is to understand what the policy does and does not cover and how the monthly fees compare to average yearly veterinary care for your pet. In some cases, it may make more sense to simply bulk up your emergency fund, as blogger Sierra Black did. Before we get to her story, though: Pet insurance isn’t the only option. if you have trouble affording care for your pet, the ASPCA has resources that can help.
Sierra Black’s Story
My cat, Monster, died after a struggle with cancer. Monster followed me home one day when I was 17; he was with me through every heartbreak, every move, job, boyfriend, and roommate. I’m grateful for the fifteen years we had together, but I miss him. I’ll miss him always, I suspect.
Monster’s death left me with a tough decision: Should my girls get kittens for Christmas? We’d been thinking of getting the kids kittens for awhile, but held off because Monster was old and frail. I didn’t want a pair of kittens to terrorize him. While it felt too soon to me to get new cats, my older daughter asked very gently if she could get a cat of her own a few weeks after Monster died.
When my other daughter’s preschool held a holiday pet adoption & craft fair, the deal was clinched. We came home with two kittens.
The kittens came with a brochure for pet insurance. I’ve never had pet insurance, and I wondered if a policy might be worthwhile, especially for young cats who need extra care and appointments, as well as vaccines.
Veterinary care gets expensive fast. I tapped out my modest $1,000 emergency fund paying for Monster’s end-of-life care and cremation costs. I have never been so grateful for my new financial skills as I was when I was able to write that check without worrying about where the money would come from.
Related content: How to build up your emergency fund.
Between paying for my elderly cat’s illness and adopting two kittens, vet bills have been on my mind a lot. So I looked into my pet insurance options. I decided to “self-insure” my pets by putting more money into my emergency fund, instead of buying an insurance policy to cover their medical costs. Here’s why:
- Pet insurance costs may exceed your typical annual vet costs. My cat’s medical care typically costs about $300 a year. I can readily save that money myself. [Ed note: Some policies this writer encountered at the time would have run her about $1 per day or $365 per year.]
- Routine care isn’t covered. While an accident or serious illness could suddenly befall my cat, routine care is the bulk of expenses I have ever paid for a cat. It’s true that a sudden illness could escalate those costs dramatically. This just happened to Monster as he was dying. After 15 years of cat tending, though, I have a decent sense of how much it costs on a day-to-day basis, and how common these expensive accidents or illnesses really are.
- Money in my emergency fund is more flexible. I can use those dollars to pay for a surprise vet bill or a blown radiator on my car or a washing machine repair. The money isn’t dedicated to a particular cause, it’s available for whatever emergency life throws my way.
Of course, emergencies can pile up, making the flexibility of emergency funds a moot point. That’s the risk of going it alone. For example, shortly after my cat died, I developed a problem with my hands that needed intensive medical care.
For an insurance policy to seem worthwhile to me, it needs to be cheap, easy to use, and cover routine expenses. AAA is a great deal for me, for example, because my annual membership costs about what one service call does, and driving a used car I use it every year. If they didn’t cover routine roadside incidents like flat tires, I’d drop it because that’s the bulk of what I use them for.
It’s almost always better to self-insure your stuff (and your pets) than to buy a warranty or insurance policy. The two big exceptions in my life are home and health insurance. I can’t reasonably squirrel away the cash to replace my home, and a catastrophic health event can set me back hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Related Content: For more about insurance, see how insurance works and how to save on insurance.
Health insurance also covers my routine care. I don’t get my money’s worth out of my health insurance every year, but I always have my care covered. My insurance premiums are the only significant cost I pay for health care. They pay for 5 physicals, any number of sick care appointments, and the various specialists my family members see.
Pet insurance would only cover major medical incidents. Cats don’t, in my experience, have as many of those as people. In 15 years I’ve paid for one surgery and two illnesses with my cats. That doesn’t suggest a lot of use for my pet insurance policy. If I’d paid insurance premiums all those years, I’d have paid over $4500. The cost of major medical bills has actually been less than half that.
Any insurance or warranty program works because most of its customers pay more in premiums than they consume in services. That’s how an insurance company makes money. Before giving them some of yours, think very carefully about what kind of customer you are. Will you be paying more in premiums than you get in service? Or the other way around? Of course it’s impossible to know what the future will bring, but here are some good questions to ask yourself:
- Can I save this money myself? Be honest. Do you have the income and the discipline to save for an emergency. You want the answer to be yes, but wishing doesn’t always make things happen. If you don’t have the savings or a good way to build them, start working on developing those skills. Some things you just can’t self-insure, but many you can if you’re diligent.
- What kind of consumer are you? For example, an outdoor cat is going to be more prone to accident or illness than an indoor cat. That might alter the equation on whether or not pet insurance is worthwhile to you.
Whatever you decide, I hope you never have to use your insurance or emergency fund to pay for a sick or injured animal. May all of your pets live long, healthy, happy lives.
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There are 98 comments to "How much is pet insurance?".
Since I have never had a pet myself, I think I am more callous in my response.
Animals are great for companianship and love, but they aren’t human. If they need brain surgery, I don’t think it should be done. For those that pay $5,000+ dollars to “save” their pets for just a few more days – I think they’re crazy.
For this reason, I don’t think pet insurance is needed. If something goes seriously wrong with your pet, you’ll just have to let them go rather than pay the big bucks.
Yikes! You are right, you have obviously never had a pet!
I just looked into this for my two dogs and there was an option to add routine care. I am not sure what company you looked into, or maybe cats are different than dogs in coverage, but we got a quote from VPI.
My vet summed it up well though- people that can afford pet insurance can usually afford their vet bills. The people that really need it can’t afford or think the monthly costs are too high. So it is a toss up, although I’m sure if my dog got really sick it would be worth it. We haven’t made our decision yet.
All I’ll say is that in the 4 years I have had a dog, 2 of those years I have dramatically saved a ton of money with pet insurance. The other 2 years I came out about even.
If you think a reasonable expectation of vet bills for a dog (not a cat) is $300 a year…you better not get a dog.
Pet insurance is 100% worth the cost in the first 8 years of a large dog’s life. The type of pet matters. Not sure it would be worth it for a cat.
Plus, most pet insurance DOES cover routine care these days (tho not completely)
I’m sorry to hear about Monster 🙁
I’ve been thinking of getting a cat, but I’m not going to until I have room in my emergency fund for any unexpected expenses. I’ve heard mixed reviews about pet insurance so this post really helped!
One thing my parents have always done is decide ahead of time how far they will go to help their dogs. (In other words, to think about costs and quality of life for their animals.) It’s a very difficult topic, but it does help with financial planning and that awful step of knowing when to say good bye.
Sierra, I’m so sorry to hear you cat died. I have a few cats and have thought about getting the insurance, but for an indoor cat the numbers just don’t add up. From past experience I know that if something (no pun intended) catastrophic were to happen, I would have to put the cat down. A few times growing up our outdoor cats had something awful happen and even after hundreds of dollars spent on trying to save them they died anyway.
What I decided to do was to put aside a fund in ING just for emergency care and I add $25/month to it. I also put aside money each month for food/litter/flea medicine, etc. and what is leftover gets funneled to the emergency fund. So far it has worked out well. I wish I had the money to do that for my own health care!
sorry to hear about Monster and enjoy the new kittens.
One perspective on insuring “routine” care/claims – it costs an insurance company money to administer a claim, so that even if all of the money that you paid as premium was dedicated to paying your claims in a year, you’d still lose about 20% due to the expenses of paying your claims.
This is why insurance tends to work better for catastrophic events (as you point out)
Peter
Do you think maybe you are over-insured when it comes to health insurance? If you aren’t getting your money’s worth, why not switch to catastrophic care where you can save in advance and pay in full for routine visits like physicals and sick care appointments?
Insurers make very little of their money from people not using up all the benefits they pay for. They make most of their money charging a large group of people for protection against unlikely events. You (and others) coming out a few hundred (or even thousand) dollars ahead or behind on insurance premiums isn’t making or breaking the bills for these guys.
I’ve recently decided to drop our pet insurance. Our premiums for two dogs was about $60/month (that included the “routine” care for our new puppy which would be going away, but other premium increases would put us up near that number).
Instead, I’m socking away 100/month into an ING savings account. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise for me. First off, the filing of claims is ancient. You have to fax forms and all dealings are after the fact. This alone puts my unorganized self at a disadvantage. However, the thing that really gets me are the new plans and the percentage of coverage. Now VPI is moving towards tiered deductibles (100, 250, 500) with premiums based upon those upfront payments. Yes, they now pay a larger percentage and have a wider range of coverage, but it still does not seem to justify my costs.
I figure after two years of savings, I’ll have a solid $2400 in the pup-fund. After this point, I can continue to save or use the money for expenses as they come and then begin rebuilding the fund. Until that point, I have our emergency fund to use so that we don’t load down ourselves with debt in the case of emergency.
Sierra, I am very sorry for your loss of Monster. I agree with you that pet insurance is not worth it. Primarily because the policy cedes control of whether or not to treat during an emergency to your insurance company. You need to contact them first, and have them talk with your vet, and then THEY DECIDE whether or not they’ll approve the procedure. So all that premium money and you may end up having to pay for expenses out of pocket anyway. No thank you.
I’m not one to endorse credit cards, but there is a GE product called Care Credit that is for human and pet health expenses only, and it is low-interest or interest free for a certain period after a big expenditure (varies by amount). I use it when I have a vet bill I can’t cover with cash or don’t want to raid savings for.
Re: 1 & 2
I’ve been a pet owner my whole life, cats and/or dogs, mostly cats. But I’m pretty much with #1 poster. I cannot imagine spending thousands of dollars should one of my cats develop a major issue. It may seem callous but, to me, it’s just practical. For people, yes. For cats, no. I also haven’t felt any need to get pet insurance. I just budget for typical cat vet care.
A long time ago, I bought pet insurance in the US and it definitely was NOT worth it. My dog developed a urinary tract infection and I had to fill out a ton of paperwork and at the end of the day I got reimbursed $30. I dropped that insurance.
I bought pet insurance when I moved to the UK. It definitely was worth it! They paid the full limit of 4000 GBP and I paid the remainder 1500 GBP. (I am one of those people who will pay what it takes as long as the vets think it will result in a quality longer life – but no chemotherapy, dialysis, etc.) The insurance company paid the full amount readily and stopped my premium payments after my dog’s death without me having to make that request.
Now I am back in the US and have a new dog and new pet insurance. I am ambivalent about the value of buying pet insurance because my US insurance experience was so bad and my UK insurance experience was so good. I hope the US pet insurance has improved.
“For an insurance policy to seem worthwhile to me, it needs to be cheap, easy to use, and cover routine expenses.”
Any insurance policy that covers routine (i.e. regular) expenses is not going to be cheap. That’s not the point of insurance.
You well understand this point when you talk about home insurance replacing your potentially burned-down house; while at the same time you don’t presumably expect it to replace your worn-out water heater or pay for gutter cleaning.
And yet when we get into discussions about HEALTH insurance for people, and apparently pets, we somehow expect that insurance ought to cover our expected expenses, such as your physicals.
I’m sorry about your cat. I know how difficult it can be to lose a pet. I also agree with the first poster–insurance ought to be for unexpected and catastrophic expenses that still need to be paid for. If my child needs expensive cancer treatments that run hundreds of thousands of dollars, I need insurance. If my dog needs it, we’ll have to say our farewells.
Sierra, I recently lost my dog to cancer and I truly understand and feel your loss.
I also have a dachshund (known for back problems) that I decided to insure to be on the safe side. A few months into the insurance she herniated a disc in her back… guess what, not covered. So not only did I pay for the $350+ a year insurance, I paid for all the vet bills myself. I know some people are very happy with their pet insurance but for me it ended up being another expense on top of an expensive treatment. They also had a cap on routine expenses that usually ended up stopping payments at about the amount you paid into the insurance, which seemed more like a savings account for people who were bad at savings than an insurance policy to me.
I currently have a savings plan for vet expenses and I put about $350 per dog per year and I am confident that anything serious will be covered with that money.
As for end of life care, it is a difficult thing to experience with a pet. Having enough money to treat them is one less thing to have to worry about when you need to focus on the hard decisions. I am sorry for your loss.
I’m a pet lover and consider our dog part of the family. If he needed X-amount of dollars for surgery, we would surely pay for it.
That said, I guess it would have to depend on whether the surgery would by days or years to his life. We surely would not want him to suffer.
Growing up, we usually had 4 dogs. If we had insurance: $365 a year, per dog, average life say.. 12= $17,520. I know we have never spent anywhere near that number.
So, my take on pet insurance, I don’t think it’s worth it. Like others have said, you can just setup an e-fund for pet emergencies. Don’t forget, you also get interest on you e-fund, rather than paying out each month for insurance.
dmm219 – I disagree. Pet Insurance is worth it, but only for some breeds/types of dogs.
I bought it because I was also given a quote to include general checkups. However, because it is a private insurance, they can exclude things. My 1.5 year old Ridgeback mix (a rescue) tore his cruciate (ACL) and also has a dysplasia-like problem in his front paw. Neither of those are covered by pet insurance for any dog over 30 lbs, or any dog younger than 3 because they are more likely to have those problems.
LifeandMyFinances – These surgeries (which we are doing soon) have been quoted at $4,000. I am lucky that I have that money saved, but I don’t have children. Kramer is my “son.” And this money will give me 8 more years with him, not just a few days. He is my priority and in the past year has already been through the world with me. He deserves the best life possible.
My only comment is that you should rescue these new kittens, if you decide to get them. Please don’t buy. There are millions of cats sitting in shelters across the country waiting for homes- there are even kittens!
Sorry for your loss. My parents just lost their 17 year old dog over Christmas. She’s being frozen at the pet shelter for a Spring burial.
I would have liked to see more information about different pet health insurance plans, not just the one that sends a flyer with a specific fair. Maybe some information on the average pet insurance plan, or information on ranges of costs for different breeds.
Obviously the cost of routine care would mean a higher insurance premium. That may or may not be worth it (usually it is worth it if the insurance company is able to use its buying power to negotiate lower rates with providers). Pre-paying routine care really isn’t the point of insurance (as previous posters have pointed out) unless it encourages preventative care thus avoiding catastrophic care.
I did the analysis when I had two young dogs and came to the same conclusion: better to just put the premium in the bank.
FWIW, I found over the course of my dogs’ long lives that they were very expensive when they were young (lots of injuries from playing too hard, plus the fees for spaying) and again in old age (tests to check for cancer, meds). In middle age, from age 3 to 10 +/- medical costs consisted primarily of routine vet visits.
I’m sorry for your loss, but wish your family much happiness with your new friends.
I’m in the UK, my family has 2 cats and they are both insured. Coco, our older cat, has had 2 major operations- she chipped her elbow joint and had it replaced with a metal pin, then a couple of years later a ligament in her back leg snapped and was replaced by a synthetic one. This operations would have cost us around £5000 each if not for insurance. She had both of them before she was 10 and she’s now 15 and still healthy, fairly active and a happy cat.
If pet insurance in the USA is anything like your health insurance, I wouldn’t bother with it, but ours has been very good. They give us money towards the cats’ regular vaccinations and cover a wide range of tests too.
Some people don’t seem to see the gravity of owning a pet, it’s not a piece of furniture you can get rid of whenever you fancy, it’s a responsibility.
“My vet summed it up well though- people that can afford pet insurance can usually afford their vet bills.” This is pretty much how I feel. For me, for what pet insurance covers, it’s just not really worth the cost. BUT, it is worth noting, I have a sturdy, middle-aged, healthy dog who really does not need much of anything besides vaccines, and I’m pretty capable with dogs so I do a lot of her care at home, like cleaning teeth, clipping nails, etc.
I put ~$50 a month into a savings account instead. Then I can use that money for other pet-related expenses, like food, toys, travel expenses, and so on. It works out pretty well.
I have 3 dogs. I declined pet insurance but know that I’d pay thousands if my doberman needed something to save her life (or quality of life) that was likely to succeed. A friend of mine was single, no kids and had a good job. His boxer, who was pretty much his life, was out playing frisbee and came down wrong on his ankle breaking it. It wasn’t life threatening and amputation was probably a less costly option. He opted to have pins put in the ankle at the cost of over $3,0000. I know I’d probably do the same even though I’d have to charge it. Due to the sports my dog is involved in amputation wouldn’t be an option. I’m not sure if pet insurance companies charge more for dogs involved in certain performance sports but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I agree with dmm219 – it’s worth it more for dogs than cats.
When things go wrong with dogs, they’re expensive to fix – and not just life-or-death stuff like a brain tumour, but otherwise healthy dogs (particularly breeds) can develop wonky knees or hips that need expensive operations. A friend’s 2 year old dog developed a bad knee – if he hadn’t had insurance, it would have cost him £2000+.
Our pet insurance also has a third party element – in case the dog hurts anyone else or causes damage to anything expensive.
We’ve lost 2 cats in the last 18 months – one about 9 years old, the other 12. Both went quickly (apparently cats often keep quiet about serious illnesses, so we don’t find out until it’s too late) and were inoperable – insurance wouldn’t have helped in either case. Even if an operation had been a possibility, chances are it would have just postponed the inevitable — self-insuring meant we could choose whether to give the money to an animal shelter in their memory or whether to risk it. We would have chosen the former.
I work for a pet insurance company, though not in the US. Here’s what I’ve seen:
– shop around. Policies vary WIDELY between different companies. And if you get the cheapest policy, it won’t pay out much
– dogs need insurance much more than cats
– the more pets you have insured, the less you need insurance. If you’re paying premiums for lots of pets, statistically, they probably won’t all get sick, and that’s a lot of money towards your emergency fund.
– lots of companies do cover routine health, but if you never get the routine care done it’s not worth the extra premiums (cats are hardly ever using the routine to their full advantage)
– if you have enough of an emergency fund to spend $5000 or so, if you really had too, you don’t need insurance
– we NEVER cover pre-existing conditions or those within the waiting period. If your pet is already sick or fairly old, it’s probably not worth it. If it only has a minor illness or two, then coverage for future unrelated incidents may be useful
– read the Terms and Conditions thoroughly upon receipt of them.
– as stated, we need premiums to be higher than the claims paid, in order to stay in business. So breaking even shouldn’t be a concern, since premiums are based on the average client paying more than we pay them. So, it’s more an issue of whether you could afford an unexpected accident or serious illness on your own.
I have often pondered whether to get pet insurance. We have two older dogs and insuring them would be very expensive, and I also am not of the mind that expensive, invasive treatments to prolong their lives for a short time, if it came to that, would be the humane thing to do. I’ll leave aside whether it’s appropriate to spend a lot of money on end of life care, as that’s a very personal decision that no one can make for another person.
We would have benefited greatly from our youngest dog having insurance, however. A couple of years ago, she needed surgery for a torn ACL – in two legs! This required two separate surgeries and cost a total of over $5,000. We never considered not doing the surgery, because she was in a lot of constant pain, and also was only about 4 years old at the time, so she had a long life ahead of her. It would have been unbelievably cruel to leave her legs untreated.
This same dog is mischevious enough to have, not once but twice, gotten into prescription medication. The first time it happened, several hours had elapsed and in addition to being rushed to the emergency vet, she had to spend 2 nights in the hospital.
I don’t know that the cost of routine care justifies pet insurance, though as I said, I’m still pondering it. But in the case of our little stinker Alaska, it would have been the right decision.
I’ll add that I don’t think someone who does not have pets can really opine on this subject. Pets are not people, but they are family. I realize it’s not the same as having a child, but neither is it the same as a nonliving thing. Pet owners treat their pets as family and take care of their needs, and this is a significant priority that has its own place in the family budget.
I lost a dog a couple of years ago, it may seem excessive, but over her lifetime her vet bills easily cost £12000 +, I reared her from a week old, she was my best friend in every sense of the word. I didn’t have pet insurance at the time and her vet bills toward the end topped £7000 in about a year. We maxed out our credit card to pay. I’ve been an advocate of insurance ever since (the UK offers extensive, though expensive insurance). There is nothing worse than having a dog seriously ill and not having the money to pay for it.
I have a dog that has required thousands of dollars in surgery, none of which was “life saving/prolonging” surgery. I am happy with my decision and my dog has an awesome life with a ton of love. I’ve experienced “judgement” about the money I’ve spent on him, but to each their own. I wouldn’t buy an expensive car, but do I judge those who do? No. It’s not how I choose to spend my money. I am financially responsible, so if I choose to spend my money on my dog rather than my wardrobe, how can someone judge me? It’s about priorities.
@LifeandMyFinances Think hard and fast before you call people “crazy” for spending money on potentially life saving surgery-it’s incredibly insensitive and yes, callous. If I’d never experienced something that is important to YOU, and I called you crazy, how would you feel? I mean this gently, and I know tone is an issue, but seriously, don’t judge people for who they love and who/what they consider family.
That said, I’ve made the decision that I would not spend money to prolong his life, especially if he would suffer. But I don’t judge those who do. I understand the deep connection and love people develop with their pets, and if you want to spend $30K on your pet, it’s your money and DON’T let anyone make you feel bad for your priorities.
Since I am past the point of pet insurance for my pup, I have also started an ING sub savings account as well. I financed his surgeries with Care Credit, and had a great experience with them. Once I incurred a late payment fee due to some confusion about the weekend and business hours, and Care Credit removed it immediately, and the customer service rep was extremely nice. I paid the bills off each time well in advance of the date my zero financing period ran out.
Sierra, I’m very sorry for your loss. Sounds like Monster lived a great life 🙂
I adopted a cat a few years ago and found out he had a heart murmur when I took him to the vet. I put him on insurance and it has been totally worth it. If your pet is crazy healthy (which you never know) I would say skip the insurance. But it is nice having it as a back-up for emergencies and for sick pets.
so sorry for your loss! monster sounds like a great kitty.
i dont have pet insurance, and for a while i had care credit- but i dropped that as soon as i found out the rates (something like 25% while my other plain credit cards were around 11 and 12….
i agree with #18 and disagree heavily with #1. reasons like this are why we make money and save it. there is no rainier day than a sick animal.
i also empathize with the relief over check-writing. my relatively young and otherwise healthy ferret i adopted two years ago started showing signs of cancer this past summer. we took him in and because of my emergency fund i was able to get him right into surgery without a second thought. he recovered and is happily bouncing back around, he’s sleeping in the bathroom as i type this. best chunk of change i ever spent.
i have to wonder about poster #1. if you don’t spend your hard-earned money on your sick loved ones, what do you spend it on? mutual funds? a new car?
I have to disagree with the criteria for insurance being “covering routine expenses”. My criteria is the premiums vs. what it is covering. Term life insurance is the perfect example – it does not cover any “routine” expenses but it has a large payout for a small premium. I don’t buy pet insurance because I think the premiums are too high for the small amount (a few thousand) they pay out.
Our health insurance does cover routine expenses but for some people it makes more sense to buy insurance that only covers large bills.
I’m sorry to hear about Monster. I hope your kids have as enjoyable of memories with their kittens as you do of Monster.
I have always passed on pet insurance for the reasons you outlined, but in the case of our current cat I wish we hadn’t. She has what appears to be a recurring condition of unknown cause (which is a good thing, because the known causes of the condition are all fatal.) Luckily our vet is a sweetheart and only charges for the specific treatment and not his time, because at one point we were taking her in weekly for a period of three months.
I’m sorry you lost Monster.
Cats vary widely in how much care they need, and also where you lives determines what’s not available; the youngest of our cats (who is now 8) has been the most expensive, and had bladder surgery when she was 4; the oldest (who died at 17 last year) only ever got routine shots; and the other elderly cat (now 18) mostly only got routine medical care but was ill a few times.
The elderly cat is mine, and she only got medical care when I could afford it; the youngest cat is my tender-hearted partner’s and he shelled out thousands of dollars on her care when I probably would have had her put to sleep.
Getting kittens for kids probably means being committed to a pretty steep level of care if the cat happens to have congenital issues (as our youngest cat did) or develops an illness later in life. On my own, I’ve never done the pet care insurance, but if we’d thought to do it for our youngest cat (now that I know my partner will spend so much on her care, I think I might) I might have saved money.
That smiley should say my young cat is 8!
I have heard that pet insurance is only worth it if a) you have an older pet and b) you have psychic abilities to know if and in what year they will have catastrophic medical expenses.
For the two pets that we’ve had die in the past 5 years they did have medical expenses towards the end of life but in the 100’s not thousands, because at that point there was nothing to be done other than palliative. For my sister in law, when her elderly cat had a stroke, she was given the option of expensive heart surgery and rehabilitation, but the vet actually advised against it because the chances of success were so improbable. There may be more gray cases but often in these situations what to do becomes clear and having pet insurance is not going to make the difference.
Thanks for this post! I’ve been going back and forth over the decision on whether to get pet insurance. I didn’t realize that pet insurance doesn’t cover routine care. For cats, I think what you mentioned about indoor vs outdoor cats is a really important factor because not only are indoor cats less likely to get injured, but they’re less likely to get a contagious disease. I also think that if you feed your cat a high quality diet and make sure they maintain a healthy weight, you can also significantly reduce their risk of having serious health problems.
RIP Monster!
For a dog or cat, I think your argument is a great one. However, I can think of one big exception, which is my own pet: a horse.
Granted, horse expenses are through the roof anyway, and routine care can easily top $1,000 a year, but the costs of anything outside of routine care just skyrocket the second you call the vet.
Equine health insurance usually covers major medical and a variation on end of life/loss of use. Your costs for it are usually assessed by a certain percentage of your horse’s value – so if you have a $75,000 show hunter it runs into real money, but for my little mustang, who might be worth $8,000 on the open market, it’s much more affordable. (OTOH you might want a way of recouping that $75,000 investment if something terrible happens.)
Horse emergency expenses can run into the thousands of dollars at the drop of a hat. Say a horse wrenches its fetlock in turnout; you want the vet out for a routine lameness exam; he suggests xrays; even if nothing is wrong and it’s just some stall rest and bute, you’re out $500. Anything more serious adds up very fast, with follow up xrays, MRIs, trips to the vet hospital.
Not to mention colic surgery. If my horse needed surgery, I’d have to decide if his life is worth $7,500. I don’t want to have to do that. I’d gladly pay the insurance premiums so I don’t have to. One major medical incident will make up for years of paying premiums.
I pay less that $200 a year for pet insurance on our dog. That only covers emergencies, not routine care. Routine care is an option, but it makes it much more expensive, and I figured that was easy for me to budget for. I haven’t used the insurance at all this year, but in the first year I used it my dog had thousands of dollars in tests and care to diagnose him with Addison’s Disease (which is easily treatable with medication, but which would have eventually killed him if not diagnosed). I got about half of what I paid in vet bills back, which is way more than I have paid for the insurance, so it seems to still be a good decision for me. One thing to note is that pet insurance does still exclude pre-existing conditions (we had to submit vet records for the previous year to prove that the dog hadn’t already been diagnosed with Addison’s Disease). For that reason, we didn’t get pet insurance for our elderly cat, since we figured everything would be a preexisting condition with him.
I can’t say that I think pet insurance is necessary, and emergency fund savings are never a bad decision, but it has bought me a little peace of mind, and I guess that’s worth the cost for me personally.
We insured our last two dogs. We found that when the major health problems came we were still left paying a large sum out of pocket, in addition to the premiums. Therefore, we decided to self-insure with our newest dog.
My condolences on the loss of your dear Monster.
We’ve had our cat for a little over two years, and the pet insurance we bought for her costs us about half what you’re quoting and has basically paid for itself for the last two calendar years. Our cat is unfortunately a bit more special needs than most cats her age, so we’re looking at slightly higher-than-usual vet bills over the course of her life, so we’re also socking some away in savings on the side: our insurance requires payment upfront and then reimburses us later.
Like with anything, do what works for you. Where we are financially, the insurance gives us some peace of mind. In a few more years when we’re better situated I think we might rethink it.
Note that the initial cost of pet insurance will dramatically increase with the age of the pet. So what started out at $25/month for my cat at the age of 1, ended up $70/mo at the age of 15. She lived until 19.
Posters #1 and #10: Have you considered being pet foster parents? It seems like the level of responsibility that you’re looking for. Foster parents often get food allowances and have their vet bills paid for them, but they get to spend a lot of quality time with their foster pets. This would alleviate your personal financial concerns, but still allow a loved animal to receive life saving veterinary care. Just a thought. . .
Sorry about the loss of your pet. I agree with you about the pet insurance. However, maybe where you live affects whether you need it or not because I had a dog with a torn
ACL a few years ago and the total cost for surgery to repair it plus extras like x-rays, meds, etc. came to about $1000. After reading some of the other comments on costs of similiar surgeries I’m really surprised at how much they had to pay. I can only guess that the difference in cost is related to cost of living in different areas.
We don’t have pet insurance, but we do have a pre-paid ‘wellness plan’ through Banfield. For about $550 a year our two cats (who are 8 and 13) are completely covered for preventative care, vaccinations and office visits. No paperwork to file; we just show up at the vet office and everything is already taken care of. There is a plan discount (I think it’s 5-10%) on other vet services and medications, should they need major emergency care.
Sorry for your loss. I’m incredibly attached to my cat after just a few years…
I agree with your conclusion though that in most cases pet insurance isn’t a great deal.
My wife and I have a ceiling on what we would pay for medical services for our cat (in the 1K range). As long as we are able to emotionally stick to that in a crisis time, then pet insurance definitely doesn’t make sense for us.
Get your dog trained! Dog training is an investment that will help protect your dog’s life! Imagine that you are outside and something dangerous is about to happen to your doggy. Just tell her to COME and she will come racing to you. Dog training for the basic 5 popular commands of sit, come, stay, here, and down will cost about $350. That is about $00.08 a day if your dog lives 11 years.
Now, factor in your dog’s daily living expense with an extra eight cents a day and you can see that dog training is worth it. Oh, and now a days, the dog trainer comes to YOUR home for the 1 hour session! (Each command is 1 hour long) How convenient is that!? Morning, afternoon, or evening times they can come. We just had our dog trained, this is how i know. =)
Check out the trainers in your area this moment and call or email them right now. Don’t put this off and think an accident can’t ever happen to your dog. This entire post above is about insurance and not being able to predict the future accidents that can occur with your pets. Dog training is a one time thing that lasts a life time. Plus, dogs love to follow commands! They are happy and you are happy! WIN/WIN!
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=home+dog+training+Trevose&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=83f87efc6f926f13
Good luck! And Happy new year to everyone!
We have had pet care plan for our dog through Petsmart’s Banfield Vets and I ran through the numbers and just on the cost of routine care alone, the pet care plan saves us about 250 a year.
My understanding is that there are a lot of products, so I doubt a 1 size fits all solution is correct. Policies and Circumstances vary, so do research your unique situation.
In addition to the care, the insurance part saved us about 1K on a big surgery for our middle-ish aged dog (@ the time) and clearly paying the same out of pocket to keep our furry companion alive and happy many years after the surgery was so very much worth it.
Many non-pet owners seem to think that spending $$ to care for one’s pets is wasteful. As someone who for a long time was not a pet owner and then transitioned to being one, I can say that I clearly did not understand what having a pet is like as an experience when I did not have one.
I think JD’s mantra really should apply here: Do what works for you, which sadly, in my opinion, is not reflected as much by the author.
I don’t have pet insurance for my two cats, and doubt the older one would qualify based on preexisting conditions. I sat down two years ago and figured out how much food should cost for them for a month. I also averaged out how much I was paying for kitty litter. These two expenses, plus $50 for emergencies, gets set aside every month. So even though it costs me $40 a month for food, I’m not actually buying it every month since I buy the largest size bag I can. This means that left over money at least earns a few pennies interest. Over the past two years, this has added up nicely, and I’ve now got an emergency account for the cats that I pay all their expenses out of. Vet visit? Paid. 16lb bag of dry food and two cases of wet? Paid. This is separate from my own emergency account so that I don’t need to feel any financial guilt spending money that I’ve already set aside for them (though I do make my predilection for buying more cat toys come out of my spending money).
I don’t see any problem with paying a fair amount of money to save a pet’s life. People will spend tens of thousands of dollars to fix up an old car, or go on a vacation in Europe. Maybe for some people their dog is more important to them than their car or their travels? It seems reasonable to me.
Even still, I wouldn’t buy pet insurance. Most pet health problems aren’t expensive enough that I’d think it necessary, which is a stark contrast to health insurance for people. A friend of mine was involved in a motorcycle accident and quickly racked up what would have been a six-figure hospital bill if his insurance hadn’t been paying 80% of it (and as it was, still came out over $20,000). In contrast, it seems rare for a procedure for a pet to cost more than $2000.
I spent $1300 on treatment for a cat once. He’s fine now. It was sort of expensive but we could afford it. I also spent about $1000 once to put down a sick and aging horse. It was incredibly sad, but the cost wasn’t really that huge of a part of the whole process. I’d also imagine health insurance for horses would be ridiculously expensive.
Just a note- I have 3 dogs currently- 2 Yorkies and a German Shepherd. I decided to not get pet insurance when they were puppies, since routine care is part of the deal with dogs, as is feeding them, walking them, brushing them, getting them groomed monthly (Yorkies)and cleaning up after them. The only thing that has been out of control is TEETH CLEANING for dogs! Yorkies have notoriously bad teeth and they need their teeth brushed daily and cleaned professionally at least once a year. Shepherds have better teeth, but still need daily brushing and every-other-year cleaning. This requires blood work, anesthesia, and surgery. The cheapest we’ve paid for a Yorkie with no teeth removal is $400 for cleaning. In January, we will be paying about $700 for our GSD to have her teeth cleaned at age 10. It may be even more since she will probably have a couple of teeth that need to be removed. I understand that newer policies also include teeth cleaning. It might be worth it for the next puppy we acquire to get insurance just for the teeth cleaning!
As a note- we do love our dogs and chose the breeds on purpose. And yes, I can afford the care for my dogs, even without insurance. I’m not complaining, just offering an opinion for others to consider. 🙂
Great topic! My five-year-old miniature dachshund has had two back surgeries in the last two years, each costing about $4000. Because of this, my husband and I were considering pet insurance for our next pet, especially if we get another dachshund. After research, though, I came to the same conclusion – the cost over the lifetime of the pet is not worth it. It’s better to just save that money in case you need it. Thanks for confirming!
When I was a child, every one of my cats died a violent death – or just disappeared – due to my parents’ policy of letting them roam outside. One of our dogs was shot by a neighbor and one was run over by a handyman. You tend to get a bit fatalistic about animals with a history like that.
However, I gladly spent nearly $2K to diagnose a cat who presented a detached retina. Turned out he had inoperable cancer. The best choice – financially AND for him – was peaceful euthanasia.
Because of where I live, annual “routine” care including physicals, vaccines when indicated, and dental care runs upward of $1000 for my indoor, neutered cats. They went for a few years without seeing the vet when my personal economy put my needs ahead of theirs.
Pet insurance is something I attempted at the start with my present cats, but the very first claim I submitted was denied, so I dropped it. If they wouldn’t pay to fix a broken fang, I was not about to continue paying $65/mo and take a chance on whatever else they wouldn’t cover.
RIP Monster!
When we got our dog, we also got pet insurance. It’s through Embrace, costs $25/mo and only covers unexpected illness. We could add coverage for routine care, dental and prescriptions, but wanted to keep our premium low.
Our dog really sick when he was about 5 months and our vet bill was insane–$12000!! Embrace paid about $10K of that so even if our dog never has another sick day in his life, we’ve come out way, way ahead.
I know this is an unusual case, but that’s the point of insurance.
From a money perspective, insurance is never worth it. You’re always going to be paying out more than you’re going to get back on average. The evidence for this is that insurance companies are in fact profitable, even after accounting for all their overhead.
The only exceptions to this are insurance policies which you get to minimize catastrophic risk (like home owners) or insurance policies which are subsidized by other parties (like health care). In other case, I general avoid insurance, it’s not worth it. I have two cats and one dog and, after doing the math, I’m much better off without insurance, even with Dopey’s $5000 leg surgery the other year.
I just overpay at the vets office and run a credit on the account. So if the bill is $72, I right the check or have them charge me $100 – over time that adds up and comes in handy for anytime I don’t have the money.
Why couldn’t a post like this have come sooner? The opinion of the author is not even what’s important, but just the fact that there are people like me who didn’t even know there was such a thing as pet insurance. I heard a rumor of it just 2 weeks ago – I had no idea it was so true.
My beloved cat of 14 years has been having some problems walking and some other symptoms which I was told may be related to a brain tumor, but an MRI would be necessary to be sure. I looked up the cost of an MRI – around $5,000 and the nearest place to do it was at least 5 hours away. At first I wanted to do it, do anything to save my best friend, even though I am a student and $5,000 is more money than I’ll make all year, but then I was told that even if they do find a brain tumor, it may be inoperable. And I looked up stories of pets with brain tumors and found out that some of them die on the operating table. My cat seems happy now, he seems fine, but he is aging and I thought brain surgery may be too traumatic for him. I didn’t know what to do, so thus far I haven’t done anything. A previous pet had cancer.
If I could do it over again, if I had known about this pet insurance option, I would have done it. I would surely get the MRI for my cat and make a more informed decision if it wasn’t $5,000 spent for something that may be inoperable. I am really tore up about this; I feel like maybe I should have gotten it for him right away. Maybe he’s getting worse and I don’t even realize it. It’s really a horrible feeling.
But $5,000 is more than I could have saved in an emergency vet fund and would be well worth paying the pet insurance.
“Any insurance or warranty program works because most of its customers pay more in premiums than they consume in services. That’s how an insurance company makes money.”
That’s way oversimplified. Because of competition, most insurance companies make money only off of investing the premiums until they are required for services.
I’ve had many pets and loved them all dearly. Additionally I’ve gone made absolutely sure that I give them the best quality of life that I can while they are still able. Still, I draw the line at expensive vet treatments. Often they are futile anyway. Once I shoved pills down a cat’s throat twice a day for four years. Eventually I realized that her constant meowing meant that my keeping her alive at all costs was ridiculous. On top of that my vet changed hands and the new pill price went from .50 to $2 per pill. The next two pets I adopted I swore I would only buy cheap food for and routine vet appointments, but nothing costly. I even feel that if I myself were to get a disease in old age I would not spend a fortune trying to prolong my life.
I looked into pet insurance after we adopted two kittens. To my sad discovery, pet insurance doesn’t cover very much and they charge a lot for what they do. I was mainly concerned with routine care – which was something like an additional $30 per year. That’s about how much the vaccines are! The best route, I decided, was to build up an emergency fund especially for my cats. At least I’ll see some of that money if I ever need to use it.
P.S. Monster is a cute patootie! I’m sorry for your loss. My childhood cat passed the same way two years ago and I still flinch at the color pink (the color of the stuff used to put down animals).
After one of our dogs cost us ~$4500 last year, we decided against getting insurance for him because he has basically reached his “lifetime cap” for medical expenses. 🙂
Katie: I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion that pet insurance would not have been worth it in your case. According to your information, it cost you 8,000 for the back surgeries. Pet insurance costs roughly $30/mo or $360/yr or $5040 if your pet lives to be 14 years of age.
Personally I have done tons of research into pet insurance policies. The payout for them is low, I remember about 60% while the payout for human health insurance policies comes close to 90%. These figures are from memory but if someone can confirm or detract that would be great. Anyways, if you are part of that average, you will only “get back” 60% of your premium. For me that is fine, I will pay a premium in order to make sure I can afford any health care cost my pet needs. This is the right choice for me because I own a Golden Retriever who have hereditary issues(which are covered) that can cost thousands of dollars. They are also very active dogs which increases the likelihood of injury.
@Erin–
I think you are being a little harsh toward
LifeAndMyFinances. Here’s what he/she said:
“For those that pay $5,000+ dollars to “save” their pets for just a few more days — I think they’re crazy.”
He didn’t say that $5k for lifesaving surgery was crazy, just for those end-of-life procedures that simply prolong life for a few more days (we could probably have the same discussion about doing it for people as well).
When we got our puppy, at 8 weeks old, we though we didn’t need the pet insurance. At 6 months old, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. This was after 2 MRIs, 3 spinal taps, and numerous x-rays. Her immuno-suppresents costs $125.00 monthly. When she gets even the slightest bug, it results in a minimum 5 day stay in critical care because her immune system is so suppressed.
We have literally no savings left. So far, it has been extremely hard to get our 6 months living expenses funded. I know that some readers will say it is absolutely crazy to spend that much money on an animal, but she is part of our family, and we will do whatever we can to keep her healthy and out of pain. The love she gives us has no price.
Do I regret our decision not to get her health insurance? In a way, I do, but hind sight is 20/20. It would have saved us money, but how much is unknown. Our situation with our sweet girl is not the norm. We did not get insurance for our kitten we rescued. We just take it one day, or should I say on health incident, at a time.
Thanks so much for this post! I just got 2 kittens myself and after their first round of vaccinations, was thinking about buying pet insurance. You’ve totally talked me out of it!
My parents always joke, too, that as soon as they stopped taking our pets to the vet, they stopped getting sick.
P.S. So sorry to hear about Monster 🙁
Kestra #23 makes some good points.
I’ve looked into pet insurance a few times. The value of the insurance varies a lot. VPI seemed to be limited on its payouts which you only find out by reading the details of the contract in full. PetPlan seems much more straight forward coverage.
If you can afford to pay vet bills and won’t have a problem with a large expense then pet insurance is not ‘worth it’.
For me I’m thinking of it simply cause I’d rather pay $200-$300 a year than be faced with the choice of a very large vet bill or euthanasia. If my 10 year old cat broke her hip tomorrow and surgery would cost $5000 then I’d have a hard time with that decision. Some people would not have any problem paying that kind of money for a pet. I’d have difficulty justifying such a cost to myself. I’d rather pay $300 a year as a routine cost and not have to worry about it.
Its insurance. Like any insurance you hope you won’t need it, it costs money and is not necessarily 100% ‘worth it’ but without it you’re risking a large cost.
But you definitely have too shop around and find a decent policy since some pay out very little and have caps that make them almost worthless.
Great Topic. I came to the same conclusion as you did. I also did some research and found out that if you have a healthy pet they do not need to see the vet every 6 months. 2 years is OK. Also if you are doing your heartworm and flea do not get the test every year, if they have it they have it and will die from it why pay for this service. There are also other shots they do not need if they have already had the sickness when they were young. Research it. I also went into my vet to get a bordella shot. He would not give it to me because he was a member of some association that said he had to do check ups on his pets every 6 months. If they catch kennel cough the anti biotic is cheeper than the shot by a long shot and it clears up quickly. I think if everyone buys insurance it will only raise the cost of care just like it did for humans. You will not be able to charge $4000 for a procedure if the market will not bear it. If the insurance makes the market invisible to us we all suffer.
Jeff, I’m in the pet insurance industry (Trupanion) and we payout more than 70 cents on the dollar and our goal is to get 80. Industry average is 52-55%.
Pet insurance is for peace of mind in case the worst should happen. It is not stock in which you’re trying to get more money than you put in (unless you *want* your pet to get hurt or sick!)
@49: Sounds to me like you need to look at a diet change: http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html. With as much as you spend on teeth cleaning alone you could feed your dogs an awesome raw diet and not worry about teeth issues anymore.
My opinion on the insurance subject is don’t get it. Spend your money on high quality food and pet products and put some in an emergency fund. Lots of health issues can be avoided with a healthy diet, and those that can’t are covered with your emergency fund. Let’s call it a Health Savings Account for pets.
Setting aside that LifeandFinances has set up an extremely rare and likely false dilemma ($5000+ for a few more days), I bet there is a big gulf between the rational cost-vs-benefit claims of what people “would” do if a pet became very sick, and the reality of their choice if confronted with such a situation.
When you have experienced the love and joy of owning a pet for several years, I think you know deep down that rationality aside, you would pay pretty much anything for a chance to save your animal when you are at the vet, holding that warm, furry, confused body. I would always make decisions based on that prospect.
Sorry to hear about the cat! Pet Insurance has been an interesting concept since it became popular a few years back. It does almost make sense to have it, seeing how much you could (in theory) save.
I think the biggest challenge for the whole insurance issue, is no one really knows about it, nor have the incentive to ask, just yet. I bet one day, it’ll be as mainstream as life insurance (for humans)
Another thing to consider is that common breed-specific problems are often not covered. If your breed is prone to hip displaysia or ear infections or back problems, do not expect insurance to pay.
Wanting pet insurance to cover routine care will ruin pet care just like health insurance has ruined people care. An office visit, physical, yearly vaccinations and blood work at a vet costs me ~$100, a simple office visit alone costs my insurance company ~$250 (or that’s what they charge, and the insurance company pays out something like $90). Doctors do this because insurance companies base their reimbursements on some average price – some percentage, so if the doctor wants to be paid x amount, they have to charge x + y, this leaves cash people in the lurch. If doctors had to charge their customers directly, like your vet does, they wouldn’t charge $250 for a visit because they know you wouldn’t pay it. Pet insurance will do the same thing to vet care if we let it.
As to the value of pet insurance, every time I’ve done the math, it just hasn’t worked out. There’s too many things it doesn’t cover, most insurance only insures during the times your dog is less likely to have issues and even the stuff it does cover it covers at a pittance in comparison, so by the time you’ve paid your part you might as well have just self insured and socked the money into an interest bearing account. I’ve paid $300 every 3 months for a chronic condition in my dog (that the insurance would have covered $50 of each time whoo!), I’ve paid $600 to have a growth cut out and checked. I buy better food for her health (though, at $50 / 30# it’s hardly expensive) and I’ve spent plenty on her in other expenses, but even totaling it all out, I’ve come out ahead. Even if I had to spend $5000 in one go, at the rates my bank gives me for personal loans, that’s a mere $100 / month (and only $30 more than insurance would cost). Ultimately, I’ve decided that if the time ever came when I was looking at outlaying a large chunk of cash like that in one go, and looking at continuing expenses after that, then I would let my dog go. She is a wonderful dog, but her life has been hard and she owes me nothing. I can’t look her in the face and explain all the pain she’s about to go through is for her own good, or how even though she’s suffering with whatever calamity has befallen her, that I still want her around. When her time comes, it’s her time, and even if insurance could make it so that her living 6 more months was affordable, I don’t think the cost to her would be worth it.
Stacy, thanks for the information, that’s pretty close to what I read before.
To the people who say pet insurance doesn’t cover hereditary or chronic conditions: Yes it does. You have to look for companies that will cover it. Mine does, I pay $32/mo and I have a $200 per incident deductible then 100% coverage up to $8,000 per year. They cover chronic and hereditary conditions and they guarantee policy renewal regardless of your claims.
I don’t expect to or want to “get back” my premium. I love my pet and I love my money, I never want to be put into a position to choose between the two.
Edit: I also want to note that I adopted my Golden Retriever and I bought insurance for him in case he had poor breeding. My main concerns were hereditary conditions so I made darn sure it was covered.
I am a veterinarian and recommend pet insurance to all of our clients. Check out http://www.petinsurancereview.com for a breakdown of all of the costs and which plans cover what conditions. While it is true many plans don’t cover routine care, many of them do. Also, some of the high deductible emergency only plans are less than $10 per month. Make sure you do your research and see what conditions are not covered, i.e. back surgery for Dachshunds or hip dysplasia for German Shepherds.
A few of the other comments I will make note of. $365 per year on pet care would work for young healthy cats, but probably not dogs. If your pet was to get sick, injured, or have a treatable but uncurable disease, such as diabetes, then medical costs will be much greater than $300 per year.
Care Credit was mentioned, and is offered at many clinics. Our hospital offers a plan with 6 months no interest. Another poster mentioned that it is rare to do procedures for more than $2400. It’s not that rare or uncommon for hospitals to perform procedures that cost much more than that. Hip replacements for dogs range from $3500 to $5500 per leg in our area of the country.
The decision of how much money to spend and how far you are willing to go with your pets is an individual decision. I see people every day willing to do anything and everything it takes, no matter the cost. I also see people who are like the first poster, although they are rare. For pet insurance the bottom line is I think it’s worth it, just do your research.
If only all our financial decisions were rational…
Of course I have doubts about the financial benefits of having Pet Health Insurance. Neverthless I got insurance for my two cats and I am happy with my decision. I also put an equivalent amount in an ING Direct account for them (roughly 40$ per month). The savings in the ING acount will eventually make-up for the deductible and the 20% co-pay. The policy I chose has a high deductible amount (500$) and doesn’t cover predictible and budgetable expenses such as yearly check-up and vaccination(I don’t insure my groceries expenses). Claim process is easy : I just sign a blank form and the folks at the vet clinic take care of the rest at no charge (I love these people).
Why do I buy pet insurance ? Essentially for the peace of mind. I don’t want to face that gut wrenching process of deciding between a 5,000$ treatment and putting my animal to sleep. Knowing there is an insurance coverage will automate my decision. The Insurance Company will not cover euthanasia and cremation unless putting down the animal is the only option and is recommanded by the vet. Unrational thinking ? Totally, and I assume it ! But hey : why do folks buy a 80,000$ BMW when a 45,000$ Lexus would do the job (or even a 25,000$ Chevy) ?
I do have a question regarding your post : you wrote that Home and Health Insurance are important for you. But, given that you have young children, what about Life Insurance ?
Hehehehehe,
Things are a bit different “down under”, when our dog dies he will be buried in the backyard – cremation you must be kidding.
RE: #1 – I don’t understand why people are so opposed to *others* paying out the nose for vet treatments. Pets are a luxury, and if you can afford them, great. We recently paid $5k in vet bills when our 13 year old Yorkie started having seizures*. BUT – we can afford it. No debt, e-fund, 10 year old car, no cable, 6 figure income, etc. My dog is more important to me than driving a new car (which would certainly cost more than $5k). Why is that crazy?
*As an aside, the seizures were caused by an infected uterus. We got her when she was already 10 years old and thought it would be too risky to get her spayed at her advanced age. Turns out it was riskier not to – always fix your pets! It was an expensive and stressful lesson for us. 🙁
Like Michele I also have Embrace pet insurance. I just got it in March and my dog needed $10,000 worth of surgeries in December. I only picked the $5000 plan (wish I had gone for the $10,000 one). They have paid the entire $5,000.
Years ago I rescued another dog that needed 2 major liver surgeries among other surgeries. I did not have insurance and it took over a year to pay off the bill.
I kept puting off getting insurance because of all the negativety I read about. Then I read an article about Embrace that changed my mind. I didn’t get the coverage until my girl was 5 (accident and wellness) and my boy was 8 (accident only).
When the time came to make the claims, I paid my yearly deductible first (which i chose) and then they paid 80% of the bill. They let me know when they received the bill from the vet, and when my check is going out (within a month). I don’t know what I would’ve done without them.
For me, my furchildren are just that, My children. To me this insurance is worth every penny.
I don’t know if pet insurance is usually worth it for a cat or dog, but for my wife and I’s rabbits, it was a huge plus. Rabbits are often considered exotic, so it’s more difficult to find doctors who know how to treat them for illness. Add to that the fact that rabbits don’t outwardly show signs of illness until things get really bad — causing many vet trips for rabbits to be emergency, often late-night ordeals — and you have bills that can add up really quickly. So for those with exotic animals, it might really be worth it to look into.
Oh, and sorry about your cat.
To Anthony from Down Under :
Not everybody has a backyard.
@Anthony #76 – when a cat dies in the summer here, we bury it in the backyard. But my last cat died in November, after the hard freeze – no way was I storing him in the kitchen freezer until May or June.
I’ve always been in two minds about pet insurance. I feel like I’d rather save and invest the money myself but like all investments this requires discipline. It’s a difficult decision to make but one that every owner has to confront as early as possible to avoid being crippled by any vet costs.
Terrible advice. My first dog had a single lifesaving incident for $8500. She lived another 5 1/2 years after a liver disease that she had for the rest of her life. She was on medicine etc. I had many other vet bills also. My tiny bills were 500 a pop. I had many in the 1000-2000 range. I have pet insurance on my current dog. I also put money away for other costs etc. My goal is to insure the major events not the minor ones. Unfortunately people just dont get it with insurance products. Whether it is your own health insurance, pet etc you want to keep premiums at the lowest level by insuring the major events and saving money on the side for the minor or out of pocket stuff. People want every last cost insured and the cost for that is way too much! Check out the pet insurance company and read the details before you buy.
Great article Sierra! I appreciate your common sense approach to a very heart felt matter.
@robertw #83
I agree with you. Insurance is for catastrophic events. Get a good coverage for illness and accident. No routine care, because that mean delegating your buget to an insurance company. Select a deductible amount as high as possible (equal to the financial risk you are able to take). Your premium should then be within a reasonable limit. If your emergency fund is big enough,let say more than 10,000$, you can always skip the insurance. But I think most pet owners will be caught in an emotional dilemma that sounds like : is this reasonnable ? What if Kitty dies anyway shortly after that 8,000$ treatment ? And then, worst case scenario, what happen if you lose your employment shortly after spending that emergency fund ? I guess you get the picture.
All this being said, pet owners are the primary beneficiaries of this kind of insurance. The are buying themself emotional comfort. Fluffy has no clue about this.
#77, that’s very good advice. As a shelter volunteer, I’ve seen dogs neutered/spayed as old as 13 because the shelter won’t adopt out unless the pet is spayed/neutered. Many people don’t get that there are health benefits to spaying/neutering so even if you don’t breed your dog and can ensure no accidents, spaying helps reduce mammary cancer and, as you know, uterine issues and neutering reduces testicular cancer.
Sorry to hear about your loss. There must be a story behind Monster’s name!
We have a cat and a dog and are self-insured when it comes to their care. The insurance just doesn’t see worth it.
Sierra, completely agree that when pets are healthy for most of their lives it may not seem like a necessity to get pet insurance (and you have those 15 years to save up for end-of-life care). However, having now had two close friends deal with $10,000 vet bills because of their dogs getting into car accidents (one was 2 years old and the other was 10 months old), I’m truly in favor of pet insurance. My two friends weren’t insured at the time, but both have Healthy Paws (www.healthypawspetinsurance.com) policies now, just as I do. I just can’t imagine spending $10,000 or more for vet bills, so my dog’s had pet insurance from day one.
Firstly my sympathies are with you Sierra. Losing a pet is horrible.
I’m going to differ in opinion here to most. My wife and I kept the insurance for our recently passed cross-collie, simply because we never wanted his health and life to be a financial decision. We’re glad we did because in his later years, and especially the last few months, the costs were coming more frequently.
We loved that dog and we miss him, but at least we don’t have any regrets. We gave him all we could and when it was that time it was because that’s the way nature would have it, not because we couldn’t afford his vet’s bills or a required treatment.
BOO! This post is a joke. I have been an Embrace pet insurance customer for years and my experience has been wonderful.
Sure, you can self-insure anything, I could self-insure my medical expenses, but everyone knows that would be stupid. So why are pets different? They’re not. Anyone with a pet will tell you that $300 isn’t going to pay for any major, veterinary procedure. Pet injuries and illnesses can cost well over $5,000 to treat, which means it would take more than 16 years of “self-insurance” to pay for the procedure. Furthermore, how do you pay for a major procedure if it happens in year 2 or 3 or 5?
Discipline and psychology aside, this article is nothing more than bad opinion and conjecture. If Ms. Schultz put even 5 minutes into her research she would find that respected pet insurance companies like Embrace offer wellness programs and flexible plans to meet your needs and fit your financial situation.
Of course none of us like paying for something we don’t use, but that’s not the point of insurance. Insurance is a hedge against potential, future financial losses and there is no better time in our country’s history for responsible pet owners to insure their loved ones in order to avoid putting a $9,000 hip replacement on their credit card.
I’m shocked this was posted on such a respectable publications website.
Saving up for major medical expenses is good, but it really only works for pets that don’t get sick until they are older.
I had a dog who died of kidney failure at age 3. His initial diagnosis was when he was nine months old, so, if we had saved the cost of his monthly premiums for that $3,000 vet bill, we would have saved only $210. (We had the insurance for six months, as we got him when he was three months old.) Instead, we were reimbursed about $1,500 of our vet bill.
Our current dog ruptured one cranial cruciate ligament at age 4. Within the period of treatment for that injury, we quickly broke even and began making money each month. He ended his treatment, but has now ruptured the CCL in his other leg, so we expect to get into the break even point again very quickly and reach a point where our reimbursements exceed our premiums. And, this is without surgical treatment, just physical therapy. Surgical treatment would have taken us past the break even point immediately.
These were both giant breed dogs, and their health care is really expensive when something goes wrong. We do not have coverage for regular check-ups, which are reasonable expenses for us to expect to pay. (Our insurance company offers that coverage, but the trade-off in premium expense is not worth it.) Without that insurance we would have had to go into debt to pay for his treatment, because we would have wiped out our savings, if we had been saving the premium amount since we got this dog.
For anyone who has a large or giant breed, I definitely recommend insurance. For smaller dogs and cats, you are probably right–the lifetime premium payments are more than you would likely spend at the vet.
You should look into Embrace Pet Insurance. They have gone above and beyond the call of duty for our dog and we’ve saved several hundred dollars in expenses. I was skeptical at first, but was extremely happy once our our expenses were covered.
Same thing goes for shipping insurance from USPS. I do lots of shipping for my online business. If I insured ever item I sell, I would have been out about $15,000 in insurance, for probably $500 worth of claims. Yet, some people are not willing to take any risk. My take is, if a loss won’t cause financial ruin, skip it.
I have returned to this thread several times. We have a 5.5 year old mixed breed who is a larger dog. In the first several years of her life, she has had little in the way of vet bills, apart from her annual visit. And since my last dog went most of her life without many extra vet visits, this makes me feel as though pet insurance isn’t really worth it.
At the same time, though, I’ve had friends whose dogs had lots of vet expenses, and would have appreciated having insurance. And I’m frugal enough that paying more than $1500 for a vet bill would make me start to question what to do. And I don’t really want that to happen. My dog is worth far more than that…it’s just that our budget would suffer serious damage if we paid more than that.
So, I’ve been investigating pet insurance. Healthy Paws and Petplan seem to be the best options for us, paying 80-100% of the bills, after the deductible. So I think that some of the people in this thread have based their decisions based on some older pet insurance policies, and thought that others might want to do their own research.
I tried pet insurance once but ended up canceling since I didn’t find it to be worth the money. I instead created my own ‘insurance’ fund and contributed to it when I had some extra cash and for additional piece of mind signed up with a vet discount thing called “Pet Assure” which is only about 8 dollars a month and gives me a discount whenever I go to the vet. This in conjunction with my rainy day fund has proven to be a winning combination!
I, like you, decided pet insurance is way too expensive, so I went with Pet Assure. It’s $79 a year and I get 25% off routine vet visits and 10% off my kind of expensive cat food. I’ll find out this year if it pays for itself, but this being my first pet I thought I’d play it safe.
I recently went through this dilemma with my new dog Molly. She also came with a brochure about pet insurance. In the end I decided against it for many of the reasons you listed, instead I’m just bulking up my emergency fund.
Pet insurance generally cost more than it paid out in our latest comparison of policies. It gives you peace of mind, but the long-term costs are rarely worth it.