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Comment by Doe-_ | Hacker News Reader

I looked into pet insurance. The best cover I could find would have cost me £250/year, and would only cover up to £7500.

It cost me £7000 for my cat to spend 2 days in "ICU", nothing surgical, though they did do a _cat scan_ and put him on oxygen.

I found the cost of insurance ludicrous given how expensive the vet was and how little the insurance would cover. Granted ICU is expensive, I would still expect there to be an option which would wouldn't cap out at such a low figure.

For such a measly cover, I would prefer to self-insure.

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Exactly this! People think they are spending $25/month and getting full coverage in case something happens, but the reality is that if you have a fairly healthy pet, you're just better off self-insuring and putting that money into an interest bearing account instead.

The insurance companies have done all the math and are counting on you making an emotional decision.

I self-insured my previous cat. About a year after she passed of cancer, when I felt I was ready for another pet, I did the math for insurance. I would have paid a lot less with the insurance plan I found. So my new cats have insurance.

The costs for my previous cat were heavily skewed to the end of life period. But if there is ever an an accident or other emergency situation during their youth, the insurance would work out even more favorably. If I never end up having to use it, all the better.

You can't get insurance for an end of life cat. The comparison doesn't work against a young healthy pet. If you never have to use it, you've just wasted a bunch of money.

Don't think you can outsmart rooms full of people who are doing the math against much larger volumes of input data.

My comparison is to a young healthy pet who reaches end of life, as pets tend to do. I did the math, including interest on self-insurance savings and deductibles and co-pays. In my circumstance, insurance would have saved me thousands of dollars. Of course, I might not have needed it. Or it might have saved me $20,000. It's risk management. Pay a medium amount to hedge against the possibly having to pay an exorbitant amount.

No $25/mo insurance is going to pay out $20k, they all have maximum caps.

That's also 800 months of payments and your cat isn't going to live to 66 years old.

My insurance policy does not have any maximums. Your second sentence is nonsensical.

Which insurance is it?

  20000/25=800
  800/12=66

I have mentioned it elsewhere in the thread, so I feel slightly uncomfortable mentioning it repeatedly because I don't want be a walking advertisement, but it's Trupanion.

Definitely not an advertisement. For me with my dog there is no $25/mo plan. The lowest it goes is $60.95/mo, with a $1000 deductible.

Trupanion covers 90% after the deductible. A $3k bill would still require me to pay $1300 ($1700 savings), which I could have just saved myself by stocking some money away. $1700/$61=28 months. I've had my dog for more than 28 months and haven't had any $3k bills.

Of course, if my dog has a $20k bill, it makes more sense, but the chances of that are pretty low given how I know my dog. It becomes an emotional decision, which is my point and what they are counting on.

250/year is not a lot. thats 20/month which is the cost of a netflix subscription these days.

No indeed, but the insurance caps out at £7000, which is not an amount I need to insure myself for.

Insurance must on average cost more than it pays out. When it comes to pets, there is less competition, less transparency on cover and less competition on veterinary costs.

All these factors combined make it unattractive to me, as I have enough income to self-insure beyond the low cover pet insurance provides.

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