I'm about to find out. After my daughter's dog was diagnosed with lymphoma last January, she underwent surgery and then chemotherapy. In addition, she had x-rays and MRIs. All this without insurance. Unfortunately, Missy died 2 weeks ago and my daughter added up her expenses- just over $10,000. In March of this past year, my husband and I decided it might be a smart idea to buy pet insurance for our 2 dogs, ages 7 and 12. I did some research and came up with Trupanion, one of those that reimburse you directly. You can select your own deductible, of course, with a resulting decrease in premium the higher the deductible. We chose $1000 for each of ours. None of the local area vets here participate in any of the other insurance programs except for one which gives you a 10% discount on "services." Doing web searches for info about Trupanion yielded some pretty positive reviews. Last Thursday my 12 year old was diagnosed with diabetes and put on an insulin regime. Yesterday she began to have more difficulty walking than she had been and was put on other meds as well. I will be submitting the bills to trupanion and after passing the deductible, I expect to be reimbursed for 90% of the cost of exams, procedures, labs and meds. I'll let you know how that goes. If you're interested in checking out Trupanion, I can post a referral link which will credit me with a $25 charitable donation in my name if you decide to sign up. I will not get anything personally from it and NAYY.... Helene

We have VPI for our two feline boys - and what a great investment is. We started their insurance in 2001 and pay a pretty penny for what can seem like no return (unlike humans who seem to use insurance more) but when disaster strikes it is nice to know that we have a cushion. On the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend (US holiday) one of our boys was sick as all get out and was having litter box problems. He'd had urinary blockage problems as a young cat and we were so afraid that was the problem. We called his regular vet (answering service forwards emergency calls to her) and she didn't call back right away (10 minutes) so I called the ER vet and let them know we were coming. There is no time to waste with a cat in urinary distress. Long story short... he was constipated! To the tune of 500+ Insurance will cover 2/3s... Nice to have since I am out of work. Our other fur-son is diabetic and that gets expensive quickly. We are reimbursed a small amount over the year - but every bit helps. I really like knowing that we have SOME coverage. Most years it is a loss (financially) but it is ALWAYS a gain (peace of mind).

Blu: This might be a good time to chat about diet and what we experienced while combating the cancer and chemo treatments. We learned a lot. Give Spencer Canned food high in protein. Keep his carbs and expecially sugars as low as possible. Sugars feed cancer cells. The protein helps a lot. Carrots, and potatoes break down to simple sugars and are often found in foods. When you experience the days his appitite is off, it is a good idea to have a few things on hand. First go buy some powdered goats milk from a feed store. We used the brand Pro Bloom Instant Goats Milk plus Probiotics. You just mix enough to last one day at time. I used a magic bullet to mix it up well and put a little in and mixed with the canned food. Also keep Chicken or Beef baby food on hand. I Spencer refuses food, try the baby food on a spoon and hand feed him. Sometimes this will work and you had even mix with the goats milk. There is a book out on Amazon called the Dog Cancer Book. There is a lot of info in it. One of the canned foods we used when our Shelby's stomach was "off" was a simple two ingredient food called "Wellness Simple Ingredient Lamb with Oatmeal". There are others with duck, etc. Just find the one that smells the best to Spencers tastebuds and keep on hand. Feed stores carry it and you can buy by the case more economically from Amazon too. We made pill pockets out of lot of food items to keep her from getting wise to the scripts. What we noticed was some chemo treatments our dog tolerated better than others. Make sure you always do the blood count appointments exactly on time. Those are important all the way through diagnosis. Never do them at a vets office that can NOT give you the results immediately. We found out some vets mail them off. One weekend it nearly cost us the life of our dog, so use your specialist for this and always ask about the results. It's that important. We had several ER visits when Shelby's BC's got off. I hope you don't have all the same experiences we had and Spencer comes through these coming weeks like a champ. Our prayers are with you. It is rough, and its a good thing to have a support group. I'm so glad you have the insurance and others to talk with on all subjects that my come up. We always wondered if we were doing enough, and it was helpful to talk and even sometimes just vent or cry it out. The worrying has a way of messing with your own emotions.

i did extensive research when we got our (then) kitten last fall. We‘d had Nationwide (previously VPI when took out the policies) for our previous two cats, but I wasn't happy with what they offered. I wanted a plan that ticked off most, if not all of the boxes for us. i spent hours online and on the phone comparing insurance companies and plans. i decided on PetFirst (a MetLife company, which has been around for many years). The plan I put together (after getting the prices for various options) includes unlimited annual and lifetime reimbursement, unlimited reimbursement for dental for the things that are covered, which includes dental disease (a few companies only cover dental accidents). FYI, most, if not all insurance does NOT cover routine dental or cleanings, unless you have routine care added to your plan (which will often also include vaccines, flea/heartworm meds, annual exam). We chose a policy with 90% reimbursement of the actual bill, including exam fees (Trupanion does NOT cover the exam fee for any visit), $100 annual deductible, and they offer a ”family” policy which is available for up to three pets I believe, so the $100 deductible only has to be met once per year (by one pet, or split between the other pet or pets on the policy. We were able to convert our first kitten’s policy into a family policy, which saves us some $ on the annual premium in addition to the benefit of a shared deductible. There is also a discount for paying the annual premium in full, which we preferred, rather than monthly. You can choose a higher or lower deductible (or none), a lower or hgiher % reimbursement, whatever works for your budget. The important thing, is to have pet insurance. Just a couole of weeks before her first birthday, our younger cat had to be hospitalized, and then have tests done at a nearby emergency hospital. Minus the $100 deductible, we received a reimbursement check for 90% of the bills (the bills totaled over $5000), Embrace seemed good as well, but there’s a cap on dental reimbursement (i forget if annual or lifetime), and overall i was happy with my choice of PetFirst.