Why You Should Consider a Veterinary Insurance Policy for Your Pet

We all love our pets and most of us would do nearly anything to keep them happy and healthy. But what happens when a serious injury or illness occurs and you're forced to make a decision between getting your pet the care it needs and deserves, or paying the bills and keeping food on the table for your family?

The Unexpected Happens

I have one of those dogs who adores the car and goes almost everywhere with me and this is precisely where our troubles began. One afternoon as we were getting ready to pick up my daughter from school, I opened the car door for my dog who proceeded to hop into her usual favorite spot in the backseat. Only this time, the most horrible yelp of pain told me immediately that something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

A frantic emergency trip to the vet confirmed it. After numerous x-rays and intensive exams done under sedation, I learned that my dog had torn her Anterior Cruciate Ligament (A.C.L.) when she jumped into the car. Ok. So how do we fix it? This is where things quickly got ugly. It seemed that the only hope for her to have proper mobility again, was a specialized surgery known as Anterior Cruciate Ligament Repair. Without going into all the gory details, sutures are placed, scar tissue forms and provides stability for the joint. And just to make things even more interesting, during the exam they also found that she had torn the menisces--a cartilage in the knee, which would also need to be repaired.

So here we are, 3 months, one major specialized surgery, expensive pain meds, antibiotics, follow-up visits, an intensive recovery period and over $2000.00 of out-of-pocket-expenses later...and my dog is almost as good as new. Fortunately for me, my vet was willing to set up an installment plan , but it sure wasn't easy coming up with the cash, and not all vets are willing to accept installments.

Prepare for The Unexpected

Nobody really expects that such a serious injury could happen to their pet, but unfortunately unexpected accidents and serious illnesses do happen. And often when your least equipped financially to deal with them. If I'd known then what I know now, you can bet my dog would have been insured. I've since learned that most Veterinary Policies today wouldn't even cover my dog for ACL surgery again until she'd been insured with them for 12 consecutive months, since she's already had the surgery once and the chances are so high that she may sustain the same type of injury on the opposite side and need surgery again, some time in the future.

Peace of Mind? Priceless

We all know that it's tough to make ends meet these days, so the thought of an extra bill in the form of a pet insurance premium may be something we're tempted to put off until later. But trust me when I say that you just never know if 'later' might be too late. It's my hope that you'll learn from my experience and give some serious consideration to insuring your pet. Hopefully you'll never need it, but if you do, you'll be the first to agree that you can't put a pricetag on the peace of mind that a Veterinary Insurance policy provides..