Is dog health insurance worth it?

October 27, 2014 9:06 PM

My fiance and I recently adopted a 10-year-old maltipoo from the shelter, and we're wondering if we should get health insurance for her.

So the shelter says she's around 10 years old, but they're just guessing based on her dental health and physical condition, since they found her as a stray with no collar or microchip. She is in very good spirits and very active most of the time, although she has been dealing with a lot of itchiness. We've taken her to the vet, who gave her some glucosamine supplements and allergy medication to try because she's not sure what's causing the itchiness/discomfort that's causing her to chew at her front legs.

Anyway, we are still figuring things out with that, including using shampoo for itch, moving her to a grain free diet, and continuing her on the supplements. However, we are thinking a trip back to the vet is in order.

So we've been thinking more about getting health insurance for her, as we don't want to be blindsided by a more serious, costly condition. At her age, we are not expecting her to be in perfect health for years and years to come.

So I would love to hear from anyone who has health insurance for their dog and if you think it's worth it and who your provider is.

Thanks!

posted by madonna of the unloved to Pets & Animals (18 answers total)

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, and previously.

If pet insurance was worth buying (ie, the expected payout from the insurance exceeds the money you pay for it), it would not be sold. The fact that it is sold makes it not worth buying. There are many people working at the insurance company to make sure you pay more for the insurance policy than the insurance company pays to you. If you start to get close to making the insurance company lose money, they will make it as hard as possible to get the coverage you paid for.
posted by saeculorum at 9:21 PM on October 27, 2014

Consumer Reports says it is not worth the price.

I looked at health insurance for my pets. Upon reading what is and is not covered and under what circumstances, I realized I would actually be better off saving money in a fund for emergencies instead. Also I would be less outraged. It covers even less than human health insurance based on what I read, and it just felt like a scam to me.

I warn people away from pet health insurance all the time. If you consider having some kind of automatic withdrawal (or charge to a card) for this kind of thing, then I would instead recommend setting up an automatic transfer to a savings account instead.
posted by AllieTessKipp at 9:25 PM on October 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

On a purely mathematical basis, the cost of insurance is going to be less than the expected value of the payout. The reason to buy insurance is because you can better afford to make lots of small monthly payment but you would be strained or even unable to pay thousands of dollars for a major vet bill. Or you could do it for emotional reasons, that you want to avoid making the uncomfortable choice of whether or not to pay big money if the animal is sick.

If you do want to buy pet insurance, do not expect insurance to pay for regular annual care - it is a particularly bad deal. Also, there is a wide variation on the quality of the different plans. When I looked into it, Trupanion seems to be one of the better ones - no ridiculously low caps etc.
posted by metahawk at 9:45 PM on October 27, 2014

The vast majority of pet health incidents come in at $400-$2,000. So save the money in a fund for an older dog, it's a better investment. Also decide now how much you are willing to spend at the vet in case of accident or illness. I love my dog to but but I won't spend $10k on treating something with a poor outcome. I do have a couple grand set aside and have had to spend $200- $400 unexpectedly about once a year: stitches, lump removal, one accidental poisoning incident.

Some dogs are walking disasters but they are usually young and mouthy. The kind of dog that has to have part of your couch surgically removed. Your dog is likely past that phase.
posted by fshgrl at 9:50 PM on October 27, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm going to go against the developing trend: As someone whose last two cats were elderly when we adopted them, we found health insurance to be worth the cost. One cat developed cancer, and the other cat hypothyroidism and then subsequently cancer. If we didn't have insurance, we still would have paid for treatment but it would have been MUCH more painful for our pockets. With insurance, it is a no-brainer to say yes to life-saving and pain-reducing treatments.

My sense is that health insurance for pets doesn't pay off when you start paying on young pets, but the risks increase greatly for older pets. Mind you, the premiums are higher, but for us it turned out to be worth the cost.

Your dog is probably already in the senior citizen category, so you missed the chance to carry over paying a reduced premium. The sweet spot might be to start paying for insurance at about age 8-10 years or so (depending on species); i.e., right before they are classified as old. Ours were already old when we started insuring them though and it more than paid for itself both times. Of course, I hope you don't have to go through the same thing.

Best of luck with your new pooch! I am always happy to hear about people adopting older pets. :)
posted by Halo in reverse at 9:52 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think if you're concerned about being able to pay a big bill if it comes up, pet insurance is awesome. I'm in that boat, and so far I've been happy with PetPlan. Is it a great deal mathematically? Nope. But it does offer peace of mind.
posted by superlibby at 9:53 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

If pet insurance was worth buying (ie, the expected payout from the insurance exceeds the money you pay for it), it would not be sold.

Geez. By this logic, no insurance should ever be sold, and yet . . .

Insurance, Generally
See, here's the thing about insurance: it's not an investment. The goal isn't to get more out than you put in. The goal is to reduce an unknown, potentially large future expense to a planned, budgetable one.

Insurance companies don't make money on each individual, but in the aggregate. Which means, yes, on average there's a net loss, but you're not an aggregate human, you're a real human. Your experience will be either net positive, in which case you avoided a major expense or net negative, in which case: congratulations that your pet led a pretty healthy life.

The actual negative outcome is a huge expense that insurance also doesn't cover. How likely that is is going to be based entirely on the coverage.

Pet Insurance
So, now that we've dispatched with the epically silly notion that insurance, as an institution, is a scam: what about pet insurance?

The Consumer Reports article linked above is three years old and also seems to treat pet insurance as an investment . . . read it and understand the point they're making, but also understand this:

Vet bills can be expensive. If, and I hope this never happens to you, your dog gets hit by a car or eats something he shouldn't that has to be surgically removed, you're going to be looking at a vet bill that comes out to multiple thousands of dollars. Potentially as much as five figures, depending.

What should you do?
Pet insurance, like almost all insurance, is for people for whom the financial surprise would be (financially) devastating. So, if you've got some investments you could liquidate or an Amex Black sitting around, you're probably fine.

You're probably also fine if your credit is good enough (and your income strong enough) for a short-term signature loan or mortgage to cover you.

If you just put away money that would have been insurance premiums, you're also probably okay, provided that you don't have the Big Surprise before you'e saved up enough to help you out.

Look: you're going to hear a lot about what "usually" happens. Common vet bills costs, etc. Usually is great until you prove to be in an unusual situation. If you're in a situation where you can't afford a large, surprising vet bill: will you regret not having insurance and needing it or getting insurance and not needing it?

What We Did
After years of not finding an insurance carrier that seemed like a good deal, we went with Trupanion. I've had friends who have your typical sob story. Fido uncharacteristically runs out in front of a car, broke grad student can't afford the surgery and basically has to beg and crowd-fund her way to get it done. Did she come out better than someone who bought insurance? Maybe financially, but I suspect she'd have preferred not have to do all of that while also dealing with the grief.

We chose to use Trupanion because it seems to cover a wide enough range of accidents and illnesses that I think I've covered most of the bases and minimized the odds that something shows up in that huge, uncovered expense section of the venn diagram.

I've never had to use the insurance, and I hope I never do, but I'm glad to know that my bank account probably won't ever be the thing that determines whether I get to keep the pups or not.
posted by toomuchpete at 10:01 PM on October 27, 2014 [14 favorites]

I've never had to use the insurance, and I hope I never do

You state your insurance as if Trupanion will simply pay all claims associated with your pet getting run over by a car without any question. That is not the case, and it even looks like Trupanion is one of the better pet insurance companies.

Insurance companies will make sure they make money - that's their primary duty to their share holders. There's really three outcomes from insurance - you have a net loss (due to premiums exceeding payouts), you have a net loss (due to insurance companies refusing to pay out), or you have a net gain (due to payouts exceeding premiums).

Insurance companies exist to make sure as many people as possible fit into the first two categories. They have a lot of smart people that know all of the technicalities that make it so you don't receive any of the coverage you pay for. The ones that don't go out of business.

Insurance doesn't prevent you from having to make harsh financial decisions. Instead, it makes it so that if you are faced with an extremely sick pet, you need a lawyer to get the insurance company to cover your pet. After all, insurance companies don't make money by giving you money. Pick pet insurance or not, but don't pretend that pet insurance prevents you from having to consider the financial implications of owning a pet.
posted by saeculorum at 10:25 PM on October 27, 2014

My wonderful, amazing Weimaraner, Schroeder was the healthiest dog ever. Until he was diagnosed with chronic renal failure at age six. In the end, two years later, his treatments and hospitalization cost me thousands of dollars—at a time when I was between gigs (I'm a freelancer/contractor) and I ended up having to borrow money from friends and family to help me pay the bills (and vet hospitals usually require the money up front).

I was kicking myself for never buying insurance bc hey, he's so healthy! When I got my new Weimaraner puppy, I immediately bought insurance for him and my 3 yr old mini doxie. 5 months later, they ended up in the emergency hospital on the exact same night, needing emergency surgery for completely unrelated reasons. Even the hospital staff couldn't believe the coincidental bad luck. The total cost was almost $9K—pretty much all of my in-between gigs savings. I ended up paying my deductible and 10% of costs for both dogs—a fraction of the total (my deductible is a little high but manageable if only one dog needed treatment at any one time, less so when both do concurrently).

So yes, to me, pet insurance (I use Trupanion as well) is worth every penny. And my two friends who also unsure through Trupanion would say the same thing.

YMMV.
posted by violetk at 10:40 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]

You state your insurance as if Trupanion will simply pay all claims associated with your pet getting run over by a car without any question. That is not the case, and it even looks like Trupanion is one of the better pet insurance companies.

My contract with Trupanion is not influenced by Yelp reviews*. I've reviewed my coverage document and I'm well acquainted with what is and isn't covered. If you're interested, take a look at their policy document. In the case of a bad car accident, I might be on the hook for dental. Otherwise? Yeah, they'll pay the claim as agreed in the contract.

* - I read the first half-dozen or so bad reviews -- the outcomes were what I'd expect in almost every case and in the others there were some interesting details left out that I could probably guess the status of.

There's really three outcomes from insurance . . .

Insurance is not intended to be an investment vehicle. Judging on its merits as one is foolish. The average consumer loses money on car insurance, health insurance, homeowners insurance, and every other kind of insurance. This does not invalidate insurance as a concept, it just means you need a slightly more sophisticated analysis than elementary addition and subtraction. But, again, making money is not the primary goal of an insurance policyl it's a risk mitigation tool.

don't pretend that pet insurance prevents you from having to consider the financial implications of owning a pet.

I'm not sure why you'd assume anyone in this thread so far has suggested this, but I haven't seen it. Insurance is not a risk elimination tool, it's a risk mitigation tool. The difference between those is stark.

Unfortunately, we have yet to invent a future-predicting machine that would make this decision as easy as adding paid claims and subtracting premiums paid.
posted by toomuchpete at 11:02 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]

FWIW the month after we cancelled our pet insurance my dog had to get a $5000 life-saving procedure, followed by weeks of outpatient care that cost about another $1000. Insurance would have been nice.
posted by krakus at 5:18 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've used 24PetWatch for over eight years now. My previous dog died of a condition the animal hospital mistakenly thought was treatable, and I was left with a $5000 bill. Shortly after, I got a puppy and decided to get insurance just in case. It costs me $14/mo and is invaluable.

Sure, the insurance doesn't cover check-ups, but I've never had trouble getting coverage for emergencies, tests, or surgeries. My plan paid out $3000 when my new puppy's kennel cough worsened and became pneumonia, $3000 when he was hit by a car, and $2000 when he got older and had to have bladder stones removed. (Good animal care in NYC is crazy expensive.) The math worked out for me, and no one at 24PetWatch ever questioned or argued with my claims.
posted by pineappleheart at 7:18 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

I work at an emergency and specialty veterinary hospital, and I can tell you that the number of clients who are very happy with their pet insurance has increased exponentially over the past 4 or 5 years. It's not going to reduce your vet bills to $0, or even close to it, but if you have an emergency or a complicated diagnosis, it is going to make those bills an order of magnitude easier to deal with.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:32 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]

Or you could do it for emotional reasons, that you want to avoid making the uncomfortable choice of whether or not to pay big money if the animal is sick.

We decided to get insurance for our dog for this reason. I wanted to have the option to get expensive care for him even if we were financially strapped. Yes, of course the money we will get back from the insurance is not likely to be more than we pay in premiums. But the point to my mind is not what typically happens, but the more rare events. If the dog gets a serious illness/injury the financial impact is lessened.

It really depends on your personal attitude toward money and risk. If you're the type of person who hates the idea of an insurer making money off you when you could have saved that money instead, then probably you don't want pet insurance. If you tend more toward worrying about life-long guilt if you have to choose euthanasia instead of a $10K treatment for financial reasons, then insurance is likely to be a better choice for you.

We have Pet's Best and have been happy with it.
posted by medusa at 2:34 PM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting this question, I don't have a dog but have wondered about the merits of pet insurance for cats. I looked into getting insurance for my cat years ago when I learned it was an option, but when I entered her information into a pet insurance website's premium calculator, she was "too old" to become insured. She was at least 10 at this point, and that was the only reason I never had insurance for her.

She lived to be 17—she just passed away last week. When I get another cat, I definitely plan on getting pet insurance right away largely for emotional reasons but also because I know my experience with my first cat was an outlier. My family of origin had also adopted two of her litter mates, male cats who are very sickly. My cat still developed medical issues as she aged, but not to the same extent. There is nothing too terribly different between the three of them (they may have had different fathers): they are siblings, raised together, lived together in the same environment, ate the same foods, and so on for many years.

My lovely kitty didn't break the bank with her medical expenses, but there were times when finances were tight and if she had developed a condition that required emergency attention/surgery, it would have been very difficult. I know that insurance wouldn't erase those costs completely, but it would help to some degree—similar to how my own health insurance policies have worked.
posted by autoclavicle at 3:42 PM on October 28, 2014

Response by poster: Thank you, all! This is a lot to consider. I will look into some of those plans.
posted by madonna of the unloved at 5:12 PM on October 28, 2014

I adopted an 8 year old dog from the pound and got insurance (Trupanion) because of similar worries. It covered nothing. Everything was considered pre-existing, even any tummy troubles because he had one incident the first month. So I just cancelled it and saved the money because with the deductible it just wasn't worth it. I haven't regretted cancelling it, because I realised I just basically had disaster insurance and I'd rather put the monthly payment in a fund for that than send it to Trupanion. They were awfully hard to cancel, though. Really, really hard.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 10:41 PM on October 28, 2014

If you decide not to get insurance, I recommend that you put aside money each month, as other posters have, but also that you look into CareCredit. That is a credit card that many vets accept that will often (maybe always?) offer 6-12 months of no interest on large purchases, so if you do need to make a large payment you have up to a year to actually pay for it.
posted by Night_owl at 1:22 PM on November 1, 2014