[blackviolet]

I am all about the peace of mind that pet insurance provides. I've had too many sick/injured dogs in the past, and without pet insurance, I don't know what I would have done. Yes, you can save up and have an emergency fund, but what if they get sick and deplete your emergency fund and then a month later get injured, or another one gets sick? I had one young dog that always seemed to be ill, and two very old dogs that started to have medical problems, so between the three of them, I LIVED at the vet's office for a couple of years. In just under 4 years (he died before he hit 4 years old), vet bills were about $10,000 just for one dog. I don't know how many thousands the others came to in those last couple of years, but the emergency funds were gone. I love knowing that no matter what happens, I can rush them to the vet and tell them to take care of it, no matter what it is, rather than worry about if I can afford to fix them or not. I would hate myself for having to make the decision to put my baby to sleep because I couldn't afford to try to help him.

My problem is that I procrastinate and will keep intending to get insurance, and won't get around to it, and THEN they get sick or hurt and I'm screwed. That's happened to me a couple of times. So just do it and do it now, and feel good about knowing your dogs are protected.

As far as I can tell, PetPlan seems to be the best one.

 

[blackviolet]

When I had my other dogs, I had one of those crappy insurances where they limited you by $3,000 per illness category per incident. Basically, no matter what was wrong with your dog, they would only shell out $3,000, tops. But that was the plan that I had signed up for when my dog was a pup, and then he had IBD, and we couldn't switch insurances, because they won't cover any pre-existing conditions, so we were stuck. Even so, the $3,000 covered most of his "incidents." I had a $50 or $100 deductible, I think. The last time he got ill, the bill was over $5,000, so we had to pay a good portion of it. If we had had better insurance without those "per category limits", he'd have been fully covered. Even so, the pet insurance was WELL worth every cent, and more than paid for itself over and over and over again.

Even if I never have to use it (we can only hope, right?), it's still worth the money for the peace of mind. It's one less stress.