At first glance you’re probably thinking, “Insurance for pets? I have trouble paying for insurance for myself and my family!” And many of us are in that same place. Health care costs continue to skyrocket and budgets continue to shrink. So why on earth would you shell out money to insure your pet?
Just consider this scenario: your beloved family pet suddenly takes ill and your local vet cannot come up with a diagnosis. He sends your and your sick pet to an emergency vet care clinic where your pet is admitted and kept for several days while they try to figure out what the problem is. Everyday the clinic phones to let you know what is going on and what the running total is on the cost of treatment so far.
The bill keeps climbing but you reluctantly continue treatment thinking they will cure your pet soon. You just don’t have the heart to tell them to “pull the plug” because you love your pet and you will feel like a real cad if your family finds out you made that decision!
Finally after weeks of testing, the bill is now thousands of dollars, you figure your poor pet has suffered enough and financially, you just cannot justify continuing this guessing game, not knowing if or when the vet will be able to cure your pet. You make the decision to euthanize your pet and you feel terrible about it.
Think this is an unlikely scenario? It’s not, it happened to me. It was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make and the money I spent on my beautiful dog put me through a real financial hardship.
Of course this is an extreme occurrence, but I still wonder how things might have turned out if I would have had insurance for my pet. Would they eventually been able to cure her? Would I still have had many more years with a dog I loved?
Keep in mind that pet insurance not only helps with catastrophic events, it can also help cover the costs of routine vet care that can so often be a financial burden. Pet insurance plans can also cover things like spaying/neutering, reward costs for lost pets and problems that may be breed specific.
