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Is Pet Insurance worth it?

December 10th, 2006 by Kenric

Another trip to the Eye Care for Animals for my husky… the damage, $380.00.  She’s been to the eye doctor 4 times this year already.  Her bills are starting to pile up which is making me wonder if my decision to not buy pet insurance years ago was worth it.

When I got my dogs seven years ago I contemplated buying pet insurance for each of them.  I did some quick calculations back then and determined that with healthy dogs and a few minor problems here and there, that pet insurance does not pay for itself.  Now that it is seven years later, I have all my receipts for all my vet visits.  I can use this data to determine if pet insurance would have been worth it for the past 7 years.

Pet insurance gets more expensive per month as your pet gets older.  I went to Petinsurance.com to check on the rates to make sure they are still around the prices I was quoted 7 years ago.  For the most part they’ve stayed the same.  Petinsurance.com has two major plans.  They are the VPI Standard Plan and the VPI Superior Plan. 

I am going to base my comparison here using the VPI Standard Plan because that’s the plan I would have chosen 7 years ago.  A young puppy costs about $13 a month and an older dog costs about $18 a month.  So for the purposes of this exercise I’m going to use an average premium of $16.50 a month for 7 years.  Over the course of 7 years, I would have paid $1,386 in pet insurance premiums for each of my dogs.  The plan does not cover regular check ups, yearly vaccinations or spaying and neutering.  There is a $50 deductible and the plan pays 90% of the bill above the deductible amount up to a maximum which can be found here.

I went through and calculated the amount I’ve paid in vets bills for each of my dogs.  My dogs have each had their share of problems but nothing major.  Suprisingly, the amount I’ve spent on each of them is very close.  My Siberian Husky has cost me $1675 in vet bills and my German Sheperd $1699.  Most of the costs were yearly check ups and vaccination shots which are not covered in the VPI Standard or Superior Plans. 

Here is the breakdown:

Siberian Husky		German Sheperd
Cost	Reason	Cost	Reason
$735	Shots / Heartworm	$578	Shots / Heartworm
$120	Spaying	$516	Skin problem
$80	Miscellaneous	$165	Neuter
$740	Eye	$174	Elbow
$1675		$154	Paw
		$112	Lump
		$1699

So would my pet insurance have helped me? 

For my Siberian Husky I have spent $820 in treatments that would have been covered by my insurance.  The $820 was spent over 7 vet visits.  Remember, this pet insurance plan has a $50 deductible per visit, so $350 of the vet bills were not covered.  Of the remaining $470, the insurance would have paid 90% or $423.  Clearly the pet insurance would have been a poor choice in this case.  I would have paid $1,386 in insurance premiums and would have been able to claim only $423 in benefits making its return -$963.

For my German Sheperd I have spent $956 in 13 visits and would have been able to claim only $320 in benefits.  The insurance’s return for him is -$1,066.

Pet insurance in my case would have been a poor investment. 

Would my results have been any different if I chose the VPI superior plan?  No.  That plan has the same deductible and same 90% payment plan.  The only difference is that its coverage limits are higher.

While going through my vet bills, I noticed that a decent portion of the costs were for pills and ointments.  It’s not clear to me if these are covered by the insurance either.  I assumed that they were.  If not, then the case for pet insurance becomes even worse.

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