To be honest, I cannot afford anything at the moment, which is definitely scary. I basically walk around cautiously (literally and figuratively since it’s icy here) and hope that nothing major happens.

I am young and educated, but I came from a welfare family and knew nothing about debt and the cost of education. I certainly know now. When I decided to go to college and tried to figure out the cost and how it would all be manageable, I was told that it would be my best shot at a future.

Now I’m not an idiot, but I sure feel like one for believing any of that. On top of my student loans and the money that I’ve had to spend on family emergencies, I’m a small business owner in THIS economy. While I’ve made some bad choices (I hate to call education a bad choice…. but it was), I’ve also had some hard luck.

I already have mistrust of insurance companies which stems from experiences of my family and my boyfriend’s family as well as a few friends. I just don’t want to spend money on something that’s going to screw me over anyway. I don’t think any health industry should ever be FOR PROFIT. We’re on this forum talking about not wanting to make decisions based on economic considerations. However, when the facilities we need to use are for profit businesses, there’s no way around that.

If nutrition was a bigger factor for people doctors and animal doctors, this wouldn’t be an issue. I believe we’d start seeing how necessary it is to have a non-profit health industry. We’d also see the cost become more manageable.

As for now, if I break a leg, you might as well shoot me. I can’t handle absolutely anything else. This is the breaking point. I still take care of my animals by giving them the very best of everything. They eat well. That’s my only insurance and it’s a pretty big start.

If I could afford insurance, I’m not sure I would buy into it. While I’m not quite as angry as longlostpets seems to be, yes I am disgusted by the concept of health insurance. Actually, scratch that. I might be even more angry. I don’t want anyone to profit off of illness or fear of illness.

@Arlene: I didn’t think of “coming out ahead” as related to a pet actually getting ill. I read it as what would be paid out of pocket vs insurance costs IF a pet becomes ill. Obviously, no one wants a pet to be ill. But if we’re speaking of purchasing insurance, we have to think about the hypotheticals and whether or not the insurance will cost more in the long run.

@Therese: How much did you end up paying for Lydia’s bills (if you don’t mind me asking)? And how much was her premium?

I’d really like to think insurance isn’t a waste of money, but it’s very hard to be open minded after the people insurance issues my family has been through. If one day it becomes a possibility, I’ll re-evaluate again. I appreciate all the real-people stories and comments.

Typically, you pay your veterinarian’s bill and submit for reimbursement, amount determined by the plan you’ve chosen.

And again, plans very widely. You need to look at them all and all the options, and then decide which one works for you and your pets.

This particular cat was feral, trapped when relatively young (2-3 y/o), and arrived with two of the conditions (one of which was discovered at his first trip to the vet’s, the second shortly afterward). The third became apparent last year following an unexpected response to a medication. So, in his case, insuring while he was young and healthy was never an option.

It is possible that someday, I may elect to take in another cat from this colony. Because two of T’s issues are hereditary, my preference would be to insure the cat pretty much immediately, before any potential problems arise (or are discovered).

Unfortunately, hindsight is always 20/20, I suppose. I don’t have any regrets.. this kitty is the light of my life, and I couldn’t have picked a better match if I’d tried. The bills, however, do add up. He’s never been denied medical treatment due to cost, and fortunately, he won’t have to be. Still, it sure would be nice to have somebody else picking up a chunk of his expenses.

(My other two are healthy, but no longer ‘young’, per se. One will be seven in a few months, the other six. And the six year old was treated for ARF during the recall (successfully, thus far), so I don’t know how that would affect his options insurance-wise.)

Human health insurance is so expensive because we actually do want routine care covered, and that means that premiums and the returns on the investment of the premiums have to cover stuff that people really will be doing every year and maybe more than once a year. It’s much harder to make a profit that way, and it results in insurance companies trying to make up the difference by denying coverage any time they can, any way they can. The “insurance” model is wrong for what we want with human health care, but resistance to changing it is very strong.

Pet health insurance, OTOH—most people who have pets can budget for and cover routine care themselves. And the kind of people who would buy pet health insurance, are the kind of people who will, in fact, have their pets at the vet every year for a routine physical, do the currently recommended vaccines, keep up heartworm and flea protection. Coverage for routine care, if it’s included in the poicy, is used more even than most people—the same people—use routine medical care for themselves. So including routine coverage boosts cost a lot, moving the coverage people really need, the coverage for non-routine and potentially catastrophic illnesses and accidents, into a harder-to-reach category.

My only complaint with Embrace’s policy (which it should be noted I’ve had no occasion yet to actually use) is that I’d have liked to be able to choose an even higher deductible. High-deductible health insurance policies are abusive and exploitive for most human beings, but they’re exactly what most pet owners who would purchase pet health insurance at all really need.

Gina, sorry about making it look like I was talking about yearly vacs! YIKES!!!

Alex from Embrace, thanks for the clarification! Is there a reason you and some other companies don’t cover routine visits, like yearly well checks? Seems like the policy I looked at a few years back at a vets office did. I would think that would be encouraged with full or partial coverage.

Does anyone do “family plans”? As the cost of vet care increases, folks may want to opt in, but it could be a bit of an expense with multiple animals at various ages. For instance, I have 5 cats, 2-16 no known health issues and one dog age unknown (think she’s closer to 7, but could be 10-11yo Dal) also, no known health issues. Any plans out there for people like me?

Arlene, there’s a list on the VIP site as to what is and isn’t covered.

With the high rate of kidney failure in older cats, I’m not really shocked or appalled that they don’t want to cover illness in a cat being insured for the first time at an older age.

Melissa at Trupanion—you know the old saying about only getting one chance to make a first impression? That doesn’t mean you can’t recover from it, but it does mean you’re at a disadvantage.