Do you have pet insurance?

What company is doing pet insurance?

I have 3 cats. I don’t have pet insurance. They’re not sickly cats. In the past, if the cat needed surgery I just paid for it. If they are sick I take them to the vet but luckily they’re not going to the vet too often.

Didn’t even know it was a thing. Took our cat to a walk in Vet awhile back, forty bucks for an antibiotic. Worked well and not all that pricey. He’s back to normal.

I do. My company offers it through Nationwide Insurance. I have it on both my dogs.

The monthly premium is about $60/dog and they cover a yearly check up with all the shots, teeth cleaning with anesthesia, and getting them spayed or neutered.

Any non-wellness or emergency care, they pay a varying percentage of. It seems like the greater the emergency, the more they pay.

It’s a reimbursement system, so you pay the vet/hospital up front, then submit your claim form online (which is very easy), and they reimburse you.

I think it’s worth it.

@cookieman Thanks, that’s what I was curious about.
For my spoiled dogs, I think $120 a month is far more than their bills. I’ll think about it though.

@KRD I didn’t look at the underwriter but many big companies are offering it now.

@cookieman Do you know if pre-existing conditions are a factor? Also does it include heart worm meds?

@chyna: Pre-existing conditions are not an issue because I got coverage on my 12-year old Maltese when she was 8 and already had some eye, dental, and, joint issues.

It covers hear worm tests completely and you get a discount on meds if you buy them through your vet. If you get them through Chewy or Amazon or such, there is no reimbursement.

Vet bills are really reasonable compared to human doctor bills. No. We don’t have insurance.

I don’t but I have been thinking about getting it for me new cat. I had a cat who lived to19 years old and I must have have spent over $20,000 over that time period. Not doing that again.

There are so many pet insurance providers with a multitude of coverage options, and from all of my research I have decided that I can cover most issues, even if I have to use a credit card, but I do think I will get accident only pet insurance. It’s not just if your pet gets hurt, it’s for medical emergencies like obstructions, acute heart and lung issues, etc. I figure that’s when the bills can really add up, and I’d like some help with paying for vet bills in such a situation.

I signed up for pet insurance in 2022 thru our company. It will cover accidental injuries and routine care, since that is what I would use most. There was coverage available for sickness, but it was very expensive. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Years ago I had a policy that covered all vet visits. I barely got over the deductible, and it was such a pain that I rarely made any claims. => waste of $.

@RocketGuy Thanks, please do! This is our first year so I passed until I learn more.

Had pet insurance for our amazon parrot for a while but that covered only a fraction of normal checkup visits and less for bloodwork checkup, so we dropped it.

Yes, we finally got that last year. It’s very reassuring in emergencies (of which there were two since). Ours covers a health check, vaccinations, and a certain amount of meds each year – but we mostly got it for the peace of mind. Last week, when my Lab crashed into another dog and cracked a tooth in half, it was nice to at least know it would all be taken care of financially. I don’t think savings feel as comforting. It “hurts” more when it’s your money, not just money that once was yours.

Now that I know I’m going to try to get it for our dog Kevin.

@KRD Let me know later on if it works out for you if you can remember. :)

I do not. In Seattle, there are many good vets, but they tended to be expensive, and one ended up getting bought by a large corporation and started offering pet insurance, which they said would lower one’s total expenses over the lifetime of a pet, but IIRC was for care by their company, so IIRC it also locked you into using them, and it seemed like it would have been good to have purchased when the pet was young (and didn’t likely need much medical expense) but was likely not a so great deal to get late in a pet’s life.

If I had a young pet and was planning to stay in one place with a similar sort of vet that I liked, I’d consider it.

But I have the impression that (like other insurance, and like US health care for humans) it’s the beginning of a path to disastrous exploitation, because for the most part, the insurance industry’s purpose is not to make everything more affordable for everyone else – it’s purpose is to make as large a NET profit as it can for itself and it’s stockholders, and that’s ON TOP OF all the administrative costs of insurance complicating medical billing and requiring office building full of insurance industry staff and medical administrators managing paperwork and accounting and all that added gobbledigook.

Another option is to find a good but much cheaper vet. For example, some rural vets are much cheaper than vets in big expensive cities.

@Zaku True.

I have three cats and if I paid minimum of 50 a month each for them to have insurance, that’s 150×12. Other than one cat needing cancer surgery twice and a few other times of relatively minor health issues on other cats, their bills are relatively small. It wouldn’t pay for me to pay for insurance for the 3 of them.