12 Jun 2025 Our Furry Family Members
To know me is to know how much I love dogs. We have an almost 8-year-old Brittany named Ollie and love him dearly. Baker and Graham are obsessed with him too, and one of my main parenting goals is complete – to raise dog lovers! Ollie is sweet, playful, incredibly food-motivated, active, a little bit (read: very) mischievous, and the best companion for our family. When I was growing up, my family had two Brittanys who both lived to be 17, so I’m hopeful we have a long time ahead of us with Ollie (pictured below on our recent trip to the beach).
Pets are part of many of our families. Over this past year, I’ve sat in the unfortunate seat of watching several friends go through incredibly difficult situations with their dogs that have me reexamining my thoughts on pet insurance. The first year we had Ollie, we paid for a puppy plan at our vet’s office, which gave us a monthly payment to spread out the cost of the more expensive initial costs of vaccinations and spay/neuter care. Plus, if there were any one-off vet visits due to puppy shenanigans, the vet fee was covered, and only any other treatments were additional expenses. Ever since then, we just pay for vet care out of pocket with only one or two extra incidents.
In the past year though, two friends have dealt with sudden cancer diagnoses for their dogs who were not yet “old.” Both friends tried various treatments for their dogs that ultimately did not extend prognoses. Another friend’s otherwise very healthy 8-year-old dog’s hind legs suddenly went immobile without warning. His dog had emergency spinal surgery to repair a ruptured disc with a high probability of success or regaining full mobility. Then four days later, he needed a second surgery with a lower probability of regaining full mobility. He just decided to spend money on the first surgery, so it seems impossible to even consider saying no to the second unexpected surgery. Both surgeries went well and now the dog has physical therapy treatments. Thankfully those are helping and the dog is gaining more and more mobility.
We’ve been lucky with small incidents that haven’t set us back too much. A copperhead snake bite (unfortunately something to watch out for in Raleigh) treatment ran around $900 a few years ago. Ollie ingested what turned out to be some special snacks he discovered on a walk by the nearby high school, and we spent about $300 on his evaluation and fluids. Once you start adding diagnostics and treatments, the costs escalate quickly. A friend’s two-year-old golden retriever ate an outdoor toy and required expensive surgery. They were planning a small bathroom renovation but thanks to the fungibility of money, they shifted those funds to take care of the dog and then just moved on without the bathroom project. And finally, the two spinal surgeries and subsequent rehab care ended up being significant, well into five figures. These are exactly the types of events that pet insurance helps with (although most of the policies I reviewed would not cover the physical therapy recovery treatments).
Pet insurance works similarly to medical plans. You build your own coverage with an annual deductible, coinsurance (70-90%), annual limit (examples I saw ranged between $5-20k), and types of expenses covered. Most are primarily for catastrophic care, although you can add preventative care coverage into your policy. One quote I reviewed this week charged $120/year for the preventative care premium (on top of the base policy premium of ~$60/month) and paid out $250 in preventative benefits. When I compared the preventative care line items to our recent annual vet bill, vets charge more than the policy’s max reimbursement, so we’d still be out of pocket an additional amount. Overall, we would end up spending more on pet insurance than just paying for veterinary care directly – as long as we don’t have a catastrophic event. Many large companies partially subsidize pet insurance policies as a company benefit, so if you have that option, the numbers may work more in your favor.
Expenses can quickly snowball. When you are faced with making fast decisions for our furry family members, sunk costs make it difficult to evaluate and know when to stop. As much as I hate to even consider the possibility, Wesley and I have talked about whether we have a number in mind of how much we are willing to spend. We have not landed on one, but we may end up with pet insurance after seeing these recent experiences. It may not be financially in our best interest each year based on our historical expenses. We also could cover an unexpected large bill from our savings and then just move on. But as Ollie is getting older, we may value paying a little bit more so that in case of an illness or critical care need, we don’t have to put a cost on life in his moment of need. And if we end up buying pet insurance and losing money on it… well, that just means we never have a catastrophic event, and I will be just fine with that.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with pet insurance. And if you’d like to read more about specific ins and outs of policies, here is a recent article that digs into the numbers a bit more.
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