I have 2 young, healthy, active rescue dogs. I’ve always kept an emergency savings account for them and figured pet insurance was like extended warranties so I never bought it.
Then 2 months ago, one of my pups had a freak accident and needed surgery. Total cost: $12,500.
I have zero regrets. I’d pay it again in a heartbeat.
But yeah… that bill wiped out their emergency fund and drained several thousand more from checking. I’m middle class, far from rich, and rebuilding will take some time.
Naturally, I’m seriously reconsidering pet insurance.
A few details that I think are important:
- Single-income household: just me and the dogs.
- No family or financial backup. I have a well-funded emergency account for income loss.
- I already live very frugally, so there’s little room to cut back and save more.
- I recently bought a fixer-upper and need to update several critical systems over the next few years. Not optional. Not cosmetic. These renovations will be expensive and limit my ability to save.
- I can handle a few thousand in an emergency, but I could not pay a $10k+ vet bill today without going into debt.
- My dogs probably have a higher risk of injury because of our active outdoor lifestyle. We’re homesteaders, they have access to acreage, go off leash often, and we camp, hike, and explore a lot. I’m not sure how to quantify that added risk.
And the potentially controversial one…
- I hate debt. Outside of my mortgage, I have none and I worked soooooo hard for that. That said, if something like this accident happens again, I would absolutely go into debt for my dogs. As long as there’s a reasonable recovery and good quality of life afterward, I will never let money get in the way. I totally get if you judge me for that. I love my dogs.
Right now I see two realistic options:
- Hope for the best – rebuild savings and rely on emergency lending if something happens. I have a HELOC at 6% (zero balance, just for emergencies) or can easily get a low-interest personal loan from my credit union. Rebuilding their savings alongside home repairs will realistically take 5 years.
- Pet insurance – Annual cost around $1,850 and likely to rise over time. Neither dog has preexisting conditions, so coverage should be solid. I’ve got recommendations and quotes for reputable plans. The one I’m considering has a $500 annual deductible, 90% reimbursement, and $50,000 annual max.
I’ve run the numbers against possible scenarios. I think the question I can’t answer is how much risk I can reasonably take on in my situation. I’m heavily leaning towards insurance, but I’d love some outside perspective. Financial safety and my dogs are both emotional topics in my brain, and it's making it hard for me to make a logical decision, or any decision at all.
Reconsidering pet insurance after accident and could use some perspective
byu/StellarSpore inpersonalfinance
Posted by StellarSpore
11 Comments
You are already committed to making bad financial decisions. You don’t want advice. You want support or something I guess.
I say yes, always. My cat (10ish) got a chest infection, we caught it right as she was really going downhill, she was in the hospital for a week, tubes in the chest for drainage, oxygen support, nutritional support because she started off small and went to malnourished in a week, 4 months of antibiotics, and then we found on the side that she has a pancreatic disorder—$20k or more, I lost count. We paid about $2500. The vet said when we took her in that if she lived, our insurance coverage would be what saved her life. We stack Pawp and Trupanion—I’m too tired to explain their benefits but Trupanion pays out directly to most vets and you can easily look it up. People who say to just deposit the money you’d spend each month on insurance really don’t understand how quickly that money goes when they’re in the hospital. There’s no way we could ever come up with $20k or more for an emergency
You could do pet insurance, it always seemed like a scam to me. I think the lesson here is that you need a bigger emergency fund. Sounds like yours was about $10k, and you had a $12.5k emergency, so $10k isn’t enough. Maybe target $20-25k, and do a few years of pet insurance for peace of mind as you build it back up. Glad the dog is okay!
Big fan of pet insurance for these exact reasons. I always suggest it. It’s paid for itself for me multiple times. (Ex: I’ve paid $~3600 over the past 3 years for my 3 year old dog. He got in a freak accident and insurance paid more than that. Paid for itself and I didn’t have to drain my savings).
Yes, pet insurance goes up by so much every year – mine has increased over $100 this year and is now $350 a month for two dogs. They both have pre-existing conditions so I can’t switch, and lowering coverage with my current insurer increases the monthly cost, because apparently I have a “deal”.
One of my dogs was sick and it cost around $10k to treat. So I completely understand, vet bills are insane, and those saying it’s irresponsible spending don’t realise the cost of basic vet care now. It costs $2.8k for 24h of hospitalisation at an emergency vet. A dental cleaning costs around $1500.
One other option while you build up your savings is care credit – it’s a credit card where you can make 0% interest repayments within a fixed period of time – e.g. pay x per month for 6 months. I haven’t tried that but I think many vets take it.
pet insurance is a scam. i just make sure to account for pet costs in the emergency fund.
Depending on what injury your dog had, it might not be able to get pet insurance coverage. And any sort of preexisting condition will not be covered. This includes eating foreign bodies, ear infections, allergies, broken bones, dysplasia, etc.
Ultimately it’s a question of: Would you rather spend $1800+ a year on something you’ll maybe never use? Or risk not having it and going into debt or having to make a choice between debt and euthanasia.
I always get pet insurance for the one reason that I never want money to come into play when I make a decision about my pet’s care.
One cat had $19,000 dollars worth of bills ((total) from two separate week long stays at the vet. Insurance covered 90 percent of it.
I’ve always gotten pet insurance. I legit just don’t have several thousand dollars laying around. My last cat needed like $16k of hospital bills when she got old and sick and I wouldn’t have been able to do that without insurance. My cat right now is young and healthy and doesn’t eat things she shouldn’t, but i’m still getting the insurance because i only have like 1k in savings…
I inherited 2 dogs from my parents. They were already seniors because of their size. I looked into pet insurance and everything I read seemed like it wouldn’t cover anything on older dogs.
Both my dogs had to have life saving surgeries and a stay in the hospital. What I did was pay the bill with a credit card to get the cash back, then I did a balance transfer to another card that gave me 0% for 18 months or something crazy. I knew I would be able to pay it off by the end date, so I never worried about interest. Yes, there was a balance transfer fee, but it was the best option for me.
I did start a separate account to keep money in just for them. It worked until I lost my job. Now I worked all their prescriptions and food into my budget and use the dog account for vet bills to make it last longer.
One thing that I haven’t seen in these comments, you have to pay for the vet visit/service upfront and you get reimbursed through pet insurance. That means you could end up with the question of “can I afford this” whether you have the insurance or not.
That also means you may pay for the procedure under the guise that you get reimbursed and then insurance denies your claim.