My family’s cat had major surgery recently, which came to around $5000. We really had to wrestle with the decision, but ultimately went ahead with it. Luckily it paid off and he’s happy and healthy now (well, he has cancer, but he’s not on death’s door and is on chemo now, so he’s as good as can be expected), but maybe we should look into this.
On a lighter note, that cone Nemo is wearing reminds me of something…
Thanks Bobo. My advice is also to only insure risks that you can’t afford to carry yourself. In some ways, insurance is poverty trap. People who can’t afford to self-insure must pay to have others carry the risk. Wealthier people can save the premiums. Having the ability to carry risk is one of the benefits of wealth, and leads to higher returns and even greater wealth. Yay capitalism.
Another way of thinking about (some) insurance is that it can be seens as buying peace-of-mind. Travel insurance can be like that. We likely overestimate the risks associated with travel, so the insurance is psychologically good value.
Counterpoint is when insurance of risks we can control lead us to being careless. Auto insurance is arguably in this category. As a poor student, unable to afford the premiums, I drove uninsured for a few months. Man, was I ever ridiculously careful on the road.
Another POV was explained to me by a colleague who explained that she loved insurance because she was frequently able to claim for many things that more than offset her premiums. Possibly not always legally - and creative exaggeration of loss was certainly a strategy she employed. It meant insurance was a great little earner for her. She viewed people who did not do this (and whose money she was effectively stealing) as the suckers. The existence of players like her make me even more skeptical of insurance. Another couple explained to me that they always claimed a lost bag on their travel insurance to offset the premium. They saw nothing wrong with it.
Unfortunately for me every time I think about getting pet insurance it’s when I’m paying at the vet. This dog has all of the problems. She had Lyme, she got a linear blockage and needed emergency surgery, she got into a fight with a groundhog, her housemate has no chill at bit her (he’s on Prozac and much better now), and to top it off she was diagnosed with Melanoma last year.
Luckily the tumor responded well to radiation and is almost unnoticeable. Still, regular oncology checkups and Oncept vaccinations aren’t cheap.
Not only that, paying for insurance and not having to make use of it is much better than needing to use it. I always say that nothing makes me happier than paying for insurance and not needing to use it. Peace of mind, health, a job, a healthy pet, a car that doesn’t get into accidents, life; a great combo. Of course, you should only get insurance for things that you could not easily afford to pay out of pocket.
Horn of Healing > Cone of Shame
And this is why we have a SIU (special investigations unit) and major case group…
Sadly, when people commit insurance fraud, they’re really not stealing from the large corporation holding the insurance. Losses are mathematically built into all the products offered. The DOI allowed profit is factored in with all the other stuff, so when losses are higher due to fraud, it just means that the DOI filing is a bit higher next year to account for that, which translates into higher premiums for all the honest people.
It’s crazy though what people think they can get away with. As one of the company veterinarians, I consult on the medical aspect of claims all the time, and some of the stuff people try is just beyond the pale. We had one lady who had a plan that covered prescription diets, clearly buying enough to feed her entire kennel, and trying to claim that it was for one insured pet. My answer to whether the amounts being claimed could possibly be to feed one dog “Um, not unless that dog is secretly housing a black hole…”. What people seem not to get is that it’s just not worth it. Insurance fraud at any dollar amount is a felony charge. Simply not worth that for a few extra bags of dog food.
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