Pet Insurance Guide

Lesson 4:
Do I Need Pet Insurance?
Part 1

To help you determine if you need pet insurance, you will first need to understand the cost of veterinary medical care.

As stated in the last lesson, pet insurance should be used to help you handle those catastrophic, unexpected, costly accidents and illnesses.

Unexpected economic hits in veterinary medicine usually come in the form of:

• Emergencies (e.g. Fractures, Foreign Body Ingestion, Accidental Poisonings, Bloat, Urinary Blockage)
• Chronic diseases (e.g. Chronic Renal Failure, Heart Disease, Liver Disease, Diabetes Mellitus, Cancer).
• Sudden, Severe, Acute diseases - many of which are considered emergencies - (e.g. Acute Renal Failure, Acute Pancreatitis, Leptospirosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever)

Expenses related to emergencies and acute diseases hit you all at once where as chronic disease expenses add up over time due to continual treatments and diagnostic monitoring.

The low to mid costs of an emergency clinic bill can be anywhere from $600 to $5,000.

The low to mid costs of diagnosing and treating a chronic disease can be anywhere from $450 to $5,000.

On the high end, costs can hit $8,000, $10,000, even $20,000 especially in urban emergency clinics and specialty referral hospitals.

Milder conditions like ear infections may not be as much of an economic hit initially (ranging from $150 - $300), but they may become more of an economic problem if the ear infection becomes a chronic condition needing continued treatment or surgical correction.

As you can see, the costs for veterinary care can range greatly depending on the type of illness or injury, the level of care you seek out for your pet, and your geographic location (as a general rule, large urban areas tend to have higher fees).

To get an idea of the type of fees you can expect in your area, ask your vet to help you figure out the low, mid and high end bills you could encounter.

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