"So are you switching?" my mom asked on the phone Sunday, in the voice she saves for questions she already has an answer to.
Hank's pet insurance renews on December 1. The renewal notice isn't here yet. Last year it came by email in the first week of November, and I'm expecting the premium to go up again, since Hank turned six in April and vet costs around here haven't gotten any cheaper. So this week I did what I did last fall, and what I did for Mabel in the spring: sat down with the policy, a pad of paper and too much tea, and looked at our options before a new number shows up and makes everything feel urgent.
Where we stand
Hank's policy is accident and illness, with a $500 annual deductible, 90 percent reimbursement, no annual limit and no wellness add-on. This policy year he's at $59.40 a month, and with the October payment we've made eleven of them, $653.40. It's also the year the policy paid $6,653.70 on his knee. I put those two numbers side by side on the pet tab in August, and I won't pretend that didn't change how I feel about the monthly line.
Why switching is tricky now
Any new insurer would start by reading Hank's records, and his records now include a torn cranial cruciate ligament and a TPLO on the left knee. With a new company, that knee would be pre-existing. That part I expected.
The part that mostly settled it was the other knee. In several of the sample policies I read this week, a cruciate problem in one knee means the opposite knee is excluded too, on the reasoning that dogs who tear one often tear the other. Hank's surgeon has said the same thing about that risk at every visit, which is why his right knee is the one we protect now. Switching would likely mean paying a fresh premium for a six-year-old dog while giving up coverage on the biggest risk we know about. Add his history of itchy paws and ear infections, which a new company might also look at, and the math falls apart quickly.
I looked anyway, because looking is free. I pulled up sample policies from a few companies I hadn't read closely in the spring, Nationwide, Fetch, Figo and Spot among them. I'm not going to summarize their terms here. They change, they depend on the dog, and how any of them would treat Hank's knees would come down to a records review I'm not willing to sit through just to find out. For a dog with a history, the sample policy and the company's own answer, in writing, are the only summary worth trusting.
The deductible we're weighing
If we stay, the real question is the deductible. Last year's notice showed that going from $500 to $750 would take about six dollars a month off. I said no then, because the pet fund was sitting around $1,570 and I wanted the smaller deductible in case a big year came. A big year came.
So I ran it backward. With a $750 deductible every year since 2022, saving about six dollars a month the whole time (not exactly right, since the savings move with the premium), we'd have kept roughly $288 in premiums. We'd also have lost the $126 reimbursement in the first year, because those bills never would have cleared $750, and about $225 on the knee, which is the extra $250 of deductible at 90 percent. That's roughly $351 less back against roughly $288 saved. Close to a wash, leaning slightly toward the deductible we already have.
What's different this year is the fund. On October 1 it held $2,035.70, and it grows by $150 a month. Mabel's policy has its own $500 deductible on its own April-to-April year, so in a truly bad stretch, both deductibles could land at once. With $750 on Hank, that's $1,250 out of the fund before any reimbursement. Last January we couldn't have covered that. Today we could. That's the main argument for raising it: not that it's a better bet, but that we can finally afford to carry a bigger share of a bad year in exchange for a smaller bill every month.
Dropping to 80 percent reimbursement stays off the table. On the surgery alone, that would have meant about $670 more out of our pocket. And canceling isn't a serious option while there's a right knee in the house.
What happens next
When the notice comes, I'll call and ask what's driving the increase, the same question I asked last year, and what the $750 and $1,000 options would cost. Then we'll decide before Thanksgiving. Every renewal comes with its own numbers and its own reasons, and the company will walk anyone through each line of theirs if they ask.
"So, no," my mom said. "Not switching."
"Probably not," I said. "Ask me in November."
The notice should land sometime in the next five weeks. When it does, I'll read it standing at the kitchen counter, and then again sitting down, the same as last year.
