If you’ve been reading here for awhile, you know the answer, in my opinion, to the question “do I need pet insurance?” Is always YES.

Yet, when we first brought Sweet Baby L home, I wasn’t fully convinced we needed it. It seemed expensive and surely I could get away with not having it, right?

Wrong! Here are a few things I didn’t think about at first.

The first year of dog ownership = a lot of vet bills (more than I could have ever anticipated).

I knew Sweet Baby L would need to see the vet when she first arrived home, but I had no idea just how many times she would need to return. In the first few months alone, we had to bring her in for several gastrointestinal issues. The exams themselves were upwards of $150 each plus the testing that she needed to find out whether or not she had some kind of parasite. That was about $80 each.

Then we had the skin issues to deal with. Her non-stop itchiness required a few visits plus injections to bring her some relief. Each one of those was close to $200 a pop.

It all added up very quickly!

And that was before the emergency room visits. We had a few of those, too. Once when she had a pretty intense hotspot and again when she was vomiting repeatedly and refusing her food (major red flag for a pup like Sweet Baby L who hadn’t missed an opportunity to eat in her life). Those visits didn’t come cheap.

But isn’t pet insurance expensive, too?

Yes, it can be, which is the reason I hesitated in the first place. We have a policy through Pets Best that costs us $725 annually. It definitely felt like a big expense at the time, but when $862 of a $957 x-ray bill was reimbursed, it becomes a no-brainer.

It seems annoying to have to submit claims all the time.

Being used to dealing with human health insurance, and what a monumental pain in the ass that can be, I was very pleasantly surprised by how easy Sweet Baby L’s insurance is to use. Pets Best has an app that makes it really simple to upload claims, and the response time is pretty quick. I will usually get an email with an explanation of benefits within a week or so.

Does it cover everything?

Depends on the policy. Ours doesn’t cover certain supplements or vitamins, for example.

OK but my dog never gets sick.

Lucky you! I know plenty of people who don’t have pet insurance for that same reason. Maybe the costs don’t outweigh any potential benefits in that case.

I also know someone whose dog got extremely ill and required weeks of hospitalization to the tune of $20k + in medical bills and they didn’t have pet insurance. Yikes.

At the end of the end of the day, you gotta do what works for you. Personally, I will never regret the day I got Sweet Baby L insurance. One less thing to worry about!!