Is Pet Insurance Worth It? My Experience With Trupanion

Have you ever been at the vet’s office (or worse, the emergency vet), and received a hefty bill for which you weren’t prepared? You may have asked yourself “Is pet insurance is worth it?” You are certainly not alone.

Pet insurance is a soap box topic for me (Buckle up, this is a long one! 😂). Unless I suddenly win the lotto jackpot, I will ALWAYS have it. Specifically, I chose pet insurance for accidents and illness only. These are the unexpected things you hope will never happen, but sometimes do happen.

I didn’t always have pet insurance

I didn’t think pet insurance was a scam, but I just always assumed I’d be in the red. You know, paying out more money than I’d ever receive in benefits, and having all my claims denied for some small, fine print. But, I’ve learned two things since then:

• Read all the fine print. Ask questions. It is up to you to understand what the policy covers, and what it does not. You are unlikely to feel cheated if you understand the rules before signing up.
• The winning scenario here actually IS being in the red. You heard me. At a loss, paying out with no financial gain. Because the alternative means your dog (or other insured pet) is sick or injured. Nobody wants that.

I should have bought Pet insurance

If you read my post What is the Safest Anti-Inflammatory for Dogs?, you might think the experience of losing my dog Cedric to a perforated peptic ulcer caused by NSAID use was a good reason to start getting pet insurance. When Cedric got sick in 2010, that episode cost around $12,000. This was just six months after paying $4,600 for him to have bowel obstruction surgery to remove my weight lifting gloves he’d eaten two weeks prior! 🤦‍♀️

I had not planned ahead for anything like this. Making decisions about how the emergency vet should proceed was incredibly stressful at an already stressful time. I ended up doing what many folks do. I called to increased my credit limit, applied for another credit card, and put it all on plastic. And then to lose him…it was pretty devastating.

Why I finally got pet insurance

Our other dog Skip was already 9. I thought there was no way pet insurance would be worth it. So, I rolled the dice again. Two years later, while still chipping away at the debt from Cedric’s surgery, Skip began to suffer from hind leg weakness. We started physical therapy, but there was no real improvement.

Eventually, the veterinary oncologist diagnosed Skip’s progressive weakness as acquired Myasthenia Gravis, caused by a Thymoma, a rare, cancerous mass in his chest that was about the size of a grapefruit. Surgery was his best chance at survival. Here I was again, making life or death decisions, while struggling with the question “How am I going to pay for this??”

Skip came through surgery beautifully. Even with having had his chest cracked open, it was almost immediately evident he was feeling better than he had in 6 months. But within days, he had complications of megaesophagus and aspiration pneumonia. Skip was suffering immensely, and we made the difficult decision to let him go.

As we spent our last moments with Skip, a clueless staff member entered the room telling me the request to increase our CareCredit limit was denied, and she asked how we wanted to pay the remainder of our bill. Utterly devastated, I put down a different credit card. The bill was $11,000. And this whole awful experience was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

i chose Trupanion for Accidents and illness

After losing Skip, I immediately purchased pet insurance for our chocolate lab Ginger. We’d had her a little over a year, and she was 9 – the same age I’d regrettably passed on insurance for Skip. I chose Trupanion, largely because it was recommended by the specialty center where Skip had surgery, but also because it was coverage just for the unexpected.

Here’s a summary of what Trupanion offers:

• 90% reimbursement (after meeting your deductible) of actual veterinary costs at any veterinary hospital for unexpected illnesses and injuries that did not exist prior to coverage (i.e. not a pre-existing condition, which is excluded from coverage).
• Another word about pre-existing conditions being excluded from coverage: This is why you should insure your healthy pet as soon as you get them, before any conditions are permanently recorded in their record. If you adopt a special needs dog that already has existing conditions, those will be excluded from coverage. However, keep in mind there are many, many unrelated issues that may pop up over their lifetime, and you can still benefit from insurance coverage in those scenarios.
• Wellness or preventative care expenses are not covered, and exam fees are not covered.
• There’s a coverage waiting period of 5 days for injury and 30 days for illness.
• Recovery and Complementary Care coverage is offered for alternative and rehabilitative therapies for an additional premium. Get this because it’s what will cover the expense of physical therapy, including hydrotherapy, acupuncture, and massage therapy. Read more about those in my post What is the Safest Anti-Inflammatory for Dogs?
• You may choose a deductible from $0 to $1,000, and it’s a lifetime, per condition deductible. This means for each condition claimed, you only pay the deductible one time, ever. So, if your dog has a chronic condition that lasts for the rest of their life, you will only pay the deductible once. On the flip side, if your dog has multiple conditions, you will be responsible for paying the deductible each time before your 90% reimbursement begins. I had a $500 deductible for Ginger.
• Your premium renewal rate is always based on the age at enrollment. In other words, your premium may go up at annual renewal because veterinary expenses are going up, but your premium will never go up because your dog has gotten another year older.
• Trupanion representatives are available 24/7! And while they didn’t offer this when I was filing claims, they now offer Direct Vet Pay, which means you don’t have to foot the whole bill upfront and then wait for reimbursement.

My experience having pet insurance

Now remember how I said pet insurance is a soap box topic for me? Well, here’s why: It saved my tail! If I thought I was in pet debt after Cedric and Skip, I had NO IDEA what was coming my way with Ginger (and frankly every dog I’ve had since). Having pet insurance, specifically Trupanion, made all the difference!

The best thing about pet insurance is your only stressor is your pet being sick. That’s enough stress on it’s own! You no longer have to heavily consider costs when they are explaining your treatment options. I’ve confidently said, “whatever you recommend as the best treatment” without the fear of draining my bank account or maxing out my credit cards. Insurance has allowed me to sign off on those “low to high end” estimates amounting to thousands of dollars without batting much of an eye.

how trupanion worked for me

Let’s break this down into real numbers. Ginger was with me for 6 years before she passed on. She was insured for 5 of those years. Adopted as a senior, she was completely healthy for the first few years. By the end, we were on a first name basis with every specialty at the veterinary specialty center.

Ginger’s conditions Included:

• Osteoarthritis
• Non-epileptic seizures / paroxysmal events
• Ventricular arrhythmia
• Vestibular disease
• Wobbler Syndrome
• A cancerous lung mass
• Several bouts with pneumonia
• Ingestion of foreign bodies on separate occasions – a bar of soap, and a sago palm seed

Most of these conditions were chronic, and care was ongoing.

Treatments and Diagnostics for Ginger Included:

• Countless X-rays
• Multiple hospitalizations
• Many, many, many medications (Learn how I managed all those meds here.)
• MRI
• CT Scan
• Routine Echocardiograms and Holter monitoring
• Routine physical therapy, hydrotherapy, cold laser therapy, massage therapy
• Acupuncture

Let’s talk about this in dollars and cents:

• Over 5 years, I filed 179 claims for Ginger to Trupanion for a total of $51,080.86.
• Trupanion reimbursed a total of $38,369.11 for those claims.
• My out of pocket expense for accidents and illness for Ginger was $12,711.75.
• All told, Trupanion paid 75% of my unplanned, unexpected care for Ginger.

was pet insurance worth it?

Trupanion was exceptionally good to me! I have nothing but good things to say. You must understand the details, but this is true for any insurance policy. Simply put, I could not afford the care that Ginger required without having had Trupanion pet insurance.

You might be thinking…”Wait, I thought Trupanion was 90% coverage?!” It is! And, this is where it helps to really understand the policy details.

Trupanion pays 90% of reimbursable expenses after meeting your deductible. In addition to my 10% share of the bill, I paid numerous $500 deductibles for Ginger’s various conditions. I also paid an office visit fee for every visit to the vet, specialty doctor, or hospital stay, averaging $95 per visit. These fees are not reimbursable under the policy, but the total claims filed includes them. So ultimately, I paid 10% of reimbursable expenses, plus the deductibles, and office visit fees.

What about cost? Your Trupanion premium varies based on a number of factors, including breed, and the age of your pet at enrollment. The area in which you live is also a factor, as costs for veterinary care in different parts of the country can vary dramatically, and the cost of care is rising nearly everywhere. Additionally, the deductible you select will also impact your premium.

When it comes to the cost for your pet, Trupanion makes it really easy to get a quote right on their site. Additionally, beginning in 2020, State Farm has partnered with Trupanion, allowing you to work directly with a local agent to obtain Trupanion coverage.

Currently, I have the girls insured with Healthy Paws. I have similarly good things to say about their coverage, which you can read about in my post My Experience With Healthy Paws Pet Insurance.

So, is pet insurance worth it? You bet it is!