Pet Insurance - Do I need it? | Who Moved My Bone?

So here you are contemplating whether or not pet insurance is really necessary. Your probably thinking what is the worst that could happen, my dog never gets sick. Some think the same thing about their health insurance. Why am I paying all of this money for health insurance when I never get sick or go to the doctor? As the wise people know, insurance is not for the routine cold and cough (although most cover that as well) but instead for the unexpected (when the idiot tailgating you smashes into your car, when you catch swine/bird/donkey/swamp/nutria/regular flu, etc).

I personally had the belief that pet insurance was for suckers and it was just another scheme by the insurance industry to make money. That was until Emma came along or hobbled along is probably more appropriate. Very early on Emma had trouble with one of her elbows which required arthroscopic elbow surgery. After sucking up that $4000+ veterinary bill I decided the old saying is right, “shit happens”.

After that incident, I did some research, made some phone calls and got Emma and Bosley insured. Now with Bosley, the insurance company has and is still making their money. They have never had to pay out a dime because Bosley has been healthy as a horse. Emma on the other hand has not had the same fortune. Emma was diagnosed with a rare hip condition before her first birthday. The prognosis was not good; she needed bilateral hip replacement surgery in order to live a normal life. I didn’t even know they performed hip replacement surgery on dogs; the cost, approx $11,000 US dollars. Now, we did not exactly have $11,000 dollars in disposable income just laying around for hip replacement surgery but luckily she was insured.

Emma had the surgery and her insurance company stayed true to their word and paid 90% of the bill. The reality is we could have probably made it happen without the insurance but it would have put is in a really tough position. I realized there are a lot of pet owners whose pets are not insured and if they were put in a similar situation would probably have no other choice than to euthanize their loved one.

So now you know why I am a proponent of pet insurance. Even though Emma’s situation is very atypical there are hundreds of other situations much more likely to occur that could send your dog to the emergency clinic and cost you thousands of dollars. I know the odds of us ever owning another dog like Emma that requires nearly $20,000 in surgeries is probably minuscule but that will not keep me from insuring every dog I ever own from day one….because shit happens.

The next installation of this series will be on an actual provider, Petplan.