Is pet insurance worth it?

While it might be possible to replicate coverage by pet owners making contributions to a pet-specific savings account each month, it is important to realize that almost no pet owners take this kind of disciplined approach to saving for a pet’s health care needs. In addition, it would take years to save enough funds to cover potential veterinary expenses, especially given that it is not possible to predict when those funds will actually be needed. Sooner or later, most pets are going to develop medical problems that require ongoing medical care and monitoring (e.g., arthritis), need a referral to a specialist, or have a mishap that requires a visit to an emergency clinic. For most people, having a pet health insurance policy is the best way to deal with those likelihoods. Without such insurance, it can be very expensive to provide the type of care that most pet owners would prefer.
When deciding whether pet insurance is worth it, pet owners might try to balance what they paid out in premiums against what they spent for veterinary care, but insurance really doesn’t work that way. When you ensure your home, you don’t consider it a waste of money unless your house goes up in flames, and the same is true of pet insurance. In a best-case scenario, hopefully you will never need to use your insurance, but it’s meant to be there if you do. Likewise, it makes no sense for pet owners to pay for an insurance policy for several years, and then cancel it because they really haven’t used the coverage yet. Insurance provides “peace of mind” for pet owners in addition to providing potentially outsized benefits. For example, a pet owner may have owned a policy for only a month and thus have paid little on the policy so far, but still be reimbursed for the total amount (less deductibles and copays) on the basis of the coverage provided. The purpose of pet health insurance is to have money available when you need it, especially for unanticipated pet care expenses.