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- My partner and I have four pets — two dogs and two cats — but we don't carry pet insurance.
- We recently adopted a new puppy, Claire, and were offered 30 days of free coverage, so I called the insurance company to learn more.
- After speaking to the agent, I still don't think pet insurance is worth it. I used to work at a vet clinic, so I know preventive care is most important — and that wasn't covered by the plan offered to me.
- Instead, we keep an emergency fund that we can use to pay for any unexpected vet bills.
My partner and I are one of the many families that adopted a puppy during this pandemic. Our new puppy, Claire, brought our fur family to an even four, with two cats and two dogs.
With so many pets in the family, vet bills can get expensive — but we do not carry any kind of pet insurance for them. Instead, we keep a line item in our budget for pet expenses and have a pet-specific emergency savings fund we can pull from for unexpected vet bills.
Claire's adoption packet from the shelter came with a free 30-day pet insurance policy. This was reason enough for me to look into pet insurance again and see if it was worth it. I called to activate the freebie, but I refused to buy the plan.
We don't know what kind of trouble our new puppy will get into, but what concerns me more is that we don't know how much of those pet insurance premium payments will actually go towards our puppy's future medical care.
The cost of pet insurance is complicated
Pet insurance costs are specific to each animal and the type of coverage you're looking to buy. That is why many pet insurance companies don't post specific plans on their websites and require you to call or fill out a form for an official quote.
When I called to activate the free plan for our new puppy, it wasn't my first time calling a pet insurance company. Two years prior, when we adopted our other dog, I also dug into pet insurance. I can't say time changed anything.
The salesperson worked to upsell me and said that having a puppy is a great time to start coverage since major health problems become present in the first year of growth. I worked at a vet clinic for years, so I know that lifelong health conditions may appear in the first few years of growth. But, generally, conditions with major medical bills will become present in the declining years of an animal's life.
What the representative was implying, I believe, is that we should purchase coverage while the animal is young, prior to a pre-existing condition. That's because pre-existing conditions are not covered under pet insurance policies as a norm.
I was quoted a general coverage policy with a premium of about $58 a month and a $1,000 deductible. After that, they would cover up to $2,000 worth of eligible medical expenses; regular preventive care, like vaccines, wasn't eligible. On the first-tier plan, only medical emergencies would be covered after the deductible.
The pet insurance plans only moved up in price to tiers with various levels of coverage. The second tier was about $82 a month with a $1,000 deductible. This would cover illness and medical emergencies. So if our new puppy had salmonella or was hit by a car, the treatments should be covered. With both pet insurance plans, I could opt to increase my premium to decrease my deductible.
My experience working at a vet clinic showed me what really costs pet owners
In the back of the vet clinic office where I worked for four years, I saw my fair share of pet health issues. The most expensive vet bills didn't come from the surgery required when a pet swallowed a toy or when an animal was hit by a car.
Many major vet bills for young animals were often due to a lack of preventive care. Not vaccinating an animal on time or socializing a pet before the vaccine series was complete meant the animal was susceptible to contracting a disease. Sadly, this required many pet owners to pay up or put down the animal.
Proper preventive care, the thing that is not covered by the first-tier pet insurance plans I've looked at, is the best way to save money on vet bills.
Our strategy for covering pet expenses
We already have one dog and two cats, so we knew we were signing up for another preventive vet bill by adopting a puppy.
To cover the regular vet bills, we have a line item in our budget for this exact thing. Each month, we set aside $200 for pet expenses. This covers food, treats, and toys. We don't always end up spending $200, so we let this roll over to the next month. This extra rollover easily covers the regular vet bills.
Throughout the life of an animal, we know that a few hefty bills due to an ear infection or UTI might be a reality. These kinds of expenses can be covered by pet insurance, but we found an alternative. We prefer to keep our cash in our control, rather than paying a monthly pet insurance premium and crossing our fingers every time we need to submit a claim.
The fact is we knew we could prepare for pet medical emergencies just like we've prepared for other emergencies.
Instead of paying a monthly premium, we put a little money aside each month in our general emergency fund. We currently have a little over $5,000 in this emergency fund, and this acts as our buffer to cover the worst-case scenario, for us and our pets. Now, we will occasionally put $20-$50 in here when we can, but it's fully stocked for any kind of surprise expense.
We didn't always have a full emergency fund, but we still didn't need pet insurance
We are not strangers to the unexpected emergency. When we first bought our cat, we did not have an emergency fund and we were caught with a vet bill of $5,000 for a foot amputation.
Still, this is not a case where I look back and wish we had been paying for pet insurance. Instead, we had two other viable options to pay off the vet bill.
Vet payment plan
Privately owned veterinary practices often have a payment plan option if you can't pay the bill. Where I was employed, we would offer this on a case-by-case basis.
The customer would have to meet with the office manager and complete some paperwork to make it official. I would never say that you should rely on this, but if you are reading this and experience a pet emergency tomorrow, you should inquire about it.
CareCredit plans
CareCredit is an accepted form of payment at many veterinary clinics. This is a short-term financing option that provides six, 12, 18, or 24 months of no interest on purchases over $200 as long as you make the minimum monthly payments and pay the full amount due by the end of the promotional period.
We chose the CareCredit plan for our cat's surgery and we paid off the bill within six months. This was our lesson learned and we started building our general emergency fund after this.
Our savings is something I know will pay our vet bills
While the thought of being covered by insurance if a big vet bill came up is comforting, I feel even more stable knowing we have a fund that can't deny us if something does go wrong.
I feel pretty strongly about my pets, and I also feel pretty strongly that pet insurance policies are rarely worth it. Keeping a line in our budget, being active about preventive care, and having emergency savings has allowed us to say no to pet insurance.
Editor's note: This post has been updated to more accurately reflect the author's role at the vet clinic.
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