You may recall last year that I wrote about a couple pet insurance claims with Nationwide for my dog Lucy that involved removing a bunch of benign masses from under her shoulder. Well unfortunately, 2024 included three more claims: one for my cat Benzi and two for Lucy...
OPERATION #1 (BENZI - STOMATITIS):
Benzi was born with some pretty unfortunate luck. I didn't blog about it, but back when Benzi was 8 months old, he actual developed Acute Kidney Failure and had lost so much weight, down to 4.5lbs after not eating for days. I honestly thought he was going to die. I took him to St. Mary's Animal Clinic because it was close to my house and the vet Dr. Laura Maillard diagnosed the condition. Dr. Laura was great and offered me an affordable, at-home treatment to help save my cat's life and Benzi made a full recovery from that. You can read about my review on Google here if you're curious about it. Dr. Laura eventually left St. Mary's but I followed her to Bernarda Veterinary Hospital and will basically follow her now wherever she goes. The kidney failure was before I acquired pet insurance for him, so that $1,000 in diagnostics and treatment came out of pocket and since this is a pre-existing condition before the insurance was activated, no future kidney failures can be claimed. Let's hope it never happens again...
I've known about another condition for a while now called Stomatitis, which basically involves Benzi's teeth and gums. He was unfortunately born with it and now that he's 5+ years old, Dr. Laura suggested it was time to treat his mouth. The operation was successful and I submitted Benzi's first ever claim, which was reimbursed for $1,190.44 after my $250 annual deductible and omitting the dental cleaning.
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| Nationwide Insurance Claim #1 - Benzi (tuxedo cat), Stomatitis |
OPERATION #2 (LUCY - VALLEY FEVER):
I went out of town for Labor Day weekend and left my dog Lucy in care of a friend who had never taken care of her before. The friend would end up taking Lucy on all kinds of trips, for example to Mt. Lemmon or the nearby apple orchard farm. When I got Lucy back, she stopped eating for a couple days and I it was near impossible to get her to eat anything, even boiled chicken (which most dogs will always scarf down). After two days of her not eating, I had to take her to Urgent Vet, which is unfortunately more expensive than my normal vet because it is urgent care. The vet couldn't tell what was wrong with her at first, but asked if I wanted to pay for additional diagnostic tests. The nice thing with having insurance is that you stop thinking about how much medical care costs, because there is some peace of mind that it will be reimbursed later. So I opted for the additional tests and one of them was for Valley Fever, which turned out to be what Lucy had! If I didn't have insurance, I might have opted not to run the test for $100 and it would have taken longer or more to find out what Lucy's condition was. It's likely that Lucy picked up Valley Fever from those excursions during my friend's care for her, from spores in the air or dirt.
The treatment for Valley Fever is simple, it just lasts a while. I pick up bottles of Fluconazole that cost about $50 for 2 months worth and I give Lucy .4mL by mouth twice daily. I am told from Dr. Laura that this treatment will last 6 months before we are able to revisit her levels and see if she's fully recovered. But at least Lucy is fine and eating well again! Here is Lucy's second ever claim, which was reimbursed for $895 after the $250 annual deductible.
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| Nationwide Insurance Claim #2 - Lucy (terrier dog), Valley Fever |
OPERATION #3 (LUCY - MASS AND TOOTH REMOVAL):
Poor Lucy. While she was diagnosed with Valley Fever, I also discovered a mass growing on her skull. My vet had done some research about Lucy's "breed" of dog when the first mass appeared and learned that they are just a factory for developing these masses, albeit benign. This one was on her skull however, and I definitely didn't want it to grow any larger, so I scheduled surgery a few months after the start of Valley Fever treatment to give Lucy some time to recover from that.
Here is Lucy's third claim, which also included a removal of some of her teeth since they were in a pretty poor condition. We opted to do this now since it was inevitable and Lucy would be sleeping from the mass removal anyway. The total reimbursement for this operation was $1,632.75, which only omitted the dental cleaning since my annual deductible from the previous claim had already been met.
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| Nationwide Insurance Claim # 3 - Lucy (terrier dog), Mass & Tooth Removal |
A POST-ANALYSIS OF INSURANCE COSTS VS SAVINGS:
A lot of people will ask me if pet insurance is worth it. Honestly, it's like any insurance in the world: it's worth it if you use it or if you have trouble setting aside money for when things go awry. It's up to you to decide if you'd rather save chunks of money for when your pets eventually get sick or if insurance is something that can work for you. I will say however that like in Operation #2 with Lucy's Valley Fever, it was nice to have the reassurance that insurance would cover the additional diagnostic tests that I may have not elected for had I been paying out of pocket.
When I first started the pets on insurance, it was $18/mo for the cats and $30/mo for the dog. Now it is $23/mo for the cats and $44/mo for the dog. The monthly insurance went up for the cats as they are getting older (or maybe inflation?) and I'm not sure if the increase for the dog is higher because of the previous claim or age/inflation or both...
Regardless, we can "estimate" if pet insurance is worth it by doing some ballpark math. I don't know exactly when my rates changed, but let's just say it was $18/$30 for the first 3 years and $23/$44 for the next two years, just to give us an idea of how much I'm spending versus saving:
Benzi = ($18 x 42 months) + ($23 x 24 months) + ($250 deductible) = $1,558 paid over 5.5 years. With $1,190 reimbursed, that means I'm -$368 for Benzi so far and 1 operation.
Ember = ($18 x 38 months) + ($23 x 24 months) = $1,236 paid over 5 years. This means I'm -$1,236 for Ember so far and 0 operations.
Lucy = ($30 x 28 months) + ($44 x 24 months) + ($250 deductible x 2 claims) = $2,396 paid over 4 years. With $1,147 + $934 + $895 + 1632 = $4,608 reimbursed, that means I'm +$2,212 for Lucy so far and 4 operations.
So there you have it. I've said it before and I'll say it again...your pets will eventually get sick. So far the pet insurance has definitely been worth it and I'm happy that I went with Nationwide's Major Medical Plan for all three pets!