Pet Insurance Guide

Lesson 4:
Do I Need Pet Insurance?
Part 2


Can't I just put money away monthly in a savings account and use that to pay vet bills?    Wouldn't that be a better use of my money?...

A savings account could work if you have enough time to build it up. The problem is, you do not know how much time you will need.

If you are one of those people who knows the date your pet will have a serious, costly illness or accident and you know what the cost of that illness or accident will be...then yes... the savings account method will work for you.

Just take the cost of the upcoming injury or illness and divide it by the number of months until the date of the incident. The result from that calculation is the amount of money you need to put away a month.

If you are not an oracle and do not know the exact date of the illness or injury, then the savings account method may not work for you because you may not have enough money saved by the time you need it.

Let's say you adopt a new 6 month Lab. The next day you open a savings account. You plan to put $100 a month into this account to cover veterinary bills. Fast track forward two months...your now 8 month old puppy got into your kitchen garbage can and is very lethargic and vomiting repetitively. You take him to the vet who diagnoses acute pancreatitis. Your final bill is $3,000. Does the $200 in your veterinary savings account help you in this situation? Where will the other $2,800 come from?

The point is, unless you have a Magic 8 - Ball, you will not be able to predict the illnesses or injuries your pet will sustain over her/his lifetime. If you cannot predict them, you definitely will not be able to budget for them.

A savings account will work for expected veterinary procedures like wellness care, spay/neuter, etc, but it will not necessarily work for unexpected, costly hits.





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