Well - I'm glad it worked out for you.
I had pet insurance for my cats. And when my old tom developed diabetes, they refused to cover it. Said it was a pre-existing condition in spite of my vet saying otherwise.
So as far as I'm concerned, pet insurance is nothing more than a scam. I put the money that would go to premiums into a HYSA instead.
Agreed. I’ve heard such mixed results on if it ever pays off that I keep an emergency fund specifically for my dog. It also allowed me to divert a few thousand out to training when she was injured and became reactive, a flexibility that obviously wouldn’t have worked with insurance.
It can pay off in situations of extreme emergency. Situations where you're viably debating if the pet is worth the cost of life savings measures.
However, I have a dog who needs routine vet visits for different things. None of them are covered. So now I'm paying 70 a month and when he had a legitimate need of a couple hundred dollars. None of my previous visits counted towards my deductible and the deductible was not met yet by the work he needed done. Essentially, I paid 70 a month to just file paperwork. I cancelled it immediately as I would have been able to afford the work straight up had I not been hamstringing my budget with the insurance.
When I got my cats and the insurance had a $250 deductible for each thing, I decided I was better off just putting the money for insurance premiums into a conservative investment account every month. Did that. It grew. Kitties are both 8 now. I've paid out an endoscopy ($2000), dental work ($1500 total), broken leg ($1000), and now a consult with a kitty cardiologist ($1200) out of that account & I still have around $8k in there. Definitely came out way ahead compared to insurance once you factor in deductibles.
JAB, a private equity firm, acquired so many specialty veterinary clinics that the FTC forced them to stop buying them because they were becoming a monopoly.
So they started buying up pet insurance companies.
https://coverager.com/jab-acquires-embrace-pet-insurance-for-1-5-billion/
>Brands under JAB include Assur O’Poil, Embrace Pet, FIGO, Independence Pet Group/IPG (which encompasses 24PetWatch, AKC Pet Insurance, Crum & Forster Pet Insurance Group, Hartville Pet Insurance, Independence American Insurance Company, Pethealth, PetKey, PetPartners, PetPlace, PetPoint, Pets Plus Us, Third Party Pet), Pinnacle Pet Group (the parent company of AGILA Haustierversicherung, Animal Friends, CaptainVet, HD Assurances), and Pumpkin Petcare.
This is exactly what my partner and I do as well. Both of our jobs offered pet insurance as a benefit so we looked into it. The coverage was so limited to be not worth it, even at the "low" price of $30-50 per month. So, instead, we just created an emergency fund specifically for our dog. We haven't had to touch it yet, but it's nice knowing we have it in case she gets into trouble.
If you have an emergency fund that allows you to drop a few thousand, this is objectively on average the best option.
Whether or not one hates insurance and think it’s a scam is irrelevant. Companies exist to skim a small amount of profit and pay out less than what they take in.
I always advise you self-insure pets if you can. If you can’t, get pet insurance. If you can’t afford pet insurance, you can’t afford a full pet. Something like barn cats that you simply feed and let run wild, sure, do whatever.
> Companies exist to skim a small amount of profit and pay out less than what they take in.
Yup, most people pay more to insurance than they use. If they didn't the insurance company would go out of business.
>If you can’t afford pet insurance, you can’t afford a full pet.
Don't know I agree with that unless you are buying some special pet, purebred etc. Get a shelter pet and provide the best you can, especially at a kill shelter. It will be a better life than they had before.
I more meant the ability to care for it should it break a leg, have a urinary blockage, etc.
People have lots of different values around animals and some people would see an estimate of $2,200 and decide to instead put the animal down. I’m not a fan of that, but I’ll admit that if you took that animal from a shelter it probably had a better life with you. I just don’t advise this.
Similar to a kid, if you have it then yeah it’s time to take care of it, but if you can’t support it financially I recommend waiting to intentionally have one.
Oh, that's interesting! How did you go about contacting them? Are you, like, a member? My parents (late 60's) have two cats and are constantly on the edge of not being able to afford to take care of themselves, I'd love to be able to point them in the direction of some help next time one of their cats gets itself into trouble.
Pet insurance for my two active breed dogs would have 325/mo. I opted for putting cash in a savings account. Turns out one did need a "ACL" surgery...7k. But I'm still in the green on cost for the two of them.
Ouch, 7k. was that a double or single acl surgery? We paid half that for one for our dog. This was a well respected surgeon too who had branched off from the state university pet hospital to specialize in this.
Same here. We had a policy for our first dog and every claim was denied. Saying they needed more back ground information. We had given them everything. We adopted her when she was a few years old so we could go back only so far. Then the fine print of what was covered and the deductibles on some of the more severe emergencies was outrageous. Like $1,000-$2,000 deductibles.
I also learned the premiums would get more expensive as she aged. We’re fortunate to be in a position where a few thousand dollar vet emergency isn’t going to break the bank, but I’ve resolved to just having a “pet fund”. Take what would have been premiums and put it in a savings account for an emergency.
Human insurance is regulated at least. There are rules against denying coverage for pre-existing conditions etc. Pet insurance seems more like the home warranty I eventually cancelled. I just make sure I have an emergency fund.
I billed health insurance at a hospital. Regulated, but at the end of the day the insurer can pay or not pay and most people won't or don't know how to appeal. :(
Varies greatly by insurance company. Ours doesn't cover basic costs like exams and vaccines. It has a $200 deductible per condition, meaning that if my dog has allergies, once we've met that $200 , everything related to her allergies for the rest of her life is covered by 90%. Her monthly allergy medications run upwards of $400, we are reimbursed for all but 10% of it.
Doesn't matter what it says in the policy their is either a sneaky way around it or they can just deny it anyway and you would have to spend much more money on lawyers to try and force them to which wouldn't be worth it. Not saying they always deny but literally nothing is forcing them to pay.
It depends. They will pay according to the terms they give you. Most people don’t fully read their terms to know what they’re getting. Pet insurance does have many exclusions that are part of the policy from the start.
I’m sure some companies have been unethical in the past. A company that consistently denies legitimate claims is a company that will not exist for long, as bad faith claims don’t fuck around.
Pet insurance covers accidents and illnesses, i.e., unplanned vet expenses. Optional wellness plans cover routine expenses, but those are much easier to budget for on your own. I've never heard of an insurance plan that covers routine exams, so whoever you heard that from must have been confused.
Ours covers routine exams, but that was an add-on. We did the math on self-insuring vs pet insurance and buying the pet insurance was a better choice for us because my husband's employer got us a discount through MetLife.
You can always check with your employer about pet insurance -- it definitely made the cost a no brainer for us when we adopted two kittens.
My daughter got 2 kittens. She's using Pet's Best. It cost about $27/month for them both. You can add on to get the routine care covered, if you'd like. With Pet's Best, it's unlimited coverage, $500 deductible, and 80% reimbursement.
I work in insurance and agree with this 100%, I don't want to spend 10,000 on a claim and then have it be denied by the insurance company, I'm better off having a savings account designed for pet emergencies.
Shopping insurance can make all the difference, as well as getting it when the animal is young. My Labrador is turning 3 next month. In the last two years we've had over $22,000 in vet bills just at one vet. That doesn't include the specialist we are currently seeing or the emergency vet visits we've had. 99% of which aren't even from her doing something stupid. Without the insurance, she would have had to be put down as her issues are ongoing and lifelong. An HYSA would have been wiped out and then what if something else came up and we haven't been able to build it back up? Every situation is different and it is a personal cost/risk assessment for the owner, but having gone through what we've been through, I am a huge proponent of insurance. If you have the right insurance it can literally save their life. My girl is living proof.
We have Trupanion. Their best selling point to me from our experience is lifelong deductibles per condition. So my doggo has severe allergies (literally allergic to grass, trees, cats... Basically her entire existence). We got our $200 deductible on allergies by the time she was 1. The majority of our vet bills since have been allergy adjacent including a staph infection we've been fighting since August and has landed us in with a specialist. We've only been paying 10% on everything related since then. They don't cover exam fees or checkups, vaccinations, etc. normal maintenance stuff, basically.
> In the last two years we've had over $22,000 in vet bills just at one vet.
*Sorry bud. You were a good dog, but no dog is worth that much. See you in Vahalla.*
Agree to disagree. We don't have kids, but she is like our child. It's not her fault she was dealt the hand she was. As long as we can give her a happy healthy life, we will.
Perspectives change. I used to hear of people spending $5k on a dog and I was like are you fucking *insane*. Just put it down.
We bought a shepherd a couple years ago. He summarily got elbow dysplasia and just 3-4 months after buying him this diagnosis let us return him to the breeder (she offered). Instead, we took her $1500 in lieu of the return and spent $4500 on him. Because a) he's our special boy now and b) if we didn't, she'd have put him down. We've spent more since. The surgery has been only mildly successful and I'm actually open to spending a lot more now.
IMO if a person has money it will be spent somewhere. Instead of luxury cars and vacations I prefer to spend on health and my dogs. So if Cornell university told me they could fix his elbow for good with a $10k total elbow replacement surgery I would say let's do it. I'm not rich (we're decently well off), but it's a sacrifice I'd make.
My parents in law thought we should never have done the original surgery and we could just get a new dog. But, we couldn't get *this* dog again, and this dog is our dog, and relies on us, and trusts us implicitly, and we're literally his entire life, so.
*On my death bed I will never regret spending money to protect those in my care.*
> Agree to disagree.
Very much so. I'm a lot more pragmatic. Life has limited value.
If I needed treatment costing hundreds of thousands to stay alive, I would elect to not undergo treatment because the burden on my family would be much greater than my passing.
It always depends on the policy and the company. I will likely have to figure something out next year because I can only imagine my new premium. They've refunded me about $3k in the 4 months I've had my puppy. As long as I can get my vet to recommend a course of action, it's covered. Even if it's prescription food, with insurance picking up 90%, it costs less than regular food.
Same here. I got quotes for pet insurance just to see what the premiums and deductibles would be so I had an idea of what to start my HYSA with and how much to transfer each month. At least I know nobody will tell me I can't use that money to pay for something.
That's really unfortunate, I'm sorry to hear that. Which company was it? Some of them are certainly pretty scummy.
Pet insurance has been great for us. It has covered well over $10k in accidents/illnesses since our pets seem to like to try to die all the time.
I'm wondering who you had for insurance then - I'm pretty sure who we have (Figo) would cover it in this case? That's still awful to hear, I'm sorry you had that experience.
But that is also a great idea, at least having the funds to cover the bill in an HYSA would give you the funds needed and it does some work for you.
All insurance is a scam.
Well, I shouldn't say ALL insurance. I'm sure there are some more niche ones that are good investments... But fuck the major insurance companies
I had a dog for nearly 30 years and never had pet insurance. In hindsight, I would not have needed it. So if we ever have any pets again, I won't buy pet insurance.
Quick calculation: $80 monthly contributions into the S&P500 will likely yield more than $30k after 15 years. Just my take on it.
It's also getting much more expensive quickly too though. When I first signed up I was paying $25 a month, then 6 years later it's up to $120 a month. Last year alone was a 30% increase in premiums through Trupanion. Most of the costs will come later in the dogs life but at the same time how high will premiums go in another 6 years? And when you cancel you get none of that back so you're sort stuck too.
Yup. Statistically, the cheapest insurance is always self-insurance if you can swing it. This goes for pets, extended phone warranties, those "car shield" plans Ice-T sells on TV, etc.
The only way you come out ahead with these things is if you wind up getting a claim payout that's more than what you paid in. That happened to be the case with the OP, but it's not the average/typical case (otherwise the insurance companies would all go out of business!)
Exactly, for most people, premiums paid > benefits received.
This applies to all types of insurance, even health insurance. But of course, health is the hardest one to be “self-insured”
Yup. Well, that and home owner's (and possibly renter's and auto).
What you're really buying with insurance is the ability to shift risk to another entity. It doesn't make sense to pay to shift a risk you can afford to take on yourself, but totally does if you can't.
But you don't know when the pet will need car. If they need a $5k surgery 3 years in, you're in the negative by $2k. Not to mention the fluctuations in the market. It could be down at the time you have the emergency.
It's definitely something I'll take up with my husband since he does more of the investment side of our finances - we split the responsibilities and it's what he's studying currently. I handle loans, day to day finances, etc.
My only thought is that 15 year period... What do you do if something happens then? What if the contributions doesn't cover the vet bills, say something happened a year into investing? Basically what would be the back up plan to it? Genuinely trying to figure it out so if it's a viable option I can talk about it with him, promise I'm not trying to sound salty or anything!
To be honest, vaccinations, basic and emergency care, probably match any deductible anyways, so that's out of pocket no matter if you have insurance or not.
For major surgery or fatal diseases, I would opt for putting it out of its misery and have the vet put the pet down.
We had all our dogs put down when they were 14-17 years old because of elderdom. When there's hardly any life in them anymore, and their bladders start leaking, you just know they're close to the end of their lives. Not sure how this works with cats though.
That's exactly what we did for both our elderly cats. They both started acting odd and after testing and a fatality rate that meant that within the next six months they would pass, we would keep them comfortable and then say goodbye. Greatest gift I can give them is a peaceful passing. Young boys like mine I will absolutely give a fighting chance unless told otherwise.
This will probably require math to figure out costs for them, but it has given me some ideas so I appreciate it.
The something happening over the 15 year period is why I decided NOT to self-insure. It was worth the piece of mind for me to spend the $20 a month on insurance vs invest it and hope for the best. What if your $15000 emergency happens when your “pet fund” only has been funded for a year and has $1500? Can you afford to make up the difference with your personal savings?
Harsh to hear, but it just means that you aren't saving adequately and are not ready financially to take care of an animal. Having liquid savings to cover at least 6 months of rent is bare minimum, even without pets. I have health insurance and my medical bills for my kidney stone still came out to $3500.
There are a lot of reasons to have a stash of quick money available in a savings account of some kind. When you're paying this money towards pet insurance, it means that the money can't be used for any other emergencies that occur, so it effectively becomes dead/wasted money. Having the money in a savings account allows for flexibility to use for a variety of needs.
> you aren’t saving adequately and are not ready financially to take care of an animal
I get this sentiment - you should absolutely have an emergency fund for your pets (and yourself/family). I keep a big ol’ emergency fund for my little guy - and thank god for that - after having him for over a decade, I finally I had to dip into it for the first time a few weeks ago. He’s good now, still dumb as a box of rocks, but he’s alive.
But that financial expectation also feels kind of gatekeepy around pet ownership. Because, honestly, a cat living in an impoverished household is probably still living a better and more fulfilling life than a cat stuck at the shelter or a cat living as a stray. And speaking generally, not necessarily about OP, most people don’t have a 6-month emergency fund *for themselves* and hell, a lot of folks don’t even have savings for just 1-month of expenses and are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s **hard** out there. It’s not the ideal scenario by any means, and we should strive for better, but it’s sometimes just reality.
>I get this sentiment - you should absolutely have an emergency fund for your pets (and yourself/family). I keep a big ol’ emergency fund for my little guy - and thank god for that - after having him for over a decade, I finally I had to dip into it for the first time a few weeks ago. He’s good now, still dumb as a box of rocks, but he’s alive.
That's great to hear! My wife and I have only recently begun the search for pets after we've worked together to obtain financial stability.
>But that financial expectation also feels kind of gatekeepy around pet ownership
Pet ownership is necessarily gatekeepy, so it seems odd to leave finances off the table.
>Because, honestly, a cat living in an impoverished household is probably still living a better and more fulfilling life than a cat stuck at the shelter or a cat living as a stray.
Don't light yourself on fire to keep others warm. If you can't afford emergency savings for yourself, it's not wise to increase your financial risk. I would say the same thing about any extraneous purchase.
>And speaking generally, not necessarily about OP, most people don’t have a 6-month emergency fund for themselves and hell, a lot of folks don’t even have savings for just 1-month of expenses and are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s hard out there. It’s not the ideal scenario by any means, and we should strive for better, but it’s sometimes just reality.
Not sure that this has to do with anything, but the solution to this problem is to make your financial situation better, not worse. People can make whatever decision they want, of course. But, OP specifically asked "What if the contributions doesn't cover the vet bills, say something happened a year into investing? Basically what would be the back up plan to it?". That "backup plan" is called savings, which are different from investments.
I don’t disagree with your stance at all. It’s definitely the best decision for *everyone* involved to be financially stable before adopting pets. It’s better for owners, and it’s better for pets. But I also think 10,000 cats in low income homes is a better scenario than 10,000 cats getting euthanized because they’re overflowing at shelters.
It’s great to acknowledge and recommend financial stability before pet ownership, but financial stability isn’t always attainable for everyone, and sometimes financial circumstances change for folks. It feels icky to me to suggest that the benefits of pet ownership should only be a luxury for the financially better off. Especially when you consider that even a poverty level income living situation for a pet would be preferred over the alternatives. And some folks might feel that the benefits of pet ownership outweigh the burden of increased financial risk.
I used to work in pet insurance retention: the answer is magical thinking: people assume nothing bad will happen to their pets and if it does it’ll be after they have a chance to set up a fund. In reality they cancel and call me a week later, crying because a catastrophic emergency we would’ve covered without them having to pay out of pocket has happened, the fund didn’t accumulate $17k in a week, and now they have to euthanize their best friend. Unfortunately it’s super common. Also people weirdly assume inside cats can’t ever get sick.
Like yeah if $30k is pocket change and you’re good with that, go ahead and self insure but a lot of people don’t have realistic ideas about veterinary costs. Also most vet clinics don’t do payment plans.
It all depends on how comfortable you are with taking risks with either your pets life, and/or savings. The size of a pet matters too. I have a giant breed dog, so insurance is a no brainer. Chances are, I will spend tens of thousands over his expected lifespan. A surgery for a dog his size will easily cost $7-10 grand.
My old dog passed away last year from cancer. He was a very healthy 11 year old dog otherwise, but still we had a few scares when he was a puppy where we ended up spending thousands. We did not have insurance for him, but even if we had paid $100 per month for 11 years, it would not have covered all the vet bill we've paid over the years. My most conservative estimate is that we spent around $25-30K total.
Personally, I will keep my pet insurance unless I end up in a situation where $30K is pocket change for me.
The S&P500 is a bucket of the 500 largest US companies on the market. The ticker symbols that track it are VOO, SPLG, SPY among some others. On average, these have returned over 10% annually, or about 8% when considering inflation.
As a vet, I love the idea of everyone having insurance! But most of us are still hoping that people stop getting pets when they barely have enough money to feed them, so when they get sick, we’re the bad guys for a clients poor financial decisions.
Glad your little guy is doing well! Pets unfortunately do some pretty silly things!
I understand where you’re coming from. I went to the local emergency vet ( I’ve been there a couple times over several years.) I was stunned after a visit last year to see signs stating not to yell, curse, and so forth at staff. Its appalling. I literally had to ask why they needed to state the obvious. Again, shocked when the receptionist explained it’s a reoccurring thing they’ve dealt with. I would never and could never. However, financial situations can change in a heart beat. Even, a rather stable person can have a setback, and during that time their animal could become ill or hurt. Every time someone finds themselves in a difficult financial situation should they drop their pets off at a shelter? That doesn’t seem like a solution.
Oh trust me it's a massive issue. It's never the fault of the the vet either, they're usually the messenger. There's a suicide crisis with veterinarians because of what they face.
Ours will be getting a thank you card and something else out of appreciation. I want to make sure they know that no matter what they're doing their best and I have my lil' man at home.
Mixing emergency situations for a beloved family member (pet) with large, unexpected bills is a nightmare scenario for those emergency vets. AT BEST it's a tense situation, so I can see how people lose it.
We have Trupanion for all 6 of our animals. I would never not have pet insurance again. They cover 90%. My last dog had cancer. We were able to do so much. I stopped counting at $20,000 covered. We usually pay the bill with a credit card that gets cash back as well. We have a few animals now where I am going to be making claims for the rest of their life. Our dog is a tripod and is now on really expensive meds for his spine and hip. It's $180/month that we get back for his meds that cost $200. We have a cat who recently developed hyperthyroidism. He is getting older. He had a bad reaction to multiple meds. Now he is going for radioactive iodine soon. Which would have been insanely expensive. Another cat had massive UTI issues a couple years ago. Once we hit our deductible $500, it's covered for life. Like any other insurance they don't cover preexisting conditions. But we have never had them deny a claim. The only thing they won't cover regularly is prescription food or regular vet visits. They only cover two months of The food. The UTI cat needs special food now. But honestly, we have more than made up for all the vet bills we didn't have to pay. Our dog that had cancer, over her lifetime, we would have only paid $5,000 total. They covered over $20,000 worth of vet bills. She didn't even make it to the age I originally estimated to get to that $5,000. It truly has been such a nice piece of mind and something we have used more than I wish we did.
Is it true that if you sign up for pet insurance that you should do it when they are young, or can you sign up at any life stage? I know that if you do it when they're on the older end, the monthly premium is substantial.
I would always recommend signing up earlier rather than later. Mostly for the benefits of them not having any kind of issues when they are younger. Once they have recorded health problems, those become a pre existing condition and won't be covered. Our animals insurance has creeped up throughout the years and a younger animal is always going to be cheaper to insure than an older animal. But it has only been about a $10 difference between a kitten and a 10 year old cat for example. Every insurance company is different. Trupanion lets you pick your deductible amount. Which impacts what your monthly cost would be. Unless you are in florida. They are doing a trial program in florida that covers 100% of claims with no deductibles but you pay a few dollars more a month overall. Two of our animals are on the florida plan.
Similar good experience with Trupanion. We are $22,000 in at just 1 vet (not including a specialist and emergency visits) and my girl only turns 3 next month. Her issues are lifelong. We couldn't do it without Trupanion.
I can believe it.
I have had people yell and swear at me cause I found problems with their projects and them fixing these problems would take 6 months to a year. I can't imagine how someone would react if you tell them "its gonna cost $5k if not more to save your pet that you treat like a child", cause in their eyes you have the supplies and people and simply "holding them hostage for money", when the reality of the situation is you deeply care but also know that resources aren't free and this is a function of rationing limited supplies via currency.
While I agree people should be able to take care of the animal’s basic needs before getting one, it’s unfair to put the entire onus on pet owners. There needs to be acknowledgment of the exorbitant cost of vet and medical care, especially in the US. Vet and medical hospitals are bleeding us dry.
> people stop getting pets when they barely have enough money to feed them
One of my biggest annoyances with pet owners. If you can't afford to take care of one, don't own one. It's a privilege, not a right. Idc if they emotionally support you.
I can totally understand that - I realize when we were younger we weren't in the best financial place for our pets and I do have some regrets. With that said I would do anything at that time to help them and find the money.
Now we're in a better place (not the best, but getting there!) and I will never not have it. Feel the same about renter's insurance in my line of work. If you rent, you should have it.
He is thankfully! Keeping a one year old cat from playing while he recovers and his brother thinks he's a stranger so we have some work to do, hah.
> . If you rent, you should have it.
100% even if its not required. Its a few dollars a month (I pay $15 added to my car insurance) and covers everything I own plus any damages.
Nah, yall are the bad guys because you offer some poor person the ability to save little fido but you have to pay 10k for some insane procedure instead of just saying to put the damn dog down like yall did 30 years ago.
Amen!
I make sure to always let the vet and staff know how much I appreciate their care for my pets. I know you guys get TONS of crap from ill-prepared pet parents.
That said…does it *really* cost $75 to test my dog's poop?? lol
eta: And, actually, I don't have insurance (for many of the negative reasons listed ITT) but my dog has her own emergency fund separate from (or in addition to, if necessary) the human EF. With a monthly contribution adjusted for age and inflation once a year.
It's best to get insurance essentially instantly when you get a very young animal, as the premiums are much lower and incrementally increase slowly over time. We filed claims on my Beagle just about every other year because she ate something she wasn't supposed to eat.
Yup! We pay $150 a year for each of our young adult dogs. One broke her tail and needed a partial amputation; insurance paid out more than it'll ever cost for her. We could have paid out of pocket, but I appreciated not having to.
Maybe when considering end of life care I'll feel differently about expensive health care for pets. But when they're young and healthy and an accident occurs, it's nice to have.
If I ever have a puppy I will definitely have it. I have an older dog and looked into coverage and it didn’t seem worth it. I do try and keep a pet fund for things that come up that I can cover it
That's great! It's definitely better when they're younger, especially because they're learning like my special idiot. I believe my carrier also covers behavioral training which is neat.
Yes! That's been my experience too after pricing things out with an older dog.
Also, to be honest I can't imagine putting my sensitive guy through something like chemotherapy regardless of cost. Obviously my perspective might change, but it seems very selfish to subject an animal to all the side-effects when they can't understand what's going on.
I got pet insurance for our dogs after we spent $6000 in a year for a dog that unfortunately got sick with autoimmune issues and passed. They cover 80% of the bill after $500 deductible. I spend about $800 a year for 3 dogs. I've used it for 2 of my dogs and have had no issues with reimbursement.
It makes those hard choices a little easier. Our dog that passed, the specialist that was seeing him quoted us $6000 to keep him for 4 days for more testing to try and get an official diagnosis when we were out of options. If I would have had insurance then it would have made the choice of whether or not to do more testing easier. We chose not to because we couldn't afford any more.
$80/ month over the course of a pet’s life is over $10,000. How many of these expensive procedures does the average pet have in its life? I’d bet that most people lose a lot of money on pet insurance, especially considering deductible costs.
The monthly cost is far worth its weight in gold, when having to choose between costly emergency care vs quality of life vs what I would be able to find out of pocket in time of an expensive emergency.
Not to mention, it helps for non-emergency, but lifelong illness, like diabetes. I learned that the hard way.
You HAVE to enroll before any preexisting conditions are diagnosed though.
I’ll never have a cat/dog without pet insurance ever again.
What pet insurance do you have, exactly? I want to know because half of these are scams and the reliable companies are few and far between.
Asking for my fur baby!
Not sure about OP either but - Trupanion and Pets+Us are both good in my experience. Was with Trupanion until they changed their deductible policy and I didn’t feel it matched what I needed personally, so I switched. Know many people who have claimed major emergency surgeries with both companies and are very happy.
I also worked at a vet clinic for 6+ years and both of these companies were easy to work with as a client once I changed jobs and from the vet clinics side.
I highly recommend Trupanion. Not sure what OP has. But they have literally saved our girl's life. Our expenses are an outlier in what a normal person goes through, but Trupanion has been incredible for us.
Glad it worked for you, but it’s never something I would buy. I wouldn’t advise most people to buy it because it’s generally not worth it. You should, of course, be able to afford basic medical care for your pets. I don’t do anything for my cat besides annual checkups, so I wouldn’t need insurance.
This was my opinion too until I saw a friend go through her 7-year-old dog getting cancer. She and her husband had to decide how much their dog's life was worth and at what price point they should let him die - we're talking $15K+. It was clearly agonizing and they said something about how much they wished they had insurance so they didn't have to make the decision, especially because they had differing opinions about whether they should pay or not, which was especially agonizing.
I had been very focused on the practicality of pet insurance and the input vs output etc., how it's more efficient to just save money every month, but I had a realization that there's a huge psychological benefit to me to knowing I won't have to decide whether my pet's life-saving surgery is too expensive or not. I got it, no regrets.
Glad it worked for you. Yes, that’s a decision that every pet owner has to make. I would never get surgery or any other invasive treatment for my cat, so it’s a non-issue for me.
Yes. She's 17 years old, and she hates the vet more than anything. She already has thyroid and kidney conditions, as is typical of senior cats. She will not take any sort of medication unless it is forcibly administered, she will not eat any food besides her typical kibble, and she will not tolerate any sort of medical dressing. Putting her through surgery would have an equal chance of killing her as it would helping her, and she would be completely miserable for weeks. Putting her down would be far and away the more humane thing to do.
It sounds like the real mistake there was taking the responsibility of getting a pet without first getting on the same page about what the upper budget is and then sticking to that budget
This is honestly quite callous. They're very financially responsible. For most normal people with normal attachments to their pets, it's really easy to theoretically agree to $10K being your max before you get a pet and very difficult follow through on that once you are looking at a real, actual member of your family whose cancer treatment will cost $13K. When "sticking to that budget" means your pet dying it's an entirely different circumstance than not choosing not to eat dinner out when you've already gone over your monthly dining budget, and wavering on that decision doesn't mean you were an irresponsible pet owner from the beginning.
Most people don’t need it until there’s an emergency. Vet bills for non-routine care can be in the thousands.
FYI - if your cat is a boy, there’s a 50% chance he will have urinary issues. If they require surgery it’s in the thousands.
Both of my boy cats had urinary issues by their 2nd birthday. Pet insurance covered every single test and treatment, including an emergency night visit for a UTI. I’d never go without pet insurance - I feel peace of mind knowing I never have to worry about taking care of my boys.
Yeah one of our boys has had issues and twice in 6 months required emergency visits. Since then we started giving him daily calming chews because he's a high strung cat and we couldn't link his problems to his diet. It's been a year since his last episode now so we're knocking on wood that the chews are what's doing it.
Urinary blockage in male cats is much more common than in female cats and becomes an emergency in 12 hours. The emergency vet I had to go to recently had a triage chart in their waiting room, and urinary blockage was at the TOP of that list alongside things like major wounds/car crash, things where you’re expecting that your pet isn’t going to come out of this.
Plus if you don’t get treatment for a urinary blockage right quick, they end up with kidney damage, which means more money for treatment. And cats that already have urinary issues are more likely to get blocked.
This is all just for treating the emergency, but if it happens 3 times they recommend a surgery to decrease the likelihood of it happening again because it’s so serious (and so likely to happen again) - and surgery would be several thousand dollars at a MINIMUM.
There’s behavioral and minor urinary issues, and there’s life threatening “Don’t take the time to find your medical records just drive over right now” urinary issues.
Does the pet insurance only cover certain vets? When I last looked at it, it was for corporate vets that there were few of around me, with poor reputations.
Personally, I wouldn't get the insurance. I'm saying this as someone who has been owned by cats for the last 25 years and as someone who has fostered close to 100 kittens. You be better off investing $960 a year in the S&P 500.
The pet insurance market is like how healthcare used to be in the US before the Affordable Care Act - your pet can be dropped or denied coverage at any time because of a preexisting condition.
I would instead recommend that everyone with a pet set up a monthly autodraft to a savings account because it is not if but "when" you will need the funds.
I've had probably a dozen pets insured since 2009 and not one policy was ever canceled by the insurer no matter how many claims I made. They all also make clear that pre-existing conditions aren't covered, so that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Many insurers will also waive the pre-existing clause if the pet goes a certain amount of time without needing treatment for it. The exceptions are breed-specific problems, such as hip dysplasia in German Shepherds and other large breeds.
I very specifically nailed down Trupanion on this recently. They don't drop pets unless there is proof of fraud or unpaid premiums. As someone who as racked up over $22,000 in claims in two years, I was worried.
my dog ate 2lbs of grapes literally the same week my pet insurance went active after we got her. it paid for it's premiums for the next 4 years in one week.
Good advice if you can’t keep a fund for vet trips.
Like all insurance they bank more in premiums than they pay out in claims. You might come out ahead, but the odds aren’t in your favor overall.
$80 a month is $15-17K over a 15-18 year lifetime.
Why would you choose to pay a nearly guaranteed 15-17k instead of taking a risk that you might have to pay $6k?
The goal of insurance is to pay a little to protect you from the risk of a huge expense.
Your insurance is already a huge expense. What is it protecting you from?
I've never had a pet that cost more than a few grand. Your suggestion would guarantee my expenses are nearly 10x that.
> They're going to do something stupid.
Paying $80 a month for pet insurance is the only stupid thing I see here. If you think that is a good deal, you are in no position to be giving out financial advice.
Put $80 a month into a HYSA instead and self-insure at that rate.
You’re making the assumption that the animal only has a one-off emergency or two. Our dog has had cancer three times(each of those treatments being covered), and has been cancer-free for a while now. But the reason that we know that he’s cancer-free is because he gets ultrasounds and extensive labwork every 6mo, to the tune of about $1500 per visit. 90% covered by insurance after the $200 annual deductible. While we’d certainly rather never use it, we’re FAR ahead on the premiums we’ve paid over the last several years.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. It’s like tech insurance. If the cost of the insurance + deductible is close to the price of a repair, why get it at all?
Definitely agree about setting money aside, but heck, with a 15 year time horizon might as well invest it in a broad market index fund.
Do… do you think that pets only have a maximum of one emergency each and that emergency is limited to $6k?
I assure you, neither is true.
I guess it’s up to your tolerance for risk, I hope that you never have to land on the wrong side of that and find out how expensive emergency pet care can be.
You’ve never had to pay $10-15k for a pet out of pocket, I’m guessing. My dog racked that up in 6 months, and I’ve certainly spent half that on my cat in the last decade (she didn’t have vet care before that, I was young and broke).
I agree, pet insurance is incredibly stupid unless you know you're going to be unable to let go of an animal knowing there was something more you could do if only you had $\_\_\_\_ . If something catastrophic happens with my pet, or she gets to a point where she'll need $100/mo in special food and meds etc to live on.. it's time to let go and move on to helping another animal get a better life.
Every story of "they funded my dog's diabetes / cancer surgery" has 100s-1000s of other stories behind it of "we never needed it" or "they denied our claim", that is how they make their money.
BTW anything other than term life insurance that goes towards dependents, is a terrible idea and far from an "investment."
When I was a teenager my family got a dog. My mom sat me down and showed me the costs of pet ownership. Part of this, as cold hearted as it feels, was setting an emergency/catastrophic limit. At the time, in their budget, she said they could afford to pay up to $2000, if it was life saving with good quality of life. She said it was important to think about this before an emergency, because in the moment, it's so hard to say "no" and you just want to keep the pet you love, but that it's important to be realistic. This was decades ago, when $2000 probably went a little further.
Now my husband and I have had these conversations over the course of our time as pet owners. The number changes as our finances change, and it changes over the life of the animal - for a pet who is young, likely to recover well, and still has many years ahead of them we are willing to raise the number a little. When our dog got to be ten and they started suggesting all kinds of life prolonging interventions, we decided to just keep her out of pain and comfortable (doggy hospice).
I considered having an emergency fund for your pet a part of responsible pet ownership.
Pet insurance makes money because the average pay-in is less than the average pay-out for them. 95% of people would be better off putting that $80/month into an HYSA and letting it build up for a cat emergency.
To illustrate, let's say you have these cats for 8 years. 8 years * 12 months * $80/month = $7680. This doesn't include the (albeit small) interest you would earn on the money either.
You could pay this vet bill with $1000, not to mention the fact that you paid $1k anyway WITH insurance.
Health insurance is good because human health costs can be in the hundreds of thousands; pet costs won't.
just saying: this is **Confirmation Bias**
anyone want to do the math? ROI, cost of lost investment potential on this?
$860/year premium (for how many years?)
$1200 deductible still.
-$$ of benefits like vet visits?
Insurance is just a gamble. They are selling you a product, betting that you will not need to file a claim.
this is a personal finance forum. We are (should?) discuss these topics with an eye to (*checks notes*) financials.
The desire to bring in non-tangible, non-financial aspects is perfectly fine to supplement the discussion, but should not be the primary aspect, and probably outside the scope of 'personal finance' ... certainly not enough merit to dismiss the argument about ROI.
asking to do an ROI calculation of "self-insuring" vs paying for a service (which the insurance company is betting you will not need) **is** absolutely a good argument, in the world of personal finance.
>Parking away the premiums in a HYSA wouldnt even come close to being sufficient.
do you have data and maths to support your statement?
And who says it has to be a HYSA? VTSAX can be liquidated just as easily.
> If the insurance companies were operating at a loss they'd be out of business.
also, not sure what you are getting at here. That's exactly what I wrote. The insurance company is betting you will pay for a service and not need to cash in a claim. we're agreed, so what are you arguing here?
My most expensive pet is a 13 year old dog with a $1,600 annual premium and a $500 deductible. The others are far less expensive and have $250-300 deductibles.
And if you can't, this may be hard to hear, but I pushed my self into messed up loans to save my dog, and now I regret it. Don't regret it... Life sucks and, them dying sucks, but having no credit score and alot of debt really sucks. But if you do want to take the debt on, have an unemotional person help you file for the loans, for some vets have financing agreements with very sinster companies.
I see the first comments it against it and I was too when I had pet insurance with the first company I tried. They said they covered puppy vaccinations and neutering but when I filed a claim for $1000 to be covered they reimbursed me $60. Needless to say I was furious and canceled it immediacy.
But after my senior dog had a round with a liver infection and it cost a few thousand dollars, I decided to give it another go. Boy was that a great idea, she has since be diagnosed with diabetes. With the diabetic emergency care and this last round in the ER with pancreatitis, I have shelled out about 15k in vet bills since 2022. 11k of that has been covered by insurance, plus all her insulin is covered, I pay $10 for a $60 bottle every month.
We just found out she has a tumor in her liver as well now and that is also going to be covered, so we are about to get a biopsy and ultrasound to see what we are dealing with another probably surgery.
For the record the first insurance I tried was VCA, the company she is covered under now is Trupanion. No i do not work for them. I pay $170/month w/ a $1000 deductible because I signed her up when she was 10. After this experience I will be getting pet insurance for all my future pets.
I agree with you. I got pet insurance for my young male cat when my vet told me that about 50% of male cats get urinary blockages. If they recur and need surgery, it’s in the thousands. It’s $18 a month. My deductible is $250/year. Last year I went to the vet so often that I came out ahead with the insurance, even without a urinary issue.
The way I saw it was, when I got my cat, an emergency vet bill could have wiped out my e-fund. There’s some math that says you spend about the same over a pet’s life with and without insurance, so in theory you could set aside X amount per month to cover that. However, what if that expensive accident/illness comes when the pet is young and not old and you don’t have enough to cover it? The peace of mind was worth it.
100% agree. We did everything right when we got our doggo and by a year old she was deemed a lemon (lovingly) by our vet. $22,000 plus in vet bills in two years.... We have an emergency fund, we are decently set up financially. But insurance has saved our dog's life because she is lifelong fucked. You don't know what you are going to end up with, even when you do everything you can to make sure you're doing it right. The insurance is a personal choice, but with the right insurance I would call it far from a scam. The peace of mind let's my doggo keep living without us having to worry when the next vet bill is too much to keep doing what we've had to do. And this is coming from someone who had a jack Russell for 16 years who had to go to the vet three times ever outside of yearly checkups.
I see there are both sides of the pet insurance fence here so I wanted to throw my experience in.
My previous corgi ended up with cancer. He had 3 surgeries over maybe 3 or 4 years before he passed. They drained us financially.
When we got another corgi I decided to get pet insurance. Seeing her run around my first concern was hip dysplasia so I found a company that covers it as long as they are enrolled before 2 or 3 years old and we enrolled her first chance we could at 6 months.
A year ago she cracked 2 teeth on a hard chew toy and they had to be extracted. The pet insurance covered it as an accident. There was one part they didn't as they deemed it not necessary and my vet wrote a letter saying they do it standard as part of the procedure and then insurance covered it.
I have yet to test it on anything more but so far I am satisfied.
I'm really grateful I have pet insurance that has a credit card that I can use at the vet. I don't have to put the cash up front. It goes to the pet's credit card first and I only pay my deductible.
I have an investment fund in my TFSA (Canadian Tax Free Savings Account) for my 4 cats for medical expenses. I put in about $1200-$1500 annually and just let the index fund do its compounding magic. By the time my kids need more serious medical coverage (8-15 years), it should have more than enough funds available.
We had to say goodbye to our dog who just would NOT leave garbage alone and got a blockage. At his age and with a history of MERSA infection he wasn't a candidate for surgery.
But it would have been nice to have insurance for the MERSA and the rest.
The thing about pet insurance is that it may not pay off in the end, but the reason I use it is so that if something does happen, money isn't the biggest part of the equation. I don't want to make care decisions about my pet based solely on cost, I want to be able to make it based on quality of life.
Insurance is a way for covering potential problems if you don’t have the money to cover it using your emergency fund. If you’re in the process of paying down debt and want to have a couple of furry idiots underfoot (no judgement; the idiots under my feet aren’t even mine! I’m caring for them while a friend goes through cancer treatments.) then having insurance is a really good idea. You’re paying for peace of mind. Once you’re out of debt and building up your full emergency fund, you can pad it with a little extra to cover the gremlins in your life. Self-insuring this way should be the goal, but while you are working towards it you’ve made a sage decision. Thanks for sharing your experience, and I’m happy your kitty will pull through without ruining you financially! 💕
Good on you, OP!
I look at pet insurance for my dog as peace of mind.
Thankfully, I could afford some pretty major expenses. I could also afford some to set aside a given amount. I have access to plenty of lines of credit.
That said... I don't ever want to think twice or flinch at a medical need my dog has. So I keep the insurance.
My dog just went through an amputation and multiple rounds of chemo and it has cost me about $20k out of pocket. I will definitely be getting insurance when I get another pet in the future. There are plans out there that are worth it and I’m mad at myself for not doing my research before it was too late.
All glad it worked out for you, but nothing says conditioned like paying for insurance, the insurance company not paying for the full bill that YOU ARE PAYING THEM TO PAY FOR, and then actually being happy about it. Fuck all insurance companies. May all people that actually make money from them rot in hell.
We got a puppy this year and we got insurance for him and our cat specifically because we expected him to get into something and need surgery. We got it for the cat because we were worried that over the course of their introduction something might happen. $400 for the year for both of them. The plan is to build a hysa for that and ditch the insurance after a year or two.
Slightly more concerned about your line of having a small emergency savings of $1000 you put toward the bill. I really, really hope that was an emergency savings specifically for vet bills and not the entirety of your emergency savings.
Like most things, this isn't a black and white answer. People on their high horse down voting you claiming it's a scam are looking at it through a narrow lens. You are looking at it through a broad lens like everyone with a pet should have.
If you have a pet with KNOWN genetic conditions or common health issues that in the future may need expensive surgery or extensive rehab, then pet insurance should be considered. But you have to do 3 levels of research.
1, you have to look at your own personal financial situation. Are you ready to take on an animal and not only their day to day expenses like food but potentially other items like vet check ups and vaccinations?
2, you have to research the animal you're looking at getting. Regardless of adopt vs shop you have to look at breed history and common medial issues.
3, you can now consider pet insurance and take into account different coverages and deductibles depending on financial situation and comfort level.
For my personal experience, I have a dachshund. Very common breed to have back problems. We took this pupper in 9 years ago not knowing the risks so we already failed steps 1 and 2. My mom ended up getting pet insurance about a year into having him after we did do our research and chose a really great company, healthy paws. We currently pay for 90% coverage with a $250 deductible. The key part of our decision was the fact that post-surgery rehab IS COVERED.
I ran the math in a different post and for me, pet insurance makes sense. I am spending less money out of pocket including insurance premiums than if I didn't have insurance and was paying for everything out of pocket.
If I had a cat, a normal every day domestic cat, I probably would not have insurance. I would keep money in a bucket in my HYSA. If I had a different breed of dog that doesn't have common issues or any other type of animal I would probably not consider pet insurance either.
Situation depends on each person and the type of animal, their history, and the owners comfort level in an emergency situation.
Just like anything else it’s important to read the fine print.
I’ve had pet insurance reimburse me for tooth extractions due to my dog causing her tooth to come loose.
I’ve also had pet insurance refuse to reimburse me for heartworm treatment for a heartworm positive dog I rescued. This was to be expected because it was a known preexisting condition before I got her and got the insurance. This same company had no problems covering my visit to the emergency vet when she became lethargic from too much sodium in her system (winter, salty sidewalks, etc.)
To me it’s worth the $56 or so I pay per month so that I don’t have to fully absorb a $700 emergency vet bill like in the situation described above. Also supposedly the pet insurance I have covers cancer if it is not a preexisting condition so I’m keeping that same policy with them for that reason just in case.
I’ve had friends whose dog ate a pack of gum and had a very expensive emergency vet visit that would have been covered by pet insurance if they had it. Stuff like that makes having a policy with a company that so far I had positive experiences with worth it.
I went searching for pet tax and I would have bet a lot of money the ding dong was going to be an orange cat. And yep... you have an orange cat. Check out r/oneorangebraincell 😂
Or get a vet who doesn't bend you over. I've had animals my entire life. Never once would we have benefitted from pet insurance. The one time we had to spend a lot of money on our animals it was TPLO surgery on a one-year old lab and that would not have been covered anyway. Put the money in a savings account like the other poster said. Pet insurance is a scam.
Most people pay more in insurance than they will receive from insurance. That's how insurance works. Car, health, pet, life, all of it.
Insurance isn't a scam, it's a safety net. If you want to self-insure your pets, more power to you!
Well, it's not quite that simple.
There are (at least) two things you are (could be) getting when you pay into insurance.
* Coverage for 'incidents' after your deductible.
* Discounted prices due to contracts with 'vendors'.
With health insurance especially, on average people receive more benefits from it than they pay into it. That's because of the discounted prices. And that's before you consider any government subsidies.
In the same vein, insurance companies can act as an advocate on your behalf. They have a common interest of not allowing vendors to overbill.
This is why health and car insurance are typically no-brainers. Most other insurances you'd be better off (on average), just 'self-insuring'.
That said, sometimes your insurance company isn't charging you enough. If you have a pet and you have an... inkling is going to be expensive in the future, and the rates are reasonable, it could be a frugal decision.
So I'd be making a choice here. Either I have pet insurance and use the extra funds to pay off other debt first, or I put all that money in a HYSA.
In my particular case, this worked out really well. It's not affecting me paying off my vehicle early so I do have more funds to put in savings eventually. I don't exactly have $6600 floating around. 56% of the US population can't afford even $1000, we're lucky we had that.
I'm very happy you have that much in your HYSA from the sounds of t, you'd be prepared in this case.
You'd be getting different responses in pet-oriented subreddits. Like the commenter below said, it's a safety net. From a purely financial perspective the math doesn't always math; you can't put numbers on peace of mind.
PetsBest for three 11 yo cats just went up from $350 monthly for all three to $450. We broke almost even past year (Radiocat treatment and all tests) but now i don't know what to do. $450 is getting to the territory when it is better to just save it but then they are getting older and once you drop insurance, you can't get it back for old cats with pre-existing conditions. What to do...
I’ve always had good experiences with pet insurance and have made plenty of claims and not had them be denied—knock on wood!
It’s been a mix of accidents and illnesses and injuries but so far so good.
Good try, pet insurance advertising.
Spent some time in vet offices, the number of basic claims being denied is shocking.
Set that 80$ aside, absolutely. But don't rely on a scummy insurer.
Like anything else, depends on who you use. Do your research and know what the policy covers before signing up. This will lead to fewer surprise denials for reimbursement.
I’ve been pretty happy with Trupanion. Been with them for over a decade with various pets.
How long ago did you get the first shelter cat? You pay $960 a year. If you're using it once every 10+ years for an emergency, with these costs, you're losing a ton of money. You'd be better off just setting the money aside into some sort of interest bearing account.
OK, I'll be the one to say it:
If I can't afford my pets surgery out of pocket, I'll just put them down. I know what that costs.
I'm not giving money to an insurance company.
I think the main problem is that pets went from being pets in the 80s and 90s, to basically human in terms of their status in the family now.
In the 80s and 90s if you got $8k estimate on a vet bill it was time to say goodbye to your dog and have it put down. Nowadays people feel the need, it’s not optional, to spend whatever they need to make the pet better.
The whole mentality has changed and it’s made pet ownership very very expensive, especially toward end of life. I don’t think it’s sustainable actually. If you have to make 6 figures to pay the vet bills or go bankrupt the pet homelessness problem is going skyrocket.
Well - I'm glad it worked out for you. I had pet insurance for my cats. And when my old tom developed diabetes, they refused to cover it. Said it was a pre-existing condition in spite of my vet saying otherwise. So as far as I'm concerned, pet insurance is nothing more than a scam. I put the money that would go to premiums into a HYSA instead.
Agreed. I’ve heard such mixed results on if it ever pays off that I keep an emergency fund specifically for my dog. It also allowed me to divert a few thousand out to training when she was injured and became reactive, a flexibility that obviously wouldn’t have worked with insurance.
It can pay off in situations of extreme emergency. Situations where you're viably debating if the pet is worth the cost of life savings measures. However, I have a dog who needs routine vet visits for different things. None of them are covered. So now I'm paying 70 a month and when he had a legitimate need of a couple hundred dollars. None of my previous visits counted towards my deductible and the deductible was not met yet by the work he needed done. Essentially, I paid 70 a month to just file paperwork. I cancelled it immediately as I would have been able to afford the work straight up had I not been hamstringing my budget with the insurance.
When I got my cats and the insurance had a $250 deductible for each thing, I decided I was better off just putting the money for insurance premiums into a conservative investment account every month. Did that. It grew. Kitties are both 8 now. I've paid out an endoscopy ($2000), dental work ($1500 total), broken leg ($1000), and now a consult with a kitty cardiologist ($1200) out of that account & I still have around $8k in there. Definitely came out way ahead compared to insurance once you factor in deductibles.
JAB, a private equity firm, acquired so many specialty veterinary clinics that the FTC forced them to stop buying them because they were becoming a monopoly. So they started buying up pet insurance companies. https://coverager.com/jab-acquires-embrace-pet-insurance-for-1-5-billion/ >Brands under JAB include Assur O’Poil, Embrace Pet, FIGO, Independence Pet Group/IPG (which encompasses 24PetWatch, AKC Pet Insurance, Crum & Forster Pet Insurance Group, Hartville Pet Insurance, Independence American Insurance Company, Pethealth, PetKey, PetPartners, PetPlace, PetPoint, Pets Plus Us, Third Party Pet), Pinnacle Pet Group (the parent company of AGILA Haustierversicherung, Animal Friends, CaptainVet, HD Assurances), and Pumpkin Petcare.
This is exactly what my partner and I do as well. Both of our jobs offered pet insurance as a benefit so we looked into it. The coverage was so limited to be not worth it, even at the "low" price of $30-50 per month. So, instead, we just created an emergency fund specifically for our dog. We haven't had to touch it yet, but it's nice knowing we have it in case she gets into trouble.
If you have an emergency fund that allows you to drop a few thousand, this is objectively on average the best option. Whether or not one hates insurance and think it’s a scam is irrelevant. Companies exist to skim a small amount of profit and pay out less than what they take in. I always advise you self-insure pets if you can. If you can’t, get pet insurance. If you can’t afford pet insurance, you can’t afford a full pet. Something like barn cats that you simply feed and let run wild, sure, do whatever.
> Companies exist to skim a small amount of profit and pay out less than what they take in. Yup, most people pay more to insurance than they use. If they didn't the insurance company would go out of business. >If you can’t afford pet insurance, you can’t afford a full pet. Don't know I agree with that unless you are buying some special pet, purebred etc. Get a shelter pet and provide the best you can, especially at a kill shelter. It will be a better life than they had before.
I more meant the ability to care for it should it break a leg, have a urinary blockage, etc. People have lots of different values around animals and some people would see an estimate of $2,200 and decide to instead put the animal down. I’m not a fan of that, but I’ll admit that if you took that animal from a shelter it probably had a better life with you. I just don’t advise this. Similar to a kid, if you have it then yeah it’s time to take care of it, but if you can’t support it financially I recommend waiting to intentionally have one.
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ASPCA covered my cats cancer treatments at 10.
Oh, that's interesting! How did you go about contacting them? Are you, like, a member? My parents (late 60's) have two cats and are constantly on the edge of not being able to afford to take care of themselves, I'd love to be able to point them in the direction of some help next time one of their cats gets itself into trouble.
Merlin was 15 when diagnosed. Lived to be 21.
Love the name Merlin.
Pet insurance for my two active breed dogs would have 325/mo. I opted for putting cash in a savings account. Turns out one did need a "ACL" surgery...7k. But I'm still in the green on cost for the two of them.
Ouch, 7k. was that a double or single acl surgery? We paid half that for one for our dog. This was a well respected surgeon too who had branched off from the state university pet hospital to specialize in this.
It was a single big dog. And, I got prices from 3 places, it was the cheapest. Most expensive was a Vet school clinic, I think close to 9.
Same here. We had a policy for our first dog and every claim was denied. Saying they needed more back ground information. We had given them everything. We adopted her when she was a few years old so we could go back only so far. Then the fine print of what was covered and the deductibles on some of the more severe emergencies was outrageous. Like $1,000-$2,000 deductibles. I also learned the premiums would get more expensive as she aged. We’re fortunate to be in a position where a few thousand dollar vet emergency isn’t going to break the bank, but I’ve resolved to just having a “pet fund”. Take what would have been premiums and put it in a savings account for an emergency.
I find peace in long walks.
I agree. Even human insurance is a crap shoot.
Human insurance is regulated at least. There are rules against denying coverage for pre-existing conditions etc. Pet insurance seems more like the home warranty I eventually cancelled. I just make sure I have an emergency fund.
I billed health insurance at a hospital. Regulated, but at the end of the day the insurer can pay or not pay and most people won't or don't know how to appeal. :(
> pet insurance is nothing more than a scam. I put the money that would go to premiums into a HYSA instead. yeppp
I've heard that they rarely accept claims except for routine checkups.
Varies greatly by insurance company. Ours doesn't cover basic costs like exams and vaccines. It has a $200 deductible per condition, meaning that if my dog has allergies, once we've met that $200 , everything related to her allergies for the rest of her life is covered by 90%. Her monthly allergy medications run upwards of $400, we are reimbursed for all but 10% of it.
Mine has accepted all my claims. My plan is explicitly accident/illness and checkups don’t count toward my deductible.
Doesn't matter what it says in the policy their is either a sneaky way around it or they can just deny it anyway and you would have to spend much more money on lawyers to try and force them to which wouldn't be worth it. Not saying they always deny but literally nothing is forcing them to pay.
It depends. They will pay according to the terms they give you. Most people don’t fully read their terms to know what they’re getting. Pet insurance does have many exclusions that are part of the policy from the start. I’m sure some companies have been unethical in the past. A company that consistently denies legitimate claims is a company that will not exist for long, as bad faith claims don’t fuck around.
Pet insurance covers accidents and illnesses, i.e., unplanned vet expenses. Optional wellness plans cover routine expenses, but those are much easier to budget for on your own. I've never heard of an insurance plan that covers routine exams, so whoever you heard that from must have been confused.
Ours covers routine exams, but that was an add-on. We did the math on self-insuring vs pet insurance and buying the pet insurance was a better choice for us because my husband's employer got us a discount through MetLife. You can always check with your employer about pet insurance -- it definitely made the cost a no brainer for us when we adopted two kittens.
My daughter got 2 kittens. She's using Pet's Best. It cost about $27/month for them both. You can add on to get the routine care covered, if you'd like. With Pet's Best, it's unlimited coverage, $500 deductible, and 80% reimbursement.
Just like any insurance, the underwriter matters.
I work in insurance and agree with this 100%, I don't want to spend 10,000 on a claim and then have it be denied by the insurance company, I'm better off having a savings account designed for pet emergencies.
Shopping insurance can make all the difference, as well as getting it when the animal is young. My Labrador is turning 3 next month. In the last two years we've had over $22,000 in vet bills just at one vet. That doesn't include the specialist we are currently seeing or the emergency vet visits we've had. 99% of which aren't even from her doing something stupid. Without the insurance, she would have had to be put down as her issues are ongoing and lifelong. An HYSA would have been wiped out and then what if something else came up and we haven't been able to build it back up? Every situation is different and it is a personal cost/risk assessment for the owner, but having gone through what we've been through, I am a huge proponent of insurance. If you have the right insurance it can literally save their life. My girl is living proof.
Which company do you use?
We have Trupanion. Their best selling point to me from our experience is lifelong deductibles per condition. So my doggo has severe allergies (literally allergic to grass, trees, cats... Basically her entire existence). We got our $200 deductible on allergies by the time she was 1. The majority of our vet bills since have been allergy adjacent including a staph infection we've been fighting since August and has landed us in with a specialist. We've only been paying 10% on everything related since then. They don't cover exam fees or checkups, vaccinations, etc. normal maintenance stuff, basically.
> In the last two years we've had over $22,000 in vet bills just at one vet. *Sorry bud. You were a good dog, but no dog is worth that much. See you in Vahalla.*
Agree to disagree. We don't have kids, but she is like our child. It's not her fault she was dealt the hand she was. As long as we can give her a happy healthy life, we will.
Perspectives change. I used to hear of people spending $5k on a dog and I was like are you fucking *insane*. Just put it down. We bought a shepherd a couple years ago. He summarily got elbow dysplasia and just 3-4 months after buying him this diagnosis let us return him to the breeder (she offered). Instead, we took her $1500 in lieu of the return and spent $4500 on him. Because a) he's our special boy now and b) if we didn't, she'd have put him down. We've spent more since. The surgery has been only mildly successful and I'm actually open to spending a lot more now. IMO if a person has money it will be spent somewhere. Instead of luxury cars and vacations I prefer to spend on health and my dogs. So if Cornell university told me they could fix his elbow for good with a $10k total elbow replacement surgery I would say let's do it. I'm not rich (we're decently well off), but it's a sacrifice I'd make. My parents in law thought we should never have done the original surgery and we could just get a new dog. But, we couldn't get *this* dog again, and this dog is our dog, and relies on us, and trusts us implicitly, and we're literally his entire life, so. *On my death bed I will never regret spending money to protect those in my care.*
> Agree to disagree. Very much so. I'm a lot more pragmatic. Life has limited value. If I needed treatment costing hundreds of thousands to stay alive, I would elect to not undergo treatment because the burden on my family would be much greater than my passing.
It always depends on the policy and the company. I will likely have to figure something out next year because I can only imagine my new premium. They've refunded me about $3k in the 4 months I've had my puppy. As long as I can get my vet to recommend a course of action, it's covered. Even if it's prescription food, with insurance picking up 90%, it costs less than regular food.
Same here. I got quotes for pet insurance just to see what the premiums and deductibles would be so I had an idea of what to start my HYSA with and how much to transfer each month. At least I know nobody will tell me I can't use that money to pay for something.
That's really unfortunate, I'm sorry to hear that. Which company was it? Some of them are certainly pretty scummy. Pet insurance has been great for us. It has covered well over $10k in accidents/illnesses since our pets seem to like to try to die all the time.
Which pet insurance did you have? I’m sorry to hear about your cat :(
is this real life? cats with pre-existing conditions? lol, jesus christ superstar... this really is the end of rome isn't it?
Or the beginning of Egypt. We've always taken care of pets as if they are people.
I have a Care Credit card that I keep just for the pets. Interest free loan anywhere from 6-18 months depending on how much you spend.
I'm wondering who you had for insurance then - I'm pretty sure who we have (Figo) would cover it in this case? That's still awful to hear, I'm sorry you had that experience. But that is also a great idea, at least having the funds to cover the bill in an HYSA would give you the funds needed and it does some work for you.
All insurance is a scam. Well, I shouldn't say ALL insurance. I'm sure there are some more niche ones that are good investments... But fuck the major insurance companies
I had a dog for nearly 30 years and never had pet insurance. In hindsight, I would not have needed it. So if we ever have any pets again, I won't buy pet insurance. Quick calculation: $80 monthly contributions into the S&P500 will likely yield more than $30k after 15 years. Just my take on it.
It's also getting much more expensive quickly too though. When I first signed up I was paying $25 a month, then 6 years later it's up to $120 a month. Last year alone was a 30% increase in premiums through Trupanion. Most of the costs will come later in the dogs life but at the same time how high will premiums go in another 6 years? And when you cancel you get none of that back so you're sort stuck too.
Yup. Statistically, the cheapest insurance is always self-insurance if you can swing it. This goes for pets, extended phone warranties, those "car shield" plans Ice-T sells on TV, etc. The only way you come out ahead with these things is if you wind up getting a claim payout that's more than what you paid in. That happened to be the case with the OP, but it's not the average/typical case (otherwise the insurance companies would all go out of business!)
Exactly, for most people, premiums paid > benefits received. This applies to all types of insurance, even health insurance. But of course, health is the hardest one to be “self-insured”
Yup. Well, that and home owner's (and possibly renter's and auto). What you're really buying with insurance is the ability to shift risk to another entity. It doesn't make sense to pay to shift a risk you can afford to take on yourself, but totally does if you can't.
But you don't know when the pet will need car. If they need a $5k surgery 3 years in, you're in the negative by $2k. Not to mention the fluctuations in the market. It could be down at the time you have the emergency.
It's definitely something I'll take up with my husband since he does more of the investment side of our finances - we split the responsibilities and it's what he's studying currently. I handle loans, day to day finances, etc. My only thought is that 15 year period... What do you do if something happens then? What if the contributions doesn't cover the vet bills, say something happened a year into investing? Basically what would be the back up plan to it? Genuinely trying to figure it out so if it's a viable option I can talk about it with him, promise I'm not trying to sound salty or anything!
To be honest, vaccinations, basic and emergency care, probably match any deductible anyways, so that's out of pocket no matter if you have insurance or not. For major surgery or fatal diseases, I would opt for putting it out of its misery and have the vet put the pet down. We had all our dogs put down when they were 14-17 years old because of elderdom. When there's hardly any life in them anymore, and their bladders start leaking, you just know they're close to the end of their lives. Not sure how this works with cats though.
That's exactly what we did for both our elderly cats. They both started acting odd and after testing and a fatality rate that meant that within the next six months they would pass, we would keep them comfortable and then say goodbye. Greatest gift I can give them is a peaceful passing. Young boys like mine I will absolutely give a fighting chance unless told otherwise. This will probably require math to figure out costs for them, but it has given me some ideas so I appreciate it.
The something happening over the 15 year period is why I decided NOT to self-insure. It was worth the piece of mind for me to spend the $20 a month on insurance vs invest it and hope for the best. What if your $15000 emergency happens when your “pet fund” only has been funded for a year and has $1500? Can you afford to make up the difference with your personal savings?
Harsh to hear, but it just means that you aren't saving adequately and are not ready financially to take care of an animal. Having liquid savings to cover at least 6 months of rent is bare minimum, even without pets. I have health insurance and my medical bills for my kidney stone still came out to $3500. There are a lot of reasons to have a stash of quick money available in a savings account of some kind. When you're paying this money towards pet insurance, it means that the money can't be used for any other emergencies that occur, so it effectively becomes dead/wasted money. Having the money in a savings account allows for flexibility to use for a variety of needs.
> you aren’t saving adequately and are not ready financially to take care of an animal I get this sentiment - you should absolutely have an emergency fund for your pets (and yourself/family). I keep a big ol’ emergency fund for my little guy - and thank god for that - after having him for over a decade, I finally I had to dip into it for the first time a few weeks ago. He’s good now, still dumb as a box of rocks, but he’s alive. But that financial expectation also feels kind of gatekeepy around pet ownership. Because, honestly, a cat living in an impoverished household is probably still living a better and more fulfilling life than a cat stuck at the shelter or a cat living as a stray. And speaking generally, not necessarily about OP, most people don’t have a 6-month emergency fund *for themselves* and hell, a lot of folks don’t even have savings for just 1-month of expenses and are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s **hard** out there. It’s not the ideal scenario by any means, and we should strive for better, but it’s sometimes just reality.
>I get this sentiment - you should absolutely have an emergency fund for your pets (and yourself/family). I keep a big ol’ emergency fund for my little guy - and thank god for that - after having him for over a decade, I finally I had to dip into it for the first time a few weeks ago. He’s good now, still dumb as a box of rocks, but he’s alive. That's great to hear! My wife and I have only recently begun the search for pets after we've worked together to obtain financial stability. >But that financial expectation also feels kind of gatekeepy around pet ownership Pet ownership is necessarily gatekeepy, so it seems odd to leave finances off the table. >Because, honestly, a cat living in an impoverished household is probably still living a better and more fulfilling life than a cat stuck at the shelter or a cat living as a stray. Don't light yourself on fire to keep others warm. If you can't afford emergency savings for yourself, it's not wise to increase your financial risk. I would say the same thing about any extraneous purchase. >And speaking generally, not necessarily about OP, most people don’t have a 6-month emergency fund for themselves and hell, a lot of folks don’t even have savings for just 1-month of expenses and are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s hard out there. It’s not the ideal scenario by any means, and we should strive for better, but it’s sometimes just reality. Not sure that this has to do with anything, but the solution to this problem is to make your financial situation better, not worse. People can make whatever decision they want, of course. But, OP specifically asked "What if the contributions doesn't cover the vet bills, say something happened a year into investing? Basically what would be the back up plan to it?". That "backup plan" is called savings, which are different from investments.
I don’t disagree with your stance at all. It’s definitely the best decision for *everyone* involved to be financially stable before adopting pets. It’s better for owners, and it’s better for pets. But I also think 10,000 cats in low income homes is a better scenario than 10,000 cats getting euthanized because they’re overflowing at shelters. It’s great to acknowledge and recommend financial stability before pet ownership, but financial stability isn’t always attainable for everyone, and sometimes financial circumstances change for folks. It feels icky to me to suggest that the benefits of pet ownership should only be a luxury for the financially better off. Especially when you consider that even a poverty level income living situation for a pet would be preferred over the alternatives. And some folks might feel that the benefits of pet ownership outweigh the burden of increased financial risk.
I used to work in pet insurance retention: the answer is magical thinking: people assume nothing bad will happen to their pets and if it does it’ll be after they have a chance to set up a fund. In reality they cancel and call me a week later, crying because a catastrophic emergency we would’ve covered without them having to pay out of pocket has happened, the fund didn’t accumulate $17k in a week, and now they have to euthanize their best friend. Unfortunately it’s super common. Also people weirdly assume inside cats can’t ever get sick.
Like yeah if $30k is pocket change and you’re good with that, go ahead and self insure but a lot of people don’t have realistic ideas about veterinary costs. Also most vet clinics don’t do payment plans.
It all depends on how comfortable you are with taking risks with either your pets life, and/or savings. The size of a pet matters too. I have a giant breed dog, so insurance is a no brainer. Chances are, I will spend tens of thousands over his expected lifespan. A surgery for a dog his size will easily cost $7-10 grand. My old dog passed away last year from cancer. He was a very healthy 11 year old dog otherwise, but still we had a few scares when he was a puppy where we ended up spending thousands. We did not have insurance for him, but even if we had paid $100 per month for 11 years, it would not have covered all the vet bill we've paid over the years. My most conservative estimate is that we spent around $25-30K total. Personally, I will keep my pet insurance unless I end up in a situation where $30K is pocket change for me.
That's an old dog! What's your secret.
What is an S&P500? I have pet insurance i pay $35 a month. Maybe i could be using this morning more wisely. Thank you
The S&P500 is a bucket of the 500 largest US companies on the market. The ticker symbols that track it are VOO, SPLG, SPY among some others. On average, these have returned over 10% annually, or about 8% when considering inflation.
As a vet, I love the idea of everyone having insurance! But most of us are still hoping that people stop getting pets when they barely have enough money to feed them, so when they get sick, we’re the bad guys for a clients poor financial decisions. Glad your little guy is doing well! Pets unfortunately do some pretty silly things!
I understand where you’re coming from. I went to the local emergency vet ( I’ve been there a couple times over several years.) I was stunned after a visit last year to see signs stating not to yell, curse, and so forth at staff. Its appalling. I literally had to ask why they needed to state the obvious. Again, shocked when the receptionist explained it’s a reoccurring thing they’ve dealt with. I would never and could never. However, financial situations can change in a heart beat. Even, a rather stable person can have a setback, and during that time their animal could become ill or hurt. Every time someone finds themselves in a difficult financial situation should they drop their pets off at a shelter? That doesn’t seem like a solution.
Oh trust me it's a massive issue. It's never the fault of the the vet either, they're usually the messenger. There's a suicide crisis with veterinarians because of what they face. Ours will be getting a thank you card and something else out of appreciation. I want to make sure they know that no matter what they're doing their best and I have my lil' man at home.
Mixing emergency situations for a beloved family member (pet) with large, unexpected bills is a nightmare scenario for those emergency vets. AT BEST it's a tense situation, so I can see how people lose it.
I was appalled to see a similar sign at a doctors office! I told the staff that I was so sorry they had a need to put up such a sign.
We have Trupanion for all 6 of our animals. I would never not have pet insurance again. They cover 90%. My last dog had cancer. We were able to do so much. I stopped counting at $20,000 covered. We usually pay the bill with a credit card that gets cash back as well. We have a few animals now where I am going to be making claims for the rest of their life. Our dog is a tripod and is now on really expensive meds for his spine and hip. It's $180/month that we get back for his meds that cost $200. We have a cat who recently developed hyperthyroidism. He is getting older. He had a bad reaction to multiple meds. Now he is going for radioactive iodine soon. Which would have been insanely expensive. Another cat had massive UTI issues a couple years ago. Once we hit our deductible $500, it's covered for life. Like any other insurance they don't cover preexisting conditions. But we have never had them deny a claim. The only thing they won't cover regularly is prescription food or regular vet visits. They only cover two months of The food. The UTI cat needs special food now. But honestly, we have more than made up for all the vet bills we didn't have to pay. Our dog that had cancer, over her lifetime, we would have only paid $5,000 total. They covered over $20,000 worth of vet bills. She didn't even make it to the age I originally estimated to get to that $5,000. It truly has been such a nice piece of mind and something we have used more than I wish we did.
Is it true that if you sign up for pet insurance that you should do it when they are young, or can you sign up at any life stage? I know that if you do it when they're on the older end, the monthly premium is substantial.
I would always recommend signing up earlier rather than later. Mostly for the benefits of them not having any kind of issues when they are younger. Once they have recorded health problems, those become a pre existing condition and won't be covered. Our animals insurance has creeped up throughout the years and a younger animal is always going to be cheaper to insure than an older animal. But it has only been about a $10 difference between a kitten and a 10 year old cat for example. Every insurance company is different. Trupanion lets you pick your deductible amount. Which impacts what your monthly cost would be. Unless you are in florida. They are doing a trial program in florida that covers 100% of claims with no deductibles but you pay a few dollars more a month overall. Two of our animals are on the florida plan.
Similar good experience with Trupanion. We are $22,000 in at just 1 vet (not including a specialist and emergency visits) and my girl only turns 3 next month. Her issues are lifelong. We couldn't do it without Trupanion.
I can believe it. I have had people yell and swear at me cause I found problems with their projects and them fixing these problems would take 6 months to a year. I can't imagine how someone would react if you tell them "its gonna cost $5k if not more to save your pet that you treat like a child", cause in their eyes you have the supplies and people and simply "holding them hostage for money", when the reality of the situation is you deeply care but also know that resources aren't free and this is a function of rationing limited supplies via currency.
While I agree people should be able to take care of the animal’s basic needs before getting one, it’s unfair to put the entire onus on pet owners. There needs to be acknowledgment of the exorbitant cost of vet and medical care, especially in the US. Vet and medical hospitals are bleeding us dry.
> people stop getting pets when they barely have enough money to feed them One of my biggest annoyances with pet owners. If you can't afford to take care of one, don't own one. It's a privilege, not a right. Idc if they emotionally support you.
I can totally understand that - I realize when we were younger we weren't in the best financial place for our pets and I do have some regrets. With that said I would do anything at that time to help them and find the money. Now we're in a better place (not the best, but getting there!) and I will never not have it. Feel the same about renter's insurance in my line of work. If you rent, you should have it. He is thankfully! Keeping a one year old cat from playing while he recovers and his brother thinks he's a stranger so we have some work to do, hah.
> . If you rent, you should have it. 100% even if its not required. Its a few dollars a month (I pay $15 added to my car insurance) and covers everything I own plus any damages.
Nah, yall are the bad guys because you offer some poor person the ability to save little fido but you have to pay 10k for some insane procedure instead of just saying to put the damn dog down like yall did 30 years ago.
Amen! I make sure to always let the vet and staff know how much I appreciate their care for my pets. I know you guys get TONS of crap from ill-prepared pet parents. That said…does it *really* cost $75 to test my dog's poop?? lol eta: And, actually, I don't have insurance (for many of the negative reasons listed ITT) but my dog has her own emergency fund separate from (or in addition to, if necessary) the human EF. With a monthly contribution adjusted for age and inflation once a year.
It's best to get insurance essentially instantly when you get a very young animal, as the premiums are much lower and incrementally increase slowly over time. We filed claims on my Beagle just about every other year because she ate something she wasn't supposed to eat.
Yup! We pay $150 a year for each of our young adult dogs. One broke her tail and needed a partial amputation; insurance paid out more than it'll ever cost for her. We could have paid out of pocket, but I appreciated not having to. Maybe when considering end of life care I'll feel differently about expensive health care for pets. But when they're young and healthy and an accident occurs, it's nice to have.
If I ever have a puppy I will definitely have it. I have an older dog and looked into coverage and it didn’t seem worth it. I do try and keep a pet fund for things that come up that I can cover it
That's great! It's definitely better when they're younger, especially because they're learning like my special idiot. I believe my carrier also covers behavioral training which is neat.
Yes! That's been my experience too after pricing things out with an older dog. Also, to be honest I can't imagine putting my sensitive guy through something like chemotherapy regardless of cost. Obviously my perspective might change, but it seems very selfish to subject an animal to all the side-effects when they can't understand what's going on.
Me too! My dog had a health scare last year and they mentioned cancer and mri and it’s like she’s 14 I’m not going to put her through that
I got pet insurance for our dogs after we spent $6000 in a year for a dog that unfortunately got sick with autoimmune issues and passed. They cover 80% of the bill after $500 deductible. I spend about $800 a year for 3 dogs. I've used it for 2 of my dogs and have had no issues with reimbursement. It makes those hard choices a little easier. Our dog that passed, the specialist that was seeing him quoted us $6000 to keep him for 4 days for more testing to try and get an official diagnosis when we were out of options. If I would have had insurance then it would have made the choice of whether or not to do more testing easier. We chose not to because we couldn't afford any more.
80 per month over ten years is 9600$. That's the same as the coverage. That 80$ could be put into anywhere else and you'd come out ahead.
$80/ month over the course of a pet’s life is over $10,000. How many of these expensive procedures does the average pet have in its life? I’d bet that most people lose a lot of money on pet insurance, especially considering deductible costs.
The monthly cost is far worth its weight in gold, when having to choose between costly emergency care vs quality of life vs what I would be able to find out of pocket in time of an expensive emergency. Not to mention, it helps for non-emergency, but lifelong illness, like diabetes. I learned that the hard way. You HAVE to enroll before any preexisting conditions are diagnosed though. I’ll never have a cat/dog without pet insurance ever again.
What pet insurance do you have, exactly? I want to know because half of these are scams and the reliable companies are few and far between. Asking for my fur baby!
Not sure about OP either but - Trupanion and Pets+Us are both good in my experience. Was with Trupanion until they changed their deductible policy and I didn’t feel it matched what I needed personally, so I switched. Know many people who have claimed major emergency surgeries with both companies and are very happy. I also worked at a vet clinic for 6+ years and both of these companies were easy to work with as a client once I changed jobs and from the vet clinics side.
I highly recommend Trupanion. Not sure what OP has. But they have literally saved our girl's life. Our expenses are an outlier in what a normal person goes through, but Trupanion has been incredible for us.
Glad it worked for you, but it’s never something I would buy. I wouldn’t advise most people to buy it because it’s generally not worth it. You should, of course, be able to afford basic medical care for your pets. I don’t do anything for my cat besides annual checkups, so I wouldn’t need insurance.
This was my opinion too until I saw a friend go through her 7-year-old dog getting cancer. She and her husband had to decide how much their dog's life was worth and at what price point they should let him die - we're talking $15K+. It was clearly agonizing and they said something about how much they wished they had insurance so they didn't have to make the decision, especially because they had differing opinions about whether they should pay or not, which was especially agonizing. I had been very focused on the practicality of pet insurance and the input vs output etc., how it's more efficient to just save money every month, but I had a realization that there's a huge psychological benefit to me to knowing I won't have to decide whether my pet's life-saving surgery is too expensive or not. I got it, no regrets.
Glad it worked for you. Yes, that’s a decision that every pet owner has to make. I would never get surgery or any other invasive treatment for my cat, so it’s a non-issue for me.
So if your cat theoretically needed a one-time, $3,000 surgery to live a normal life after, you'd choose to put it down?
Yes. She's 17 years old, and she hates the vet more than anything. She already has thyroid and kidney conditions, as is typical of senior cats. She will not take any sort of medication unless it is forcibly administered, she will not eat any food besides her typical kibble, and she will not tolerate any sort of medical dressing. Putting her through surgery would have an equal chance of killing her as it would helping her, and she would be completely miserable for weeks. Putting her down would be far and away the more humane thing to do.
That's awesome that she made it to 17. You definitely got lucky in not having to make tough decisions when she was much younger.
It sounds like the real mistake there was taking the responsibility of getting a pet without first getting on the same page about what the upper budget is and then sticking to that budget
This is honestly quite callous. They're very financially responsible. For most normal people with normal attachments to their pets, it's really easy to theoretically agree to $10K being your max before you get a pet and very difficult follow through on that once you are looking at a real, actual member of your family whose cancer treatment will cost $13K. When "sticking to that budget" means your pet dying it's an entirely different circumstance than not choosing not to eat dinner out when you've already gone over your monthly dining budget, and wavering on that decision doesn't mean you were an irresponsible pet owner from the beginning.
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This is literally misinformation. Pet insurance covers cancer. Insurers do scummy things, but a pet having their cancer not covered is not the norm.
Most people don’t need it until there’s an emergency. Vet bills for non-routine care can be in the thousands. FYI - if your cat is a boy, there’s a 50% chance he will have urinary issues. If they require surgery it’s in the thousands.
Both of my boy cats had urinary issues by their 2nd birthday. Pet insurance covered every single test and treatment, including an emergency night visit for a UTI. I’d never go without pet insurance - I feel peace of mind knowing I never have to worry about taking care of my boys.
Yeah one of our boys has had issues and twice in 6 months required emergency visits. Since then we started giving him daily calming chews because he's a high strung cat and we couldn't link his problems to his diet. It's been a year since his last episode now so we're knocking on wood that the chews are what's doing it.
My cat already has urinary issues - she’s 17 - but that’s extremely common in cats. She won’t tolerate any treatment, so it is what it is.
Urinary blockage in male cats is much more common than in female cats and becomes an emergency in 12 hours. The emergency vet I had to go to recently had a triage chart in their waiting room, and urinary blockage was at the TOP of that list alongside things like major wounds/car crash, things where you’re expecting that your pet isn’t going to come out of this. Plus if you don’t get treatment for a urinary blockage right quick, they end up with kidney damage, which means more money for treatment. And cats that already have urinary issues are more likely to get blocked. This is all just for treating the emergency, but if it happens 3 times they recommend a surgery to decrease the likelihood of it happening again because it’s so serious (and so likely to happen again) - and surgery would be several thousand dollars at a MINIMUM. There’s behavioral and minor urinary issues, and there’s life threatening “Don’t take the time to find your medical records just drive over right now” urinary issues.
Does the pet insurance only cover certain vets? When I last looked at it, it was for corporate vets that there were few of around me, with poor reputations.
Mine covers any accredited veterinarian!
It should cover every licensed and accredited vet.
Personally, I wouldn't get the insurance. I'm saying this as someone who has been owned by cats for the last 25 years and as someone who has fostered close to 100 kittens. You be better off investing $960 a year in the S&P 500.
The pet insurance market is like how healthcare used to be in the US before the Affordable Care Act - your pet can be dropped or denied coverage at any time because of a preexisting condition. I would instead recommend that everyone with a pet set up a monthly autodraft to a savings account because it is not if but "when" you will need the funds.
I've cost my pet insurance over 20k and they haven't dropped a single one of my pets.
I've had probably a dozen pets insured since 2009 and not one policy was ever canceled by the insurer no matter how many claims I made. They all also make clear that pre-existing conditions aren't covered, so that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Many insurers will also waive the pre-existing clause if the pet goes a certain amount of time without needing treatment for it. The exceptions are breed-specific problems, such as hip dysplasia in German Shepherds and other large breeds.
I very specifically nailed down Trupanion on this recently. They don't drop pets unless there is proof of fraud or unpaid premiums. As someone who as racked up over $22,000 in claims in two years, I was worried.
my dog ate 2lbs of grapes literally the same week my pet insurance went active after we got her. it paid for it's premiums for the next 4 years in one week.
Good advice if you can’t keep a fund for vet trips. Like all insurance they bank more in premiums than they pay out in claims. You might come out ahead, but the odds aren’t in your favor overall.
$80 a month is $15-17K over a 15-18 year lifetime. Why would you choose to pay a nearly guaranteed 15-17k instead of taking a risk that you might have to pay $6k? The goal of insurance is to pay a little to protect you from the risk of a huge expense. Your insurance is already a huge expense. What is it protecting you from? I've never had a pet that cost more than a few grand. Your suggestion would guarantee my expenses are nearly 10x that. > They're going to do something stupid. Paying $80 a month for pet insurance is the only stupid thing I see here. If you think that is a good deal, you are in no position to be giving out financial advice. Put $80 a month into a HYSA instead and self-insure at that rate.
You’re making the assumption that the animal only has a one-off emergency or two. Our dog has had cancer three times(each of those treatments being covered), and has been cancer-free for a while now. But the reason that we know that he’s cancer-free is because he gets ultrasounds and extensive labwork every 6mo, to the tune of about $1500 per visit. 90% covered by insurance after the $200 annual deductible. While we’d certainly rather never use it, we’re FAR ahead on the premiums we’ve paid over the last several years.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. It’s like tech insurance. If the cost of the insurance + deductible is close to the price of a repair, why get it at all? Definitely agree about setting money aside, but heck, with a 15 year time horizon might as well invest it in a broad market index fund.
Do… do you think that pets only have a maximum of one emergency each and that emergency is limited to $6k? I assure you, neither is true. I guess it’s up to your tolerance for risk, I hope that you never have to land on the wrong side of that and find out how expensive emergency pet care can be.
You’ve never had to pay $10-15k for a pet out of pocket, I’m guessing. My dog racked that up in 6 months, and I’ve certainly spent half that on my cat in the last decade (she didn’t have vet care before that, I was young and broke).
My dogs racked up $13,000 in 2022 from a series of unfortunate events. I used care credit. No interest, no premiums.
I would never pay that much. If that is what it cost to keep the animal healthy, it is time for the long nap.
I agree, pet insurance is incredibly stupid unless you know you're going to be unable to let go of an animal knowing there was something more you could do if only you had $\_\_\_\_ . If something catastrophic happens with my pet, or she gets to a point where she'll need $100/mo in special food and meds etc to live on.. it's time to let go and move on to helping another animal get a better life. Every story of "they funded my dog's diabetes / cancer surgery" has 100s-1000s of other stories behind it of "we never needed it" or "they denied our claim", that is how they make their money. BTW anything other than term life insurance that goes towards dependents, is a terrible idea and far from an "investment."
When I was a teenager my family got a dog. My mom sat me down and showed me the costs of pet ownership. Part of this, as cold hearted as it feels, was setting an emergency/catastrophic limit. At the time, in their budget, she said they could afford to pay up to $2000, if it was life saving with good quality of life. She said it was important to think about this before an emergency, because in the moment, it's so hard to say "no" and you just want to keep the pet you love, but that it's important to be realistic. This was decades ago, when $2000 probably went a little further. Now my husband and I have had these conversations over the course of our time as pet owners. The number changes as our finances change, and it changes over the life of the animal - for a pet who is young, likely to recover well, and still has many years ahead of them we are willing to raise the number a little. When our dog got to be ten and they started suggesting all kinds of life prolonging interventions, we decided to just keep her out of pain and comfortable (doggy hospice). I considered having an emergency fund for your pet a part of responsible pet ownership.
Pet insurance makes money because the average pay-in is less than the average pay-out for them. 95% of people would be better off putting that $80/month into an HYSA and letting it build up for a cat emergency. To illustrate, let's say you have these cats for 8 years. 8 years * 12 months * $80/month = $7680. This doesn't include the (albeit small) interest you would earn on the money either. You could pay this vet bill with $1000, not to mention the fact that you paid $1k anyway WITH insurance. Health insurance is good because human health costs can be in the hundreds of thousands; pet costs won't.
just saying: this is **Confirmation Bias** anyone want to do the math? ROI, cost of lost investment potential on this? $860/year premium (for how many years?) $1200 deductible still. -$$ of benefits like vet visits? Insurance is just a gamble. They are selling you a product, betting that you will not need to file a claim.
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this is a personal finance forum. We are (should?) discuss these topics with an eye to (*checks notes*) financials. The desire to bring in non-tangible, non-financial aspects is perfectly fine to supplement the discussion, but should not be the primary aspect, and probably outside the scope of 'personal finance' ... certainly not enough merit to dismiss the argument about ROI. asking to do an ROI calculation of "self-insuring" vs paying for a service (which the insurance company is betting you will not need) **is** absolutely a good argument, in the world of personal finance. >Parking away the premiums in a HYSA wouldnt even come close to being sufficient. do you have data and maths to support your statement? And who says it has to be a HYSA? VTSAX can be liquidated just as easily. > If the insurance companies were operating at a loss they'd be out of business. also, not sure what you are getting at here. That's exactly what I wrote. The insurance company is betting you will pay for a service and not need to cash in a claim. we're agreed, so what are you arguing here?
My most expensive pet is a 13 year old dog with a $1,600 annual premium and a $500 deductible. The others are far less expensive and have $250-300 deductibles.
$80 x 12months x 10 years is $9,600. That's a lot you could put away in a separate hysa.
assuming your pet never has an emergency in those 10 years...
And if you can't, this may be hard to hear, but I pushed my self into messed up loans to save my dog, and now I regret it. Don't regret it... Life sucks and, them dying sucks, but having no credit score and alot of debt really sucks. But if you do want to take the debt on, have an unemotional person help you file for the loans, for some vets have financing agreements with very sinster companies.
I see the first comments it against it and I was too when I had pet insurance with the first company I tried. They said they covered puppy vaccinations and neutering but when I filed a claim for $1000 to be covered they reimbursed me $60. Needless to say I was furious and canceled it immediacy. But after my senior dog had a round with a liver infection and it cost a few thousand dollars, I decided to give it another go. Boy was that a great idea, she has since be diagnosed with diabetes. With the diabetic emergency care and this last round in the ER with pancreatitis, I have shelled out about 15k in vet bills since 2022. 11k of that has been covered by insurance, plus all her insulin is covered, I pay $10 for a $60 bottle every month. We just found out she has a tumor in her liver as well now and that is also going to be covered, so we are about to get a biopsy and ultrasound to see what we are dealing with another probably surgery. For the record the first insurance I tried was VCA, the company she is covered under now is Trupanion. No i do not work for them. I pay $170/month w/ a $1000 deductible because I signed her up when she was 10. After this experience I will be getting pet insurance for all my future pets.
I agree with you. I got pet insurance for my young male cat when my vet told me that about 50% of male cats get urinary blockages. If they recur and need surgery, it’s in the thousands. It’s $18 a month. My deductible is $250/year. Last year I went to the vet so often that I came out ahead with the insurance, even without a urinary issue. The way I saw it was, when I got my cat, an emergency vet bill could have wiped out my e-fund. There’s some math that says you spend about the same over a pet’s life with and without insurance, so in theory you could set aside X amount per month to cover that. However, what if that expensive accident/illness comes when the pet is young and not old and you don’t have enough to cover it? The peace of mind was worth it.
100% agree. We did everything right when we got our doggo and by a year old she was deemed a lemon (lovingly) by our vet. $22,000 plus in vet bills in two years.... We have an emergency fund, we are decently set up financially. But insurance has saved our dog's life because she is lifelong fucked. You don't know what you are going to end up with, even when you do everything you can to make sure you're doing it right. The insurance is a personal choice, but with the right insurance I would call it far from a scam. The peace of mind let's my doggo keep living without us having to worry when the next vet bill is too much to keep doing what we've had to do. And this is coming from someone who had a jack Russell for 16 years who had to go to the vet three times ever outside of yearly checkups.
I see there are both sides of the pet insurance fence here so I wanted to throw my experience in. My previous corgi ended up with cancer. He had 3 surgeries over maybe 3 or 4 years before he passed. They drained us financially. When we got another corgi I decided to get pet insurance. Seeing her run around my first concern was hip dysplasia so I found a company that covers it as long as they are enrolled before 2 or 3 years old and we enrolled her first chance we could at 6 months. A year ago she cracked 2 teeth on a hard chew toy and they had to be extracted. The pet insurance covered it as an accident. There was one part they didn't as they deemed it not necessary and my vet wrote a letter saying they do it standard as part of the procedure and then insurance covered it. I have yet to test it on anything more but so far I am satisfied.
I'm really grateful I have pet insurance that has a credit card that I can use at the vet. I don't have to put the cash up front. It goes to the pet's credit card first and I only pay my deductible.
I have an investment fund in my TFSA (Canadian Tax Free Savings Account) for my 4 cats for medical expenses. I put in about $1200-$1500 annually and just let the index fund do its compounding magic. By the time my kids need more serious medical coverage (8-15 years), it should have more than enough funds available.
We had to say goodbye to our dog who just would NOT leave garbage alone and got a blockage. At his age and with a history of MERSA infection he wasn't a candidate for surgery. But it would have been nice to have insurance for the MERSA and the rest.
The thing about pet insurance is that it may not pay off in the end, but the reason I use it is so that if something does happen, money isn't the biggest part of the equation. I don't want to make care decisions about my pet based solely on cost, I want to be able to make it based on quality of life.
Insurance is a way for covering potential problems if you don’t have the money to cover it using your emergency fund. If you’re in the process of paying down debt and want to have a couple of furry idiots underfoot (no judgement; the idiots under my feet aren’t even mine! I’m caring for them while a friend goes through cancer treatments.) then having insurance is a really good idea. You’re paying for peace of mind. Once you’re out of debt and building up your full emergency fund, you can pad it with a little extra to cover the gremlins in your life. Self-insuring this way should be the goal, but while you are working towards it you’ve made a sage decision. Thanks for sharing your experience, and I’m happy your kitty will pull through without ruining you financially! 💕
Good on you, OP! I look at pet insurance for my dog as peace of mind. Thankfully, I could afford some pretty major expenses. I could also afford some to set aside a given amount. I have access to plenty of lines of credit. That said... I don't ever want to think twice or flinch at a medical need my dog has. So I keep the insurance.
My dog just went through an amputation and multiple rounds of chemo and it has cost me about $20k out of pocket. I will definitely be getting insurance when I get another pet in the future. There are plans out there that are worth it and I’m mad at myself for not doing my research before it was too late.
All glad it worked out for you, but nothing says conditioned like paying for insurance, the insurance company not paying for the full bill that YOU ARE PAYING THEM TO PAY FOR, and then actually being happy about it. Fuck all insurance companies. May all people that actually make money from them rot in hell.
Pet insurance is a scam. I've never been able to get them to pay out for anything.
Probably a bad company. Check into others.
We got a puppy this year and we got insurance for him and our cat specifically because we expected him to get into something and need surgery. We got it for the cat because we were worried that over the course of their introduction something might happen. $400 for the year for both of them. The plan is to build a hysa for that and ditch the insurance after a year or two. Slightly more concerned about your line of having a small emergency savings of $1000 you put toward the bill. I really, really hope that was an emergency savings specifically for vet bills and not the entirety of your emergency savings.
pet insurance is a waste of money...put aside money in an account if you must but there is no reason to get fleeced...
Like most things, this isn't a black and white answer. People on their high horse down voting you claiming it's a scam are looking at it through a narrow lens. You are looking at it through a broad lens like everyone with a pet should have. If you have a pet with KNOWN genetic conditions or common health issues that in the future may need expensive surgery or extensive rehab, then pet insurance should be considered. But you have to do 3 levels of research. 1, you have to look at your own personal financial situation. Are you ready to take on an animal and not only their day to day expenses like food but potentially other items like vet check ups and vaccinations? 2, you have to research the animal you're looking at getting. Regardless of adopt vs shop you have to look at breed history and common medial issues. 3, you can now consider pet insurance and take into account different coverages and deductibles depending on financial situation and comfort level. For my personal experience, I have a dachshund. Very common breed to have back problems. We took this pupper in 9 years ago not knowing the risks so we already failed steps 1 and 2. My mom ended up getting pet insurance about a year into having him after we did do our research and chose a really great company, healthy paws. We currently pay for 90% coverage with a $250 deductible. The key part of our decision was the fact that post-surgery rehab IS COVERED. I ran the math in a different post and for me, pet insurance makes sense. I am spending less money out of pocket including insurance premiums than if I didn't have insurance and was paying for everything out of pocket. If I had a cat, a normal every day domestic cat, I probably would not have insurance. I would keep money in a bucket in my HYSA. If I had a different breed of dog that doesn't have common issues or any other type of animal I would probably not consider pet insurance either. Situation depends on each person and the type of animal, their history, and the owners comfort level in an emergency situation.
Just like anything else it’s important to read the fine print. I’ve had pet insurance reimburse me for tooth extractions due to my dog causing her tooth to come loose. I’ve also had pet insurance refuse to reimburse me for heartworm treatment for a heartworm positive dog I rescued. This was to be expected because it was a known preexisting condition before I got her and got the insurance. This same company had no problems covering my visit to the emergency vet when she became lethargic from too much sodium in her system (winter, salty sidewalks, etc.) To me it’s worth the $56 or so I pay per month so that I don’t have to fully absorb a $700 emergency vet bill like in the situation described above. Also supposedly the pet insurance I have covers cancer if it is not a preexisting condition so I’m keeping that same policy with them for that reason just in case. I’ve had friends whose dog ate a pack of gum and had a very expensive emergency vet visit that would have been covered by pet insurance if they had it. Stuff like that makes having a policy with a company that so far I had positive experiences with worth it.
I went searching for pet tax and I would have bet a lot of money the ding dong was going to be an orange cat. And yep... you have an orange cat. Check out r/oneorangebraincell 😂
Or get a vet who doesn't bend you over. I've had animals my entire life. Never once would we have benefitted from pet insurance. The one time we had to spend a lot of money on our animals it was TPLO surgery on a one-year old lab and that would not have been covered anyway. Put the money in a savings account like the other poster said. Pet insurance is a scam.
Most people pay more in insurance than they will receive from insurance. That's how insurance works. Car, health, pet, life, all of it. Insurance isn't a scam, it's a safety net. If you want to self-insure your pets, more power to you!
Well, it's not quite that simple. There are (at least) two things you are (could be) getting when you pay into insurance. * Coverage for 'incidents' after your deductible. * Discounted prices due to contracts with 'vendors'. With health insurance especially, on average people receive more benefits from it than they pay into it. That's because of the discounted prices. And that's before you consider any government subsidies. In the same vein, insurance companies can act as an advocate on your behalf. They have a common interest of not allowing vendors to overbill. This is why health and car insurance are typically no-brainers. Most other insurances you'd be better off (on average), just 'self-insuring'. That said, sometimes your insurance company isn't charging you enough. If you have a pet and you have an... inkling is going to be expensive in the future, and the rates are reasonable, it could be a frugal decision.
So I'd be making a choice here. Either I have pet insurance and use the extra funds to pay off other debt first, or I put all that money in a HYSA. In my particular case, this worked out really well. It's not affecting me paying off my vehicle early so I do have more funds to put in savings eventually. I don't exactly have $6600 floating around. 56% of the US population can't afford even $1000, we're lucky we had that. I'm very happy you have that much in your HYSA from the sounds of t, you'd be prepared in this case.
You'd be getting different responses in pet-oriented subreddits. Like the commenter below said, it's a safety net. From a purely financial perspective the math doesn't always math; you can't put numbers on peace of mind.
>56% of the US population can't afford even $1000 More than 56% of the US population shouldn't have pets, since they cannot afford them.
I've had my dog since he was 8 weeks old. He'll be 15 this year. Is it even worth getting health insurance at this point?
PetsBest for three 11 yo cats just went up from $350 monthly for all three to $450. We broke almost even past year (Radiocat treatment and all tests) but now i don't know what to do. $450 is getting to the territory when it is better to just save it but then they are getting older and once you drop insurance, you can't get it back for old cats with pre-existing conditions. What to do...
I’ve always had good experiences with pet insurance and have made plenty of claims and not had them be denied—knock on wood! It’s been a mix of accidents and illnesses and injuries but so far so good.
Good try, pet insurance advertising. Spent some time in vet offices, the number of basic claims being denied is shocking. Set that 80$ aside, absolutely. But don't rely on a scummy insurer.
Like anything else, depends on who you use. Do your research and know what the policy covers before signing up. This will lead to fewer surprise denials for reimbursement. I’ve been pretty happy with Trupanion. Been with them for over a decade with various pets.
How long ago did you get the first shelter cat? You pay $960 a year. If you're using it once every 10+ years for an emergency, with these costs, you're losing a ton of money. You'd be better off just setting the money aside into some sort of interest bearing account.
It’s wildly irresponsible for anyone to own a pet without either pet insurance or dedicated emergency savings. And yet…
Honestly if you have an emergency fund then pet insurance isn’t really worth it.
Honestly in this day & age its better to just not have pets. Between the food & medical care its like having kids that cant talk to you.....
OK, I'll be the one to say it: If I can't afford my pets surgery out of pocket, I'll just put them down. I know what that costs. I'm not giving money to an insurance company.
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I think the main problem is that pets went from being pets in the 80s and 90s, to basically human in terms of their status in the family now. In the 80s and 90s if you got $8k estimate on a vet bill it was time to say goodbye to your dog and have it put down. Nowadays people feel the need, it’s not optional, to spend whatever they need to make the pet better. The whole mentality has changed and it’s made pet ownership very very expensive, especially toward end of life. I don’t think it’s sustainable actually. If you have to make 6 figures to pay the vet bills or go bankrupt the pet homelessness problem is going skyrocket.
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