I’ve never bought pet insurance in my life before. My brother, John, has. His cat Beau has had way more than a fair share of bad luck with health problems in his young life, resulting in John taking the plunge a year or so ago with buying pet insurance for Beau.
Beau’s sadly had quite a long string of issues with UTIs that resulted in a double cystotomy and PU (Perineal Urethrostomy) surgery. In the end, I firmly believe that if this surgery didn’t outright save his life in the present, it has saved him from the potential of losing his life in the future – if and when the same issues recurred again and he physically was too old to handle such a massive surgery. Beau’s recovered and well now, but that’s a tangent from the topic I’d like to discuss today, which of course you’ll know from the title is pet insurance and your experience with it.
John didn’t have the best experience with pet insurance at all. His premiums were quite high, the insurance company didn’t cover what little they said they would (obviously, his insurance did not cover pre-existing conditions, but they didn’t want to cover specific non-pre-existing conditions either). What little they did give him took months of back-and-forth to get, with them denying he gave them information repeatedly even though he had. Basically, all in all, a bad experience.
I’m not going to share which insurance company John used or any specifics at all because it’s frankly not my story to tell (if he writes up an article, I will update this post to link to it here), but what I took from the situation was that it’s important to get a conversation going about pet insurance: if it’s actually valuable to pet owners, if it’s not worth the money, if it’s always an enormous hassle to get anything from insurance companies, and if – for cats specifically – pet owners have had overwhelmingly good or overwhelmingly bad experiences with pet insurance and specific providers.
Why is it important to get this kind of conversation going? So we’re all aware. So we all know how best to take care of our pets. So that the terrible stories can surface and be heard, and so the positive ones where specific companies have been wonderful to work with can surface and we can reward these companies with our patronage.
Discussion: Thoughts & Experiences About Pet Insurance for Cats
For Those Who Have Bought Pet Insurance for Cats Before
There are a few things it’d be really helpful for us to know about your situation for us to have an accurate benchmark. I’d thus love for you to please either copy and paste these tidbits of information into the start of your comment or simply bring them up in the body of your comment. Other than that, have at it and please don’t hesitate to write as long and descriptive a post about your experience as you possibly can. You will really be helping other pet owners decide what to do and whom to trust with their pets lives and health. And what could be more important?
Thank you in advance for being open to sharing your experience. Now on to the need-to-knows –
Please include in your answer:
- Which country do you live in?
- Which pet insurance company did you buy insurance through?
- What have your experiences been with this pet insurance company?
- Would you recommend this pet insurance company?
- Would you recommend buying pet insurance for cats at all? Why or why not?
Besides these, there are few more questions I have that I’m hoping will really get the conversation going. You don’t remotely need to answer these and they won’t necessarily be relevant to you, but they are here to potentially jump start side conversations nonetheless:
Optional:
- How many cats have you had? How many have you bought insurance for?
- At what age did you decide to buy your cat pet insurance? At what age would you recommend buying pet insurance for a cat (or never)?
- Did your cat have a pre-existing condition when you bought pet insurance?
For Those Who Have Not Bought Pet Insurance for Cats Before
I don’t care if you’ve never bought pet insurance for cats in your life before – I’d still love to hear your reasoning for why, or if you would, what about your situation needed to be different before you actually went out and bought pet insurance. Here’s a few things I’d love to know, again optional questions that you don’t have to answer –
Optional:
- Which country do you live in?
- Have you heard any second-hand stories from friends or relatives who have bought pet insurance for cats before? What was their experience like?
- Why haven’t you ever bought pet insurance for a cat before?
- Would you try buying pet insurance for a cat; if so – under what conditions/circumstances?
That’s all folks! Looking forward to reading your thoughts below!
Dennis the Vizsla says
hello elise its dennis the vizsla dog hay my mama and dada hav not bawt pet inshooranse for the hipster kitties yet but i hav got petplan heer in the yoo ess ayyyyyy and it is a gud thing i do becuz boy did i rak up the medikal billz last yeer!!! in fakt i maksd owt my benefit just befor the yeer rolld over so whew we got in just under the wire on that!!! i am not shoor if they wil be bying inshooranse for the hipsters or not on akkownt of i gess the cats hav never ben as ekspensiv at the vets as us dogs but we wil see!!! ok bye
Elise Xavier says
True, true! Dogs do seem to have more medical bills, I feel! Hope your experience with the dog insurance pet plan was good!
Eastside Cats says
Which country do you live in? USA
Have you heard any second-hand stories from friends or relatives who have bought pet insurance for cats before? What was their experience like? Nope, no one that I know has purchased any, and after reading about John’s and Caren’s experiences, looks like it’s 50/50 whether it’s helpful or not.
Why haven’t you ever bought pet insurance for a cat before? I dislike having to pay insurance for anything, so it’s not a stretch that I don’t want any for the cats.
Would you try buying pet insurance for a cat; if so – under what conditions/circumstances? If it was free…
Elise Xavier says
Haha I love your final response: “If it was free…” 😉
caren gittleman says
First, I didn’t know you are John’s sister! OMG love it! Ok, here are some answers for you:
Which country do you live in? USA
Which pet insurance company did you buy insurance through? Trupanion
What have your experiences been with this pet insurance company? I absolutely LOVE Trupanion and would never consider switching
Would you recommend this pet insurance company? ABSOLUTELY
Would you recommend buying pet insurance for cats at all? Why or why not? YES, YES YES. I have only had two cats in my life, my first cat I did not have pet insurance. For Cody, I do. I got it for he AND my dog when he was maybe a year old or so. Back in late 2014 I think, Cody became quite ill (that turned out to be caused by cat food)………..I was reimbursed approx 90% of the $1500 I had spent for testing while he was ill.
Cody did NOT have any sort of pre-existing condition (nor did my dog) when I got them insurance. I would never, ever again be without pet insurance and for any future pets, I would get pet insurance no matter their age…….accidents/illnesses can happen at ANY age and pet insurance to me is a responsible thing to get just like health insurance for humans.
Elise Xavier says
Yeah I am! Haha. 🙂
So glad to hear of a good experience with a pet insurance company! Thank you for sharing their name! It’s so nice to hear you were reimbursed so much of the amount you spent. Definitely would be a lot more people buying pet insurance if there were more glowing reviews on companies like this one, I think!