Before my ex-wife tricked me into indentured servitude here at Paycheckology, I worked for a place that offered pet insurance as one of its benefits. At the time, it sounded crazy. But it’s becoming more and more commonplace in the American workforce. Is it worth it?
Here’s Five Fast Facts on pet insurance:
- 🐕 This is Real? - Absolutely. More than 4.8M dogs and cats were covered by pet insurance in 2022. That’s nearly double the total in 2019!!!
- 🐈 How Much? - The average cost in 2022 for your furry friend’s accident and illness policy was $640 for dogs and $387 for cats. I’ll do the math for you: it’s $53 a month for dogs and $32 for cats. Accident-only policies were cheaper, at $201 for dogs and $122 for cats.
- 🐾 What Am I Getting? - Like most insurance policies, there’s an annual deductible. Once you’ve met it, the plans pay out a certain percentage of your vet bill. There may also be an annual maximum payout.
- 🐶 What Aren’t I Getting? - Most policies don’t cover spay and neuter surgery, as well as annual checkups, vaccinations and dental cleaning. Pre-existing conditions are out, too. They’re just like human insurance companies in that regard.
- 🐱What If My Company Doesn’t Offer It? - You can get your own policies through the usual insurance suspects or even through pet supply companies like the one that sends the blue boxes in the mail that the dogs talk about.
🔥Bottom line: Companies are offering pet insurance as another benefit to attract and retain good workers. It may sound like a novelty but a lot of people consider their pets just as important as the human members of their family. So, the true value of pet insurance comes down to the price and the cost you expect it to offset in the future.
Do you have pet insurance?
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