With the cost of paying for your pet's veterinary care ever increasing, some employers are beginning to offer pet insurance for purchase to their employees. This "employee pay all" coverage allows employees to purchase pet insurance at attractive group rates and have more predictable expense throughout a pet's lifetime. Has anyone purchased this insurance? Has it been through your employer or on your own? Have you found it worthwhile, or not? Would you recommend it to others? If your employer offered it, would you enroll? Thank you.

We bought pet insurance, on our own, when Kasey was about 9 months old (he's 2 now). We cancelled it a couple months ago. You have to be very, very informed about how it works - all the small print. For instance, when Kasey was 7 months old he got an anal gland infection. This infection caused him to lick and bother that area and the skin got a rash around there. So the vet gave us cortisone spray and wrote on the chart that there was 'dermatitis'(of course we had no knowledge of what the vet wrote in the chart). Dermatitis can mean a lot of things, including allergy skin. Fast forward to 3 months ago when Kasey was 24 months. He had started to develop allergies at about 18 months and we finally had to take him to a dermotology vet.

I called the pet insurance company and was assured that the appts and the skin testing was covered. So we had all that done, about $600 worth, sent in the claim and it came back denied. When we inquired about why, we were told that his allergy 'dermatitis' was a pre-existing condition. I assured them it wasn't, that he did not have allergies when we bought the insurance! They refered me to the sentence in Kasey's chart where the vet had described the rash caused by his own licking and biting, as dermatitis. They claimed this is an allergy word, indicating allergy skin rashes, and that was the end of it. We now have to pay for all the dermo vet costs, which is hundreds of dollars.

We were very angry and disappointed with that - and this company is one of the most well known, bigger insurance companies. They even claim they have better coverage and not as many 'loop holes' as other pet insurance companies. I know other people who have had similar experiences. We decided it would be better to take that $32/month and put it in a savings fund for vet bills.

So, make sure you know what is in your dog's chart for pre-existing stuff (the insurance company requires a copy of their chart from the vet the first time you make a claim), make sure you understand the deductibles (it's not per year, it's per incident), and also know that usually the company has a reasonable and customary fee chart that they go by for how much they will pay on all the different diseases, procedures, etc.

I started to look into insurance for my upcoming pup. I posted the question on a couple of my working poodle lists asking for opinions.
The general reply was that the premiums combined with all of the stuff you wish they would cover but don't, makes it really not worth it.
Instead, many suggested putting aside a certain amount every 2-4 weeks in an "emergency vet fund". This is not to cover regular procedures you would usually pay for at the time, but emergency surgery or something like a hip or cruiciate procedure.