Does Anyone Have Pet Insurance?

TravelJunkie1234 · May 2015

Hi All,

This is sorta MM related. I'm just wondering if any of you have pet insurance, and if you think it's worth it.

I used to take my cats to Banfield (through Petsmart) and pay for their health plan that they offer (about $25/cat each month--which is not actually insurance, it's more like a preventative maintenance plan). I won't bore you with details, but after a long, difficult ordeal with our oldest cat that cost us a small fortune before he passed, I was left with a really bad taste in my mouth and I have decided to get away from Banfield and switch all our pets to an independent vet instead.

The only thing is my family has always used Banfield so I have no idea how most other vet offices operate in regards to cost, preventative care, and things like that. Is it worth getting insurance through a company like VPI? DH gets a discount from his work for them and if I put all 4 of our pets on their "Major Medical Plan" it will cost about $73/month which is less than what I currently pay for Banfield (I can also save a bit if I pay for a full year at a time). That plan covers accidents, xrays, surgeries, etc. It does not cover vaccines and regular preventative care (they do have an option to help cover those costs but it would add another $60/month and would only pay a small portion so I'm thinking it wouldn't be worth it) but the vet that I am looking at switching to charges about $175/cat for all their yearly vaccines and a yearly check-up, which I don't think sounds too bad (someone please let me know if that sounds unreasonable).

I'm just trying to decide if having insurance for our cats is worthwhile.

Thanks in advance!

abrewer5 · May 2015

I don't have pet insurance on my dog, so I can't comment on that, but I would definitely get away from the Banfield plan if you aren't satisfied and it seems like it's a decent amount of money but not covering a lot of the necessities when an emergency comes up. I'm not sure about your area but I'm in MD and a lot of time the local rescues/fire departments will have weekends where a vet is on site to give dogs (probably cats too) their vaccines like rabies for $5-10. This could significantly reduce the cost of the yearly check up if you get the vaccines elsewhere and only do a wellness visit at your regular vet. You can also look at low cost options for vaccine clinics in your area. We have one that charges $50 for all the regular yearly vaccines that we go to. We wouldn't use this place as our regular vet if there was an emergency, but they've been pretty good to us so far.

We haven't had to take our dog to the vet for an emergency (knock on wood), but if you don't want to pay the monthly insurance premium it might be a good idea to budget X amount of money each month for pet expenses. Once I pay off my school loan (sort of doing a debt snowball and will have it paid off next year) I am going to start putting away around $75-100 a month for my dog if something were to happen. This might help ease your mind if an emergency were to come up versus paying for insurance.

Edited because I apparently can't spell.

Xstatic3333 · May 2015

We have a very basic plan with Pet First. The first month was free with our adoption, and it is $17/month after. It covers accidents/illnesses/surgeries up to $1000, UNLESS it's considered "preventable." For example his tapeworm medicine wasn't covered, since it's caused by fleas, even though he actually was on flea preventative when we discovered them (sigh...)

For most people I don't think pet insurance is worth it, but with our dog so far it's been one thing after another and we've gotten two years worth of premiums back in three months. While I was in FL, for example, H became convinced that Baxter ate a tin foil wrapper and took him to the emergency vet. Induced vomiting and an x-Ray failed to turn up the wrapper, which was later found under our couch (double sigh...) Our insurance still covered $200 of the $250 bill.

If you do get it I'd recommend Pet First. They've filled our claims quickly.

formerlyGDaisy09 · May 2015

I did the math on pet insurance a while ago and decided it wasn't worth it. most things that we incur vet-bills for were not covered (preventative, spay/neuter, pre-existing conditions...ie. if you animal has ever been treated for it in the past, it isn't covered, dental proceedures) then on everything else there was a deductible, plus a coverage limit. we have 2 cats and a dog, for basic covereage for the 3 of them it was going to be close to $100 a month for the premium. we figured we'd be better off sticking that money into a savings account for emergencies.

we did sign-up for CareCredit, which allows us to pay for bigger costs interest free for 6 months, it's worked well for us, we've had a few months where vet-bills did pile-up and it's been nice to have a grace period to pull the cash together to pay for it.

vlagrl29 · May 2015

I don't think its worth it. Right now our dog is healthy and we only pay for the annual dog visit which we save for in our annual savings account.

TravelJunkie1234 · May 2015

Thanks All! The more I think about it, the more I think it's just not worth it to insure all 4 pets, especially since they're all healthy (it might have been worth it for our cat that passed, if we had gotten it for him before he developed all his health problems, but no guarantee that it would have paid off).

I like the idea of just putting that money into savings each month in case something happens. They aren't due for their shots or anything until September so I've got some time to save look around to see if there are any low cost clinics near me.

Thanks again!

juliebeannn · May 2015

We have healthy paw pet insurance. We got it on our rescue pittie the day we adopted him. He had no pre-existing conditions, so anything that comes up from here on out, he's covered for. It's $35/month and after a $200 deductible, 90% is reimbursed. Like others have said, office visits, vaccines and routine things are not covered.

We've had our furbaby for only 9 months so far, and we've already benefited from having this insurance. He had roundworms, a urinary tract infection and a bladder infection within the first 6 months, so we were thankful we had the insurance. I'm sure there will be years when we won't need the insurance, but we'd rather be safe than sorry. I have a few friends whose dogs tore ligaments in their legs from slipping on ice this winter. I get peace of mind knowing that if our Moose were to hurt himself, we wouldn't have to face a $4-5k vet bill.

Edit: grammar

blondie42107 · May 2015

We've had two cats for the past 7 years. We said goodbye to our first cat (of 9 years) a couple weeks ago. Other than regular vet checks and shots, I think he was to the vet twice up until his health changed. The insurance would not have been worth it for us. What we spent in the last six months, between vet appts, tests, hospitalization (5 days), even adding in the Rx food, I'm sure was less than what we would have spent in premiums. I would vote to have a pet fund.

TravelJunkie1234 · May 2015

blondie42107 said:
We've had two cats for the past 7 years. We said goodbye to our first cat (of 9 years) a couple weeks ago. Other than regular vet checks and shots, I think he was to the vet twice up until his health changed. The insurance would not have been worth it for us. What we spent in the last six months, between vet appts, tests, hospitalization (5 days), even adding in the Rx food, I'm sure was less than what we would have spent in premiums. I would vote to have a pet fund.

I'm so sorry for your loss! I know how hard it is to lose a furry member of your family.

Does Anyone Have Pet Insurance?

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