[Dax]

Hello fellow dog parents! We’re thinking about getting a pet insurance but would like to see what your experience is like.

Been doing some research and found that other people pay out of pocket vs paying monthly for pet insurance.

Our husky is 8 years old and we want to do bi-yearly checkups so thinking now is a good time to shop around.

If you guys have pet insurance, what do you use and does it cover everything?

Would love to also know your monthly payments and other things we need to know.

Thank you!

[Allison]

Even when my 130 pound lap Boxador was 3, it was going to be $100+ a month for insurance for him due to size and breed mix.

I decided it wasn’t worth it because insurance didn’t even cover routine visits or vaccinations.

Only “emergency” stuff.

He’s about to turn 12.
Here’s his vet costs since I got him
annual vaccinations $100

2x cancer skin spot removal and biopsy results + teeth clean $400
3x ear infections visit and meds $100

2x UTI visit and meds $100
2x misc infection visit plus meds $100
The last 2 years he’s been on $50/mo arthritis meds

Bravecto $75 4X/year
$6300 in total vet costs plus meds
If I’d paid $100/mo for insurance would have paid $10,800 by now.

[Michelle]

We surely used to think pet insurance is a scam and maybe it is in the US. But a friend introduced us to manypets, one from Europe? And luckily we got it just in time..

I think we started at about $100 monthly for age 9 female spayed husky.

Manypets has been extremely good at approving expenses within a few days and we have had a lot in the last 6 months.

Unfortunately they got sold to another company that is planning to exit the USA market so we will need to renew with the new company but it’s so necessary at this stage of life.

You just don’t know what can happen.

Our husky was 9 in March 2023. She’s always been hella healthy no issues, didn’t need an annual check up either.

She had 2 seizures in 2023 summer and we got her insurance that september.

Preexisting conditions are excluded but manypets is a little more flex: if no seizures happened for 18 months, it’d be a new issue.

She also had liver enzymes rising during this 2- seizure period so we had a liver biopsy done (not covered by insurance due to timing).

Unfortunately she got more seizures the next summer at age 10 some and got diagnosed with thyroid cancer spread to lungs and a small brain tumor associated with it.

Insurance helped cover 80% of radiation, CT/MRI, chemo sessions, ER visits after meeting the deductible.

I think we would be 50k deep if we didn’t have insurance. She also had acute pancreatitis in 2025 so now we are at age 11 in March 2025.

But overall she’s doing decently all things considered of cancer, pancreatitis and chronic hepatitis/slight copper storage issue.

[Emily]

Most pet insurance won’t cover the routine checkups you refer to without a considerably high rate

You have to think about it more like car insurance rather than human health insurance.

It’s there for when the bad stuff really hits and you pay all along hoping you never have to use it

[Kimberly]

Pet insurance isn’t worth it on older pets unless you started him on it as a puppy. Most pet insurance companies won’t insure a senior pet.

I’ve seen major surgeries and hospitalizations reach the 10k mark these days.

[Stephanie]

At 8 years old he will probably have some, if not many, “pre-existing conditions” according to insurance. I’d still look into it though.

I pay $70/mo for 2 cats. We insured them at ages 2&3 (when they were adopted).

We use Embrace and have been very happy with it – it covers everything at 90% minus annual checkups.

[Victoria]

If something happened and he needed 10k treatment tomorrow, would you have the funds? If yes, I’d forgo pet insurance. If not, itd be something to consider.

It isn’t a scam.. its for those who cannot pay medical treatment upfront should it arise. It’s up to you to determine if you can or cannot.

Also, insuring an order dog is definitely going to be more expensive.

Pet insurance is something you typically start while they’re puppies

[Jennifer]

We had trupanion for 2 years for our doxie. Complete waste of $. Pretty much nothing was covered. 3 emergencies and I think I got about $100 Canadian refunded.

Ditched the plan and have a savings account instead.

[David]

Trupanion is not cheap, but we have it on both our dogs. We’re the type of people who treat our dogs like humans, and if the treatment is expensive – we’re gonna pay for it.

When you have insurance, you don’t have to second guess how much it will cost to treat your dogs.

[Leslie]

I have Trupanion for my cats. It works great. For 4 cats it was 78 a month 3 younger cats and 1 senior cat

[Theresa]

I have a wellness plan for my dog and that covers the routine stuff. We started an investment account for him when we got him and instead of paying into insurance we put in $80 a month.

One dog of mine had insurance and that was a waste of money IMO so doing it differently this time.

[Alex]

We have emergency pet insurance through ASCPA for our 2 german shepherds. It’s about $50/month. Covers upto $10K per year.
We learned through the hard way of not having pet insurance.

One of our german shepherds has cost us over $30,000 out of pocket in surgeries.

I highly recommend people at minimum have emergency pet insurance.

[Author]

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