Pet Insurance

Three weeks after Miro came to us, Miro jumped really high and fell without a good balance, and fractured his tibial bone on his left back leg. To get him back to his normal life we immediately sent him to an emergency vet, then to another emergency center with orthopedics, and had a major fracture repair surgery for Miro. Poor Miro suffered through the process but he recovered to his normal gait & conditions after a while. This incidence piled up the vet bills (>$5K) and we then realized how important having pet insurance is, especially when the cat is getting older or if the vet costs are high in your area.

Miro is currently on pet insurance to have peace of mind — if something happens, the insurance will cover most of the bill. There are many brands out there, with different deductibles, etc. The easy thing about pet insurance is that there's no such thing as "in-network" or "out-of-network", you just bring the pet to any vet, with the vet diagnosis & receipt you can get reimbursed. It might be better to find insurance that has no upper limit for accident/illness coverage. There is a lag time (~3-5days) between the day you register for the insurance and the day the insurance is activated.

Just another note, these pet insurances aren't the "wellness plan". A wellness plan isn't as useful as we will get the kittens neutered/spayed/vaccinated/microchipped, which is what the wellness plans cover. The pet insurance here refers to those that cover accidents/illness — usually costing more due to complicated tests (blood tests>$300, X-ray>$400, hospitalization >$400/night, non-spaying/neutering surgery >$2,000).

If you are not prepared to pay a vet emergency check > $5,000 at once (or it hurts the pocket too much), we recommend getting pet insurance. We are using a slightly pricey type (Trupanion) but there are more affordable ones out there too. Pick the ones that have no upper limit on conditions (unlimited coverage instead of a fixed limit on certain conditions).