Is insurance worth it?

[baconbaconpancakes]

There are many different ways to look at insurance companies being "worth it".

If you're looking purely financials, it wouldn't be much of a business model if they paid out more then what people pay in. They've got people crunching numbers to make sure the average customer doesn't get more then they pay. Some do, most don't, overall the company stays afloat. Because you don't know if your dog will ever require more costly care, it's hard to just look at the financial side. If he never gets sick, your 45$/month x 10 years is 5400$ you didn't spend on insurance that you could use for another dog. If he does get sick, you might spend more than that on care, and if it's early on in his life that he gets sick, you might not have enough funds saved up.

So, from a peace of mind perspective, it can take the issue of money off the table if something bad happens to your dog, even if that peace of mind might cost you overall throughout his life, that's something many people consider "worth it".
Also, depending on the coverage plan, it might grant you access to specialized care that wouldn't otherwise be realistic, like expensive chemotherapy, advanced diagnostic imaging, specialized surgery, dialysis or mechanical ventilation, which can be in the 10k$ and up range. Maybe those aren't common things, and they might not be for everybody, but if you have an emergency and they throw scary big numbers at you, it's one less thing to worry about.

Also, cost of vet care is growing fast, especially if your dog needs specialized or emergency treatments. When you consider the different coverage plans available, you should give yourself an idea how much care in your area costs. For example, if they cover 2000$ and emergency surgery is 4000-6000$, you may or may not be getting all the peace of mind you think you're paying for. You also want to make sure you understand if they're putting exclusions in your policy (like if the dog has pre-existing problems that they won't cover)

In this area, I'd ballpark hospital stay with surgery (like pyometra or intestinal obstruction) at a regular clinic is roughly 1500-2500$, and figure 4000-6000$ in big emergency center. That might vary from place to place, you can probably get some rough estimates for frequent emergencies by talking to your vet.

I do think it's really worth having insurance if you have a puppy, like first year or two. Overall cost for 1-2 years of insurance is nothing, and that's a time where you get to know if he has dangerous habits like eating socks, throwing himself down the stairs or chewing electrical wires, or if he gets development problems like bad joints that need surgery or stuff like that.
After that, it's "worth it" if something terrible happens, that part is really a personal decision.

Your answers are always spot-on and well thought out.

The simple answer is that all dogs need insurance for expensive procedures. They will get old and need care. Either you are well-off enough to always have about 15k per dog available at all times and you are the insurance, or you are not and you should pay monthly for an insurance company.

 

[purrversekitty]

Your answers are always spot-on and well thought out.

The simple answer is that all dogs need insurance for expensive procedures. They will get old and need care. Either you are well-off enough to always have about 15k per dog available at all times and you are the insurance, or you are not and you should pay monthly for an insurance company.

Love your name.

 

[Vladidon]

I don't think you can compare car insurance to pet health insurance. It two very different realms, it's apples to oranges. Cars aren't t insured for when it inevitably start falling apart from wear and tear, and there's a substantially larger pool of clients contributing to the insurance float. Even if you baby both of them, you're unlikely to file a claim for the car in the next 15 years, and guaranteed to file one for the dog.

Pet insurance premiums are based on the age of the pet, their breed, their local vet prices and the number of customers and claims in their geographic area. The insurance companies are businesses, they don't exist to care about people's emotions and will look at hard numbers instead. They aim to make a profit by charging premiums that are sufficient to cover their obligations but not so much as to loose business out to competition.

Prices for vet care have gone up 25-30% in my area in the last 3 years despite the fact that the very vast majority of people don't have insurance. There are a bunch of factors for this. "Greedflation" from many of the suppliers, increasing employee wages, an insane increase in the number of pets sine the pandemic, a huge labor shortage with people in the vet community burning out of shifting to part time, a new generation of people who choose quality of life over crazy hours, and probably the main driver is the corporatization of the industry, a handful of corporations are buying up all the clinics and consolidating them into a few large groups, creating lots of middle-people and upper management salaries to pay and certain profit expectations from investors.

As much as I believe that health insurance has been a factor in sending the prices of human healthcare into the stratosphere, I don't think that I've seen that yet with our pets, at least not around where I am, but it is a concern for the future.

Hi and thanks for your reply. I have taken the hound for a walk and cogitated you opinion.

Firstly: I'm not comparing the items insured but rather the risk involved. I can guarantee you that should someone or myself damage my vehicle I'm looking at 2 - 3 k minimum in repairs. My dogs insurance is for 10k maximum and as I take great care of him the risk is low that he will need intensive health care to the level of 10k. Yes by the time he is near passing age I may need that cover, which by then I will of paid for in premiums. Remember I can only ever claim up to 10k for my dog and this cover is itemized not complete (I suggest reading the policy). He is 10 months old now and I foresee premiums only rising This is not the case with my vehicle. Should I own it for 10 years and wreck it, the premiums will have been around 10k with the insurance company having to stump up 40k. The risk is disparate. I know which insurance product I would rather own and sell.

On the question of emotive selling. Of course insurance companies know they are selling an emotive product. They advertise this way. The adverts are emotive whereas car insurance adverts are price driven.

Profits. I find it incredulous in these times that you would think a business (especially insurance) is not profit driven and bonus led. These are not small companies, they may seem that way to you but that is part of the "magic" if you look beyond the curtain you will see behemoth majority shareholders driving growth, fixing costs and gouging customers.

Lastly I have had some people suggest my piece was anti pet insurance. Nowhere in what I have written have I advocated not insuring your pet and my boy is insured. As an aside do you think the elite class insure their pets? If you won say 100 million would you worry about your pets insurance. You level of love for your animal would not change but your need to cover them would. Insurance companies of course know this.

Their manipulation of emotions to drive price is very apparent.