I’ll never forget the day my seven-year-old son came running into the living room to tell me there was something wrong with our dog, Buddy.
Admittedly, at the time I was more interested in the football game on TV, so it took a moment for me to register that something was wrong.
“What do you mean he can’t breathe?” I asked with one eye still on the game.
I followed my son to the backyard and found our normally-active little Pomeranian on his side, gasping for air.
There was something lodged in his throat that I couldn’t see, so I wasted no time in getting him to the emergency vet.
When we got there, Dr. Aziz was able to facilitate Buddy’s breathing, but she informed me that whatever he’d ingested was now in his stomach, and that to get it out, Buddy would most likely need gastrointestinal foreign body surgery.
I didn’t hesitate for a second and agreed to the procedure.
I looked at my son, grasped his hand and said: “Buddy’s gonna be ok.”
Dr. Aziz then asked me if Buddy was covered by pet insurance, since the surgery was very expensive ($3,000!) and wanted to know if I could afford it.
This put me in a position that I’m sure no pet owner would ever want to be in: measuring my finances against Buddy’s life.
In all honesty, I simply didn’t have $3,000 lying around, so we had to pay for the surgery with a credit card, putting my family further into debt.
Long story short, Dr. Aziz successfully removed the foreign body from Buddy: one of my son’s plastic Pokémon figurines (a froakie, to be exact), and to remember the day, it now occupies a place of honor on my desk.
Why didn’t Buddy have health insurance, you might ask?
Truth be told, I’d been putting off getting pet insurance for two years, since I thought the whole process would end up being a hassle: having to deal with insurance sales reps trying to upsell me, giving them my personal info and credit card number; the thought of it just discouraged me.
The night after the incident, I decided to finally bite the bullet and look into pet insurance.
The first company I looked at was Healthy Paws, since they had high customer satisfaction ratings and they had been rated #1 for four years running.
To my embarrassment, I immediately realized the thing I’d been putting off was actually a piece of cake.
Healthy Paws only asked me for five things: Buddy’s name, his breed, his age, my zip code, and my email. That was it.
I didn’t have to give my credit card number, I wasn’t shuffled to a sales rep, and I’d gotten a quote for Buddy in about 30 seconds.
No joke. My fear had been misplaced all along.
Now Buddy’s vet bills are covered up to 90% and I’ll never again be put in a position where I have to weigh his life against money concerns.
I also won’t have to worry about him swallowing any more Pokémon figurines; we all learned a valuable lesson that day, and as soon as we got home, we swept the house and made sure to put all of them where Buddy wouldn’t reach them.
This whole ordeal got me thinking about pet insurance overall, and it turns out that it’s on the rise.
According to the New York Times, "More than two million pets in the United States and Canada (most of them in the United States) were insured at the end of 2017, up about 17 percent from the year before."
More and more people are taking the step to give their pets the best medical care possible, and since this involves money, it’s a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Rather, purchasing pet insurance should be a very personal decision that weighs in both your pet’s health and your personal economic status.
It won’t be the best option for everyone, but if you have the money, it’s definitely worth the investment.
Before you decide to get pet insurance, you should keep in mind the following:
Read the Policy Thoroughly and Know its Exclusions
Signing up for pet insurance blindly is a no-go: you need to understand what the policy does and doesn’t cover.
Some companies include dental treatment as part of their plan while others require you to pay extra for it.
Read each policy carefully and choose the one that best suits your pet’s needs.
Additionally, some policies exclude conditions and treatments altogether, so you need to check what they exclude to avoid any surprises when making a claim.
Conditions include hereditary, developmental, and congenital conditions, and other illnesses like cancer and chronic diseases.
Understand Benefit Limits, Waiting Periods, Deductibles, Premiums, and Co-pays
To get the best out of your policy, you need to familiarize yourself with these terms and know how insurance policies handle them.
Benefit Limits
This is the total amount a policy pays for your pet’s treatment.
It varies per insurance company, and there are three different limits: lifetime, period, and per-incident.
Lifetime limits are the total amount a company will pay for your pet throughout its lifetime, while period limits decide how much money insurers will pay during a specific period of time.
Lastly, per-incident limits designate the maximum amount a policy will pay for a specific incident, like accidents or x-rays.
Waiting Periods
All pet insurance policies have a waiting period to protect them from fraud.
Wait time varies by state and by your pet’s condition, but it averages around 48 hours, starting the moment your policy becomes effective.
A short waiting period doesn’t automatically make a policy great, so always check the entire policy and see if you can strike a balance between short waiting periods and great coverage.
Premiums
This is how much money you have to pay an insurer weekly or monthly to keep your insurance active.
The money you pay guarantees that your pet’s bill is covered in case of an emergency.
Deductibles and Co-pay
Always keep an eye on deductibles, since that’s the amount of money you have to pay before your policy kicks in.
Just like with other types of insurances, pet insurance premiums rely on a variety of factors, including: type of pet (dog or cat), breed, your pet’s age, pet size, your area of residence, the amount of coverage you want, and the amount of your deductible.
Fortunately, most pet insurance companies let you customize your deductible amount.
Keep in mind that having a higher deductible isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since it lowers the cost of your premiums.
Look for Discounts
Pet insurance isn’t necessarily cheap, but companies usually have discounts to make their policies more affordable.
Discounts include multi-pet, annual pay, spay/neuter, and military discounts.
Additionally, some discounts are state-specific, so check with companies first to see if the discounts you want are available in your state.
Pet Insurance Alternatives
If you think pet insurance isn’t for you but you still want to protect your pet from the unexpected, there are other useful alternatives you can look at.
Emergency Funds and Savings Accounts
Instead of paying for insurance, you can save up a specific amount of your income each month to cushion unexpected payments, such as veterinary bills.
This is done by either opening a savings account at a bank or by setting an emergency fund in your home.
The downsides of these options are that you’ll never know if what you’re saving up is enough until the vet bill comes, and that home emergency funds are open to being stolen unless you protect them, such as storing them in a safe.
Credit Cards
Another option is to take out a credit card or to designate one that you already own for emergencies.
This option is useful if you don’t have the time to save up for insurance costs and, since it’s on credit, you can pay it off over time.
Additionally, there are credit cards tailor-made for paying healthcare costs, like CareCredit and Citi Health.
The only downsides to this option are that not all veterinary clinics accept healthcare-specific cards like CareCredit, and that you might have to deal with high-interest rates depending on the credit card you get.
Remember to be on the lookout for introductory rates that change after a few months, since they might fool you into getting a credit card that can charge you more than you hoped.
Pet Assure
Pet Assure is a discount program that gives members a 25% discount on all in-house veterinary services and procedures, including cancer, dental, emergency care, surgery, x-rays, and hospitalization.
Additionally, members get a 15% discount on pet-related supplies from the PetCareRx webstore.
Although Pet Assure doesn’t cover as much as pet insurance would, it’s cheaper (from $143.40 a year for dogs and $119.40 for cats), it covers way more illnesses than pet insurance (including hereditary and pre-existing conditions) and there are no waiting periods.
Peace of Mind
No matter what option you take, what matters most is that your loved fluffball is protected in case of an emergency.
If you think pet insurance is for you, check out Healthy Paws and several other companies listed in our review of the 10 Best Pet Insurance Providers of 2019.