$3,912. That number is printed at the bottom of a receipt in the file drawer of my desk, from an emergency hospital in the north metro, dated November 2022. Hank had eaten the twine off our Thanksgiving roast, drippings and all, and needed surgery to get it out. Two nights in the hospital. No insurance. We put it on a credit card with a 0 percent intro rate and paid it off by August 2023, and I still remember the feeling of signing that slip.
The week after he came home, I enrolled Hank in an accident and illness policy. It started on December 1, 2022. Mabel, our eight-year-old cat, still doesn't have one. People who know what I do for work are sometimes surprised by that, so here's the reasoning.
What Hank's policy looks like
I don't name our insurer here. At the clinic, staff don't steer clients toward a particular company, and I've carried that habit over. Here's the structure:
- Accident and illness coverage, no wellness add-on
- $500 annual deductible, with the policy year running December 1 to November 30
- 90 percent reimbursement after the deductible
- No annual limit
- Exam fees covered for sick and injury visits
- Anything related to the twine surgery excluded as pre-existing
The premium started at $41.80 a month, went to $46.20 the second year and is $52.65 now. Through March, we've paid $1,266.60 in premiums. We've been reimbursed $126, from the first year, when a torn dewclaw and an ear infection added up to $640 in eligible bills.
That looks like a bad deal on paper, and I understand why some people skip insurance after doing that math. But we didn't buy it for dewclaws. We bought it because Hank is a big, active dog who swims, runs, eats things he shouldn't and has already shown us what an emergency costs. Emergencies and specialist surgeries don't happen at my clinic, which means my staff discount doesn't apply to them. At the emergency hospital, I'm a regular client paying full price, same as anyone.
Why Mabel is different
Mabel is indoor only. She doesn't eat string, doesn't chase squirrels and doesn't wade into the Rum River in April. Most of the care she's likely to need in the next few years (checkups, bloodwork, dental work) would happen at the clinic where I work, where I get 30 percent off services. An insurance policy would reimburse the discounted amount, not the list price, so the discount shrinks what a policy could ever pay back.
She's also eight. When I last looked, quotes for a cat her age were noticeably higher than they'd be for a young cat, and they climb every year.
So instead of paying a premium for Mabel, we "self-insure" through what we call the pet fund: a separate high-yield savings account that only pays for unplanned vet bills. Routine care comes out of our monthly budget. The fund gets an automatic $100 transfer on the 1st of each month. It was at $2,450 on March 1 and is at $2,550 after this month's transfer. Our goal is $3,000.
The risks we're taking
This plan has holes, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about them.
If Mabel ever needed the emergency hospital or a specialist, my discount wouldn't help, and a big bill could empty the fund in an afternoon. The fund would also have to cover Hank's deductible and his share of anything that happens to him. And every year we wait, Mabel gets older, so the quotes go up, and anything that shows up in her records in the meantime will count as pre-existing on any new policy.
That last part is the one that nags at me. Waiting has a cost even when nothing happens.
Why "yet"
Every spring I run the question again. This year the answer is still no, but closer than it was last year. If her health changes, if the fund takes a big hit, or if quotes shift, we'll revisit it.
Your situation won't look like ours. Most people don't get a staff discount, many pets aren't indoor-only, and savings accounts vary a lot. If you're weighing this for your own animals, get a few quotes, read the sample policy instead of the summary page and ask each company how they handle conditions that show up in past records. Those answers will tell you more than any blog post could.
Mabel is on the radiator shelf as I type this, uninsured and unbothered.
