Pet insurance?

[Wildcat]

Does anyone here have experience with pet insurance?

I'm just getting started in my research and it seems just as murky an area as human insurance as to what it covers, extra options, etc.

Do they actually pay what they say they do? Are the policies that cover vaccinations, xrays, dentals, etc, worth it?

[Laura Corin]

My UK experience is that the premiums gets really, really expensive as the pet gets older, even if there are no claims.  We cancelled ours in the end.

From friends' experience, it's really good if a dog gets a serious injury/illness when young, but the normal illnesses of old age are not made much cheaper by insurance.

[Pawz4me]

I think it's (maybe) better than it used to be, but I've never been able to make it make sense for us. Make sure you research hereditary/genetic exclusions and caps on premium increases. Also make sure to differentiate between wellness plans and insurance plans.

Instead of pet insurance we put a set amount of money into savings every month to build up/maintain a pet fund. How much we save depends on how many pets we have at the time and their ages, how much things like heart worm and flea preventative have increased, etc.

[itsheresomewhere]

I don’t use it as I never could get the numbers to work out well for us.  Instead, I put money aside every month in an account just for the animals.  
 

If this helps-  when my tiny dog’s eye popped out of his socket and he had emergency surgery, what they would have covered was not close to the premiums and what I would have paid if I had used it for that surgery.  I was much cheaper out of pocket. 

[KSera]

51 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

From friends' experience, it's really good if a dog gets a serious injury/illness when young, but the normal illnesses of old age are not made much cheaper by insurance.

This is where I’ve come down. I haven’t gotten it for dogs we’ve gotten when they were older, but realized the numbers made sense for us when they are young. Young dogs can have expensive problems, and while I could make a decision not to treat a 12 year old dog for cancer or something else that was very expensive, it would be a terrible thing to make such a decision with a young dog. Reading stories of people whose young dogs needed $10-30,000 of vet care made me pull the trigger. The $40 monthly premium put away in savings instead would only add up to $480 in a pet savings account—that’s not going to do much even with more common vet emergencies like surgery for blockage due to puppy eating something dumb. 
 

I researched ones that didn’t exclude genetic conditions and didn’t have a bunch of exclusions. The wellness plans on the other hand didn’t make any sense to me financially and I didn’t add that on. 

[Tree Frog]

My dd got a rescue dog that had been dropped off by the previous owners, so the extensive medical history was known. The dog had been hit by a car and had reconstructive surgery on its broken back leg. DD purchased pet insurance through her work, but chose to discontinue it because it didn't cover any preexisting conditions. It wouldn't have covered anything that could have come from either the car hit or the reconstructive surgery and she was seeing he was already needing pain meds for it. He recently had a tumor removed and she said it would have covered only a small portion of the surgery to remove it. 

[itsheresomewhere]

For an example-  we had one come into work last week that just had a biopsy, X-rays, bloodwork and something else.  The bill was over 2000 and their pet insurance paid 500.  

[KSera]

8 hours ago, itsheresomewhere said:

For an example-  we had one come into work last week that just had a biopsy, X-rays, bloodwork and something else.  The bill was over 2000 and their pet insurance paid 500.  

This depends on the insurance option chosen also though. You can pick one with a high deductible and/or lower coverage amount so that your monthly payments or lower, or you can pick one of the low deductible and/or high or unlimited coverage ones and pay more each month. It sounds like in that case they must have chosen a high deductible, low coverage plan. I said above that we’ve always opted against insurance when we’ve had older dogs, but I don’t think I would be without it for a young dog again. It would take a long time of putting the amount a premium costs away to ever save up enough for anything expensive. If a dog needs $10,000 in treatment, you’re not going to have that available when you need it just by putting $50 a month away in savings. Even $2500 of treatment will take a long time to have enough for and a sick or injured dog clearly can’t wait until your fund has grown big enough. 
 

Just sharing my perspective as someone who was always anti-pet insurance in the past because it seemed like it made more sense to put the money aside in an account, but then changed my tune when I realized how expensive our young dog’s vet bills could easily be if she swallowed something she shouldn’t or got injured and that there are some very good pet insurances out there now that don’t have all the exceptions. I didn’t ever want to be in the position of having to decide I couldn’t afford to spend $10,000 on her all at once.

 

[Clarita]

I'm trying out pet insurance this year. DH's company is sponsoring part of it like the human health insurance. I'll see how I like it. I've definitely heard bad things about pet insurance (like they really find a way for it not to cover anything) and wouldn't consider it if I had to pay for the insurance completely myself.