Pet Insurance

[Ashton]

What are peoples thoughts on pet insurance? I'm thinking about getting it for my next dog because I was adding up everything I've spent medical bill wise for my current dog and after two cherry eye surgeries, two acl tear / replacements, other random costs I've spent about 15k on this dog and his medical stuff over 14 years.

Alternatively, I was looking at dog insurance plans and it looks like premiums are 20-30 bucks a month and they cover 90% of the costs if anything happens. Even over a 14 year period @ 20 bucks that's only $3360.

Does anyone have any experience with pet insurance?

[Sharpienads]

I don't, but I've thought about it as well. Will be interesting to hear the replies.

[cstone]

They aren't covered under Obamacare?

Pets are personal and emotional. If you can afford it and it works for you, go for it. The only pets I would have covered are working dogs, whose training and experience makes their value worth the expense.

I love dogs and cats. I've loved every pet I've had and miss each and everyone of them. Ultimately, they die. I do what I can to keep them safe and comfortable, but I personally can't justify the same level of health care for a pet that I do for my children. But that is just me. YMMV

Be safe.

[FastMan]

They aren't covered under Obamacare?

Only if they've crossed into the country illegally.

[Zundfolge]

I don't want to encourage pet insurance.

Widespread use of health insurance to cover every little thing is the biggest factor in the exorbitant cost of health care in humans ... I'd hate for the same thing to happen to veterinary medicine.

We just adopted a kitten a couple weeks ago and they were trying to push the pet insurance on us then. Frankly it would have been expensive enough that we'd be better off just setting aside the cost of the premiums into sort of a medical savings account for the cat.


Looking back over the last few pets we've owned, only one of them would have paid off (Corgi we had had two ACL surgeries at about $2500 a pop) The rest of them (two cats, two dogs and a love bird) cost us less than a grand total.

They aren't covered under Obamacare?

Yeah, and eventually they'll be able to vote

[Jer]

Personally, I can't stand it. I see it doing exactly what health care did for medical costs for humans... masking the true price of medical care and driving the price through the roof to where nobody can afford it otherwise and then eventually even with pet health care you can't afford medical care. It's broken our economy so let's carry the same business model over to our pets. Why not.

Bottom line, it's a way for corporations who provide it to make profit. Period. They don't care about your beloved pet any more than insurance companies care about the humans they deny every day in the spirit of growing profits.

[00tec]

Thought about it for the bird when I got her, but ended up passing on it. Seeing as I've only had to spend $165 in the past 5 or so years, I think I made the right decision. Now that I do the math on it, $20/mo for insurance over 50+ years would hurt....