Pet Insurance vs. Pet Emergency Fund

Monday, March 16, 2015



Recently I've been researching Pet Insurance and while I think it's a great idea, I had to figure out if it was worth it for me since I already stash cash away each month for my dogs.   


So I broke it down a few different ways. 


Age of Dogs
The thing about pet insurance, is that if you don't get it from the time your dog is a puppy, it may not really benefit you.   Most insurance companies won't cover "pre-existing conditions" which means that if your dog has a condition that is suddenly discovered, that he may have had for years, and he wasn't covered all those years, they won't cover it this time. 

Since all of my dogs are pretty much over 5 years old I felt that it may not be worth it for the older ones.   Maybe Stella and Grace could benefit since they seem to be in great health. Pixie is in good health too but since she's 9, who knows what could happen. 

Risk
For risk I looked at the history of each dog.   Really, Stella and Grace just have their routine appointments and an occasional dental cleaning every few years.   To me, there's no risk that I have to worry about with them.   Anything that may come up, I pretty much already have covered in my Vet Fund. 


Monthly Cost
Once again my vet fund comes into play.  I put money aside every paycheck specifically for vet bills.   Even if I had pet insurance, I would still have to pay upfront at the vet's office and then seek reimbursement after the fact.  So for me to budget for my vet fund AND pay monthly insurance on all 4 dogs is kind of difficult.  Besides, the fact that the money I pay into my insurance I won't get back if I don't use it.  But with my emergency fund, that money is always there for me to use.   

So in the end, I opted to keep funding my own Vet Fund for my dogs.   I do think that pet insurance is a great thing especially for people that aren't very good at budgeting.

So I can continue budgeting while my pups live the life with their delicious dinners, frozen doggy yogurt, and foam pet beds (yes,  these do exist, check out The Foam Factory!).

Do you have any experience with Pet Insurance? What do you think? 


Be sure to join my Facebook group, Fixing Your Finances, to help you with your finance journey along the way. 

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