Pet insurance?
 

I have a 5 yr old dog and never took insurance out. Do u recommend it and if so, who do u recommend I use?

I would read fine print before purchasing. IMO probably about as good and dental insurance.

Pet insurance is good
 

The younger your pet is the cheaper the payments are at enrollment. Face it most of us will pay the cost to keep our dogs/cats healthy. I have Nationwide and am happy with them. Some home insurance now covers pets. I would do a google search. There are many out there. See which one fits for you. Good luck!

We do indeed. Sometimes a lot. Dad would roll over in his grave if he knew that his #1 son (actually all his kids and grandkids) pays quite a lot to keep Rover or (in my case) Kitty healthy. Back in the day, if a pet got seriously sick or enfeebled by age, we just shot them. It was the way of the time: money was not plentiful and a ready supply of pets (nobody spent money for neutering critters back then) was always available from neighbors.

It is a different time now. Oh, I suppose pet insurance was available even back in the day but even if we had known about it, we never would have used it. Today, we routinely drop $400 - $500 on Rover or Kitty per year and think nothing of it.

Veterinary clinics seem to do quite well in TV.

Agree, much cheaper when pet is young. After much research we choose Trupanion. You can chose a monthly premium that increases as the “per event” deductible decreases. Premiums on a sliding scale based on deductible between $0 and $1,000 per event. Premiums also based on age and breed. Deductible is not annual, but per event, with a 10% co-pay after the deductible is met. They check all veterinarians records before writing policy to rule out pre-existing conditions and have a one month hold period after signing up to rule out people trying to sneak in pets with pre-existing conditions. Only covers health events, not wellness care or prescriptions. Most veterinarians accept it and they bill the veterinarian office directly for their portion of the bill. Hope that helps.

Yes, vet clinics do well serving The Villages. I was given a written quote for over $900 to clean my dogs teeth.

I spend time in Port St. Lucie and went to a recommended vet there and paid just under $400.

How do you know the vet is not charging more because you have the insurance?

I owned two veterinary clinics in Georgia with my wife in the 1980's. The maximum charge we had for anything was $250 to pin a broken leg. A teeth cleaning was $40.

You just "SHOT THEM"? HOLY COW!
Mine went "sleepy bye" with the help of compassionate veterinarian.
Milk Bone cleaned their teeth. Maybe we were lucky, but our pets were loved, but never treated like furry four-legged people, and they lived long, happy an healthy lives.

Yes! My grand-kitty, daughter’s cat, had to have a caudectomy. Kitty is only 3 years old and the amputation removed entire tail near the spine. Diagnosis and surgery etc etc approx $3000.00. My daughter didn’t think for a second about it. She has no pet insurance. Kitty is recovering very well and back to his incredibly sweet self.

Get a couple of quotes. Bundle enough cash to pay the insurance bill.

Flush the bundle down the toilet. That will save you the expense of forwarding it to the Insurance company and you'll get the exact same value as you would get from the insurance policy.

Just like Dental Insurance, the insurance company is going to charge you approximately 1.3 - 1.5 times the average amount you would spend of vet care, in a year. The odds vastly favor not having insurance. That's how the insurance business works.

Insurance is why you can't afford your doctor or dentist (or roof) any more. Now they're trying to do the same with your pet. It's inevitable, but we should resist this as long as humanly possible.

The well-baby appointments for my two kids, 40 years ago were $15. That's not the co-pay, that was the entire bill. I was a degree'd IT professional at the time, making the enormous salary of $28K/year. I was wealthy -- I had "hospitalization" insurance through my Fortune-500 employer. But back during the sane centuries before the invention of the HOA, insurance was for disastrous expenses involving a hospital or a hurricane, not groceries or doctor bills (or a new roof for your house every 10 years).

The same thing happened with dentists. As recently as my retirement in 2016, a $75 trip to the dentist got you xrays, an exam, and a cleaning (as "deep" as you needed). My dentist often even did the cleaning himself. I still remember the rest of the price list. Fillings were $50, $100, $150, depending on how deep they were. Crowns were $500.

Then, they started billing the insurance company directly. Now a trip to the dentist burns through half your $1000/ year insurance benefit -- before they even find anything to fix (and we just paid $2000 AFTER INSURANCE for my wife's crown!).

It's all a scam to hide the true cost of services from you so they can bill the disinterested 3rd party with the deep pockets.

We can't stop idiots from believing in free stuff, but we can resist the urge to insure against groceries, car repairs, streaky roofs, and vet visits. For the sake of us all, please resist the urge,.

The cost of billing the insurance company is likely the major reason care is so expensive.

No more live pets for me. Teddy bears are the perfect pets. Never poop or pee in the house. Never snub the pet food. Never need to go "walkies" in the rain. Never wake me up to go out or to get fed. Never knock over things of their own accord. And they are always where you left them, just waiting to give you unlimited love and understanding.
But, one is getting a bit dirty and wrinkled. I wonder if I should buy insurance incase he needs to go to the doll hospital. Or should I give him a bath in the washing machine?

We signed up for the Banfield Wellness plan about 12 years ago and have been very happy with it. Check it out.