A pet insurance policy can help you stretch the dollars you can afford to spend out-of-pocket on your pet's healthcare. The following calculations are assuming the condition that is treated is covered by the insurance policy.
Let's say you can afford to spend $100/mo. or $1200 annually out-of-pocket on pet healthcare (with or without pet insurance) and you have a new Beagle puppy.
The premium in Memphis, Tn. (where I live) is $37.15/mo or $445 annually for a policy with a $250 deductible, 90% reimbursement and unlimited annual coverage at Petsbest.
I'll include the cost of the premium in the $1200 you can afford to pay annually.
Also, let's say you spend $250 annually on wellness care - exam, vaccinations, heartworm test, intestinal parasite test, heartworm preventative and flea/tick control products.
This means you can afford to spend up to $2800 on an accident and illness claim (assuming all expenses are covered by the policy) - $2800 - $250 = $2550 x 10% = $255).
Here's the math:
$445.00 - pet insurance premium
$250.00 - wellness care
$250.00 - deductible
$255.00 - 10% copay
_______
$1200
If your pet is healthy and you don't have to file a claim, you'll have a balance in your pet healthcare account of $505 you can carry over to next year. Without pet insurance, you would have $950 to carry over to the next year. If your pet required care as a result of an accident or illness, you would have $950 to spend vs. $2800 with pet insurance.
You can go through the above calculations when trying to decide if pet insurance is something you want to consider. You would have to get quotes on premiums for your pet in your locality. Quotes can vary significantly from company to company. You should try several combinations of deductibles and copays and include the premium in your calculations. The lowest premium doesn't alway yield the lowest out-of-pocket expense. Nor does the lowest deductible. The $100 deductible in my example above actually came out over $1200.
If you could afford to spend $150/mo or $1800 annually, you could afford to spend up to $8800 in accident/illness claims.
$445.00 - pet insurance premium
$250.00 - wellness care
$250.00 - deductible
$855.00 - copay
_______
$1800
Claim - $8800 - $250 = $8550 x 10% = $855
As you can see, being able to spend just a little bit more per month can really stretch your pet healthcare dollars with a pet insurance policy.
Every pet owner should ask themselves how much they can afford and/or is willing to spend out-of-pocket (cash, checking, savings, credit) on their pet's healthcare annually. Then come up with a plan to maximize those dollars.
I designed the Pet Insurance Toolkit to help you do some of these calculations and go through a step by step approach to narrowing down your choices from the dozen or so pet insurance company in the U.S. and select which one is most appropriate for your pet.
