Pet insurance - your experiences

[pansywags]

Most people here are painfully aware that Cushing's is an extremely expensive disease to even diagnose, much less treat. I'm wondering how helpful different types of pet insurance are in these costly situations.

Did you carry pet insurance when your dog started down the Cushing's diagnosis road?
Did they cover a reasonable amount of your costs?
Would you get the insurance again for another pet?

I got pet insurance for Pansy as soon as she came home - though she needed emergency surgery for mastitis days after she arrived, and the insurance didn't cover it since it was during the waiting period. Since boxers are known to have a lot of expensive health issues, I always had coverage for her through VPI. I estimate that through her life the policy probably covered about 40% of expenses, including some wellness care.

Things started getting really expensive when she came down with her first UTI last summer, continuing through the end a few weeks ago. I got a little smarter about how I was submitting claims, being aware of different coverage limits and deductibles, and grouping my claims for better coverage. Since last summer, her insurance paid about 60% of her vet bills. Getting better coverage required some work and strategy on my part but it was worth it.

I would be inclined to sign on for pet insurance again (there are more options now than when I got Pansy), especially if I knew my dog's breed was prone to specific expensive conditions.

[Woodydog]

Woody came from the rescue with 4 wks free insurance and I had the option of continuing with it. Having had my previous dog not insured he ended up costing me £ 10 k in vet bills so I continued Woodys.

When Woody got sick we went for cushings test and insurance covered it all except I think £65 excess. Woody didn't have cushings but had cancer and had major surgery and various other treatments and my insurance took care of it all they really were wonderful.

I would never have another dog without insurance as it was a life saver for me we don't have credit care cards in the uk. In total I gave my insurance about £400 over the yrs and the total bill for Woody was almost £9k without it woody would have not lasted as long as he did :D

[mcdavis]

We moved from the UK to Canada when Hamish was 12 - we'd always had him insured in the UK although the insurance cost was much higher than the couple of claims we made against it.
We couldn't get insurance for him in Canada because of his age (it was the same in the UK - they would continue cover for dogs over 8, but not start a new policy).
I inquired about insurance for Henry but the quotes for the better options were around $80/month with fairly high deductibles so we decided it wasn't worth it. There were cheaper policies but they had so many exclusions that they weren't worth it either.