Pet Insurance

[jabjab]

Hello,

Wondering what everyone is using for pet insurance for their dogs? I've heard of some people saying that insurance companies dont really cover much but others say its saved them.

Thoughts and recommendations?

[NoPulp]

I've only heard its very hard to get them to pay out.

Curious if many people actually get pet insurance?

[BokCh0y]

I have a thread on this from a while back. Search it up, some valuable info there.

[MR2-3SGTE]

They don't cover previous issues. Only new issues that started after getting the insurance. So it doesn't make sense to get it on an old sick dog. And sometimes they will try to pin new issues onto old issues, and say that its related to something the dog had before.
Its nice if you get it while your pet is young, and especially if your vet can do direct billing to the insurance company

[finboy]

We looked at several for the dogs, payout vs deductible vs monthly payment just didn't make sense, for the money it was better just to put a bit aside every month for "vet bill" as our dogs are both quite young.

[Maxx Mazda]

I researched this to death. My Pomeranian even has a heart condition, so her vet visits can be quite expensive. Even despite that, I save money by paying out of pocket. Pet insurance companies can often charge you $50-$100 a month! I just put $50 a month into a savings account just for my dog. Anything comes up, I've got the cash to cover it, and the peace of mind knowing my claim won't get denied.

[Black Gts]

I pay 50 a month for my dog, I've never had to use it, and every time I think of cancelling I decide better to have it and not need it like my vehicle lol. Bills add up quickly. My dog is so I've spent$3600 so far, but I've heard many stories of bills over 10k and I'm not sure what I'd do faced with a bill that high, but it would suck to lose my buddy over any amount of money.

[403Gemini]

Originally posted by finboy
We looked at several for the dogs, payout vs deductible vs monthly payment just didn't make sense, for the money it was better just to put a bit aside every month for "vet bill" as our dogs are both quite young.

Are you actually doing this? Most people don't - and even then, how much are you putting aside? Or people do for awhile, then they stop after 3~ years thinking "bah, everything is going well"

I had to have 2 major knee surgeries on my dog (shes 10 years now, 1st one was at 2 years old, second was at 7 years old). First one cost $4000 , second one cost $2500. Even if I dumped $100 a month into a savings fund, by the time her first surgery rolled around, it wouldn't have been enough.

Also my inlaws just had to have a major surgery on their 8 year old dog for a disc that slipped in his spine - cost $12,000 , so even if you think you're putting away enough, you may not be.

Pet surgeries are insane in pricing, not to mention any follow up medication. Next dog I get will have it.


Originally posted by Black Gts
I pay 50 a month for my dog, I've never had to use it, and every time I think of cancelling I decide better to have it and not need it like my vehicle lol. Bills add up quickly. My dog is so I've spent$3600 so far, but I've heard many stories of bills over 10k and I'm not sure what I'd do faced with a bill that high, but it would suck to lose my buddy over any amount of money.

My friends had to have a gofundme page to save one of their dogs because their saint bernard ate a towel (I'd like to say "watch your dog, but this dog literally just swallowed a towel) , they paid for that surgery ($8k) then a year later swallowed a stick - which she would have passed naturally, however she had so much scar tissue from the first surgery she couldn't so they needed to do it again (another $8k, and they were still trying to pay off the first one's loan).

It's brutal man

[Skyline_Addict]

Originally posted by 403Gemini


I had to have 2 major knee surgeries on my dog (shes 10 years now, 1st one was at 2 years old, second was at 7 years old). First one cost $4000 , second one cost $2500. Even if I dumped $100 a month into a savings fund, by the time her first surgery rolled around, it wouldn't have been enough.

Also my inlaws just had to have a major surgery on their 8 year old dog for a disc that slipped in his spine - cost $12,000 , so even if you think you're putting away enough, you may not be.

Pet surgeries are insane in pricing, not to mention any follow up medication. Next dog I get will have it.



My friends had to have a gofundme page to save one of their dogs because their saint bernard ate a towel (I'd like to say "watch your dog, but this dog literally just swallowed a towel) , they paid for that surgery ($8k) then a year later swallowed a stick - which she would have passed naturally, however she had so much scar tissue from the first surgery she couldn't so they needed to do it again (another $8k, and they were still trying to pay off the first one's loan).

It's brutal man


that's crazy. going to get a couple dogs soon. I don't think anyone gets a dog expecting it to get sick, but when they do its expensive and insurance is always worth it in hindsight.

[haggis88]

We pay something insane like $200/month combined for the cat and the dog

Cat is the cheaper of the two obviously

They look at a number of things, similar to your own insurance for health/car/home. We actually got a $20/mth discount when we moved to Copperfield.

The dog is a senior boxer, who, although he had no previous health issues, didn't have insurance because my girlfriend couldn't afford it on her own

We're lucky we got it when we did.

The initial checkup showed he was nice and healthy (well, as healthy as possible for a hermaphrodite), but due to the age, they still loaded the premium.

About 4 or 5 months later, he started getting really sick, lethargic and just not himself at all...turned out he was in the early stages of renal failure and needed several exploratory surgeries and a whole bunch of other stuff to diagnose this, plus a special diet of $130/bag food.

Insurance covered 90% of everything (even the food for 3 months) after the $250 deductible, so whilst we've still paid out nearly $2000, the insurance has paid out nearly $18000 by my estimations.

He's now doing so much better, and has the energy of a damn puppy
:nut:

[klumsy_tumbler]

I also have pet insurance. I went with PetPlan, because it had the best coverage and monthly premiums from all the quotes I got. Unfortunately, there's no direct billing option (I've heard that Trupanion is really good for that), but they have a handy app that you just take a picture of your invoices and it gets processed automatically.

I agree that sometimes the premiums can be a lot to swallow. They're peanuts for me personally (about $25/month) because my dog's breed isn't recognized by AKC, but some breeds (like Bernese Mountain Dogs or Golden Retrievers) can run you ~$100/month or more.

I've had to use mine twice now, and it's already more than paid for itself. You have to consider all of the potential things that can happen (because something will inevitably happen...) and how you want that discussion to go when the vet pulls you into a back room to discuss expenses and "options" (i.e. it would be more humane to euthanize your pet if you can't afford the treatment). Trust me, pet insurance saved me from SO much stress. I will NEVER be without it for any of my pets again.

[haggis88]

Oh yeah...we're with Trupanion and they're very good. I think.

GF deals with it all, her work direct bill Trupanion, and she gets a bit of a discount being in the profession, and the premium comes off her paycheque directly too. Handy.

[you&me]

We're with Trupanion as well for our mini bulldog and the premium is $50 / month, which seems to cover just about everything.

Thankfully, our guy has been really healthy so far (bulldogs in general can be a mess), so we end up using the insurance more as a health plan to (mostly) cover everything from regular checkups to dental checks and gland releases (usually more on the 'grooming' side of dog care).

I don't think there's been a year yet where we haven't had Trupanion cover far more than what our premiums amount to and after knowing friends and family that have gone through thousands, or tens of thousands for serious medical issues, it's nice to know it's there.

[P_D]

I will 2nd Trupanion. Duke needed 21 teeth removed, it would have been in the $2500-$3000 range to have this done w/o insurance. When Duke was 3 he needed 4 teeth removed due to over crowding $800. Our other dog Tubby needed 8 teeth removed, there is another $1000. Tubby needed knee surgery and rehab $4700. This doesn't include just random things like covering 90% of any required meds on top of that. Our other dog Bruce is prone to ear infections and that runs about $100 every 6 months.

I think we are out of pocket about $700 on top of our premiums which are about $110/m in total for all 3 dogs as we got them insurance as puppies. Overall insurance has paid out more than our premiums but i would rather pay them then have to fork out $10k in unexpected expenses.

[V6-BoI]

My GF and I were thinking about it when we first got our dog, but didn't end up getting it.

From what we researched, the base insurance (I think it was around 50 bucks ish per month) didn't cover any issues that are known to the breed. I have a french bulldog x pug and they are known to have breathing issues, and knee problems, so it wouldn't cover stuff like that. If you wanted it to cover everything I remember it costing around 150 per month which is quite a bit. Seems like the base insurance will only cover if something random happens to your pet, like an infection of some sort.

With that said, I worked with someone and she was just about to cancel her pet insurance, and her dog swallowed something and got a crazy infection in the esophagus. Surgery ended up costing 19K, and they were covered for 90% of it. I mean 2K is still a lot to pay, but way better than 19k.

At this point, I think we'll take our chances and deal with it if the time comes (really hoping not).

[mix123]

Originally posted by V6-BoI
My GF and I were thinking about it when we first got our dog, but didn't end up getting it.

From what we researched, the base insurance (I think it was around 50 bucks ish per month) didn't cover any issues that are known to the breed. I have a french bulldog x pug and they are known to have breathing issues, and knee problems, so it wouldn't cover stuff like that. If you wanted it to cover everything I remember it costing around 150 per month which is quite a bit. Seems like the base insurance will only cover if something random happens to your pet, like an infection of some sort.


This isnt actually true. We thought our french bulldog had a cruciate ligament problem in her knee. Contacted insurance and they had no issue with it. And we have the lowest level of insurance. I think it depends on the company.

[sabad66]

Originally posted by mix123


This isnt actually true. We thought our french bulldog had a cruciate ligament problem in her knee. Contacted insurance and they had no issue with it. And we have the lowest level of insurance. I think it depends on the company.
who are you with?

I wasn't planning on getting insurance for our new pup but after hearing these horror stories in this thread i'm re-thinking it now

[Rocket1k78]

Originally posted by finboy
We looked at several for the dogs, payout vs deductible vs monthly payment just didn't make sense, for the money it was better just to put a bit aside every month for "vet bill" as our dogs are both quite young.



Originally posted by Maxx Mazda
I researched this to death. My Pomeranian even has a heart condition, so her vet visits can be quite expensive. Even despite that, I save money by paying out of pocket. Pet insurance companies can often charge you $50-$100 a month! I just put $50 a month into a savings account just for my dog. Anything comes up, I've got the cash to cover it, and the peace of mind knowing my claim won't get denied.

Very risky idea and like 403gemini said most people say it but dont actually follow through. Imagine if your dog were to get sick within 5 years, you'd have $3000 which would cover next to nothing. My dog got real sick years ago and tests alone were over $4000 i think. Luckily we had insurance because the treatments werent cheap either. Its a pain to fill out the paper work because you either have to fax or mail it in(no email) but id rather that than having to pay for everything out of pocket with nothing back. This is insurance at the end of the day so its on you to make sure you have the right coverage, if you have basic coverage you cant expect them to cover a major thing

[mix123]

Originally posted by sabad66

who are you with?

I wasn't planning on getting insurance for our new pup but after hearing these horror stories in this thread i'm re-thinking it now


Petplan

[dandia89]

i see a lot of talk about dogs, but what about cat insurance?

[lilmira]

Go get another one :dunno:

MEOW!

[dirtsniffer]

Self insured is the way to go.

[Boat]

I looked at insurance for our 5 year old cat and the payments along with the deductable and max limits didn't make financial sense.

However my co-worker had a lab with multiple surgeries and has saved him a tonne of money.

[haggis88]

Depends on your cat

Ours is a purebreed Cornish Rex, and not just some random moggie you could get from the shelter for $50

We pay $70/month for him, and it covered his dental extractions (5 teeth) I believe

He's also fed exclusively on Hills Prescription Urinary diet (blockages are especially common in these breeds) so I believe that reduces the premium a little.

[max_boost]

The one time you need it you will be so grateful.

Unless you can pull 5-10k no problem, get pet insurance. My damn cat cost me about $6k because he went and swallowed a shoe string. Stupid cat. :rofl:

[jabjab]

Originally posted by mix123



Petplan

Get two free online quotes and Petplans was about half the price of trupanion!

34.69 for the gold pacakge at Petplan covers up to 20k a year in vet bills.

67.19 for trupanion but there is no payout limits.

I'm kind of leaning towards Petplan...

[npham]

We are with Trupanion. Got a good deal through the vet, and they do direct billing. I think we pay around 45-ish per month. All it takes it one stupid event and the insurance pays for itself over the course of the dog's life. With our Standard Schnauzer, he is so food driven, that he's bound to eat something harmful that will require surgery. We already had to give him hydrogen peroxide to make him throw up a pair of underwear...

[yellowGTS]

I don't have any insurance and wish I did. Just had an incident where I had to pay $4k for my cat to go to the hospital for 4 days.

While in the hospital I called a long list of inusrance companies as preventative measures for anything happening in the future. In my experience and having conversations on the phone, the best company seemed to be Trupanion.

They were easy to reach, able to answer questions and I didn't get a hard sell sales pitch to buy a plan. But that is my experience, yours could be different