Poll of the Day > Pet owners

(+) Yeah! (+)

I do not own a pet.

I had tried it in the past, but it basically didn't cover anything, so I never tried it again.

No. My sisters dogs have it, though. For my dogs, Ill just pay when I need to

It depends what kind of pet owner you are. If you do a bunch of preventative maintenance checkups/etc you're going to spend a ton of money and might need it. If you just feed them and take care of issues as they arise it's not going to be cost efficient. I trend towards the latter.

Generally speaking its a scam. Its not intended for you to recoup your money on it.

I worked at one place that offered a discount on pet insurance that I had to get outside (but payments were pulled from my check), and Id have to spend like $5,000 a year before Id even see my money returned. It also required a lot of things that werent covered to be done and if you didnt your claims would be denied.

For one cat, but not the other because she was 15 and had identified health problems (hyperthyroidism, later discovered kidney disease) when we adopted her and insuring her would almost certainly be more expensive than it was worth (if any company would even accept her). The other, we ended up recovering roughly what we'd paid to date when he had an emergency vet visit for a urinary blockage, so that worked out. All in all, I could probably do without and we'll probably end up spending more than we recover over the rest of his life, but that's just the nature of insurance: You spread out large, unexpected expenses into smaller, more predictable payments, while most likely paying a premium overall for that security.

wpot posted...

It depends what kind of pet owner you are. If you do a bunch of preventative maintenance checkups/etc you're going to spend a ton of money and might need it. If you just feed them and take care of issues as they arise it's not going to be cost efficient. I trend towards the latter.

The plan I've got doesn't cover regular expenses (exam fees, meds), it just covers additional costs if any treatment is needed. It makes it pretty situational, but equally useful regardless of how often you visit the vet.

Let insurance is the biggest fucking scam. Do NOT do it. Google search it. MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of people getting fucked over.

I don't have it. I just pay out of pocket. Even when it's thousands of dollars

The problem is it wont be useful to most people. While it will help some families, most probably wont be able benefit from it, I would think. Especially depending on coverage

LinkPizza posted...

The problem is it wont be useful to most people. While it will help some families, most probably wont be able benefit from it, I would think. Especially depending on coverage

Again, that's just how insurance works: Those who don't need it subsidize those who do. That's not to say there aren't plans that are actually useless/scams because of how much they charge, how little they cover, or extra hoops you have to jump through to make claims (like Zang was outlining), but the whole "you might not use it" thing is just inherent to insurance as a concept. You're gambling on needing it.

My work offers it for free surprisingly. That being said, I don't get it.

adjl posted...

Again, that's just how insurance works: Those who don't need it subsidize those who do. That's not to say there aren't plans that are actually useless/scams because of how much they charge, how little they cover, or extra hoops you have to jump through to make claims (like Zang was outlining), but the whole "you might not use it" thing is just inherent to insurance as a concept. You're gambling on needing it.

Yeah. I know. Id rather just save money and hope I dont need it, instead of wasting money. I feel the chances are higher that its a waste for more people than not. Like for you, it was useful. But many people might not ever need to use it. Or when they do need it, cant use it like Zang. Or whatever they needed it for isnt covered. Or whatever. It can be useful. But I feel more often than not, its not useful.

Like my sister has it for her dog. And Im not even sure how much its helped my family

LinkPizza posted...

Yeah. I know. Id rather just save money and hope I dont need it, instead of wasting money. I feel the chances are higher that its a waste for more people than not. Like for you, it was useful. But many people might not ever need to use it. Or when they do need it, cant use it like Zang. Or whatever they needed it for isnt covered. Or whatever. It can be useful. But I feel more often than not, its not useful.

Like my sister has it for her dog. And Im not even sure how much its helped my family

The same is true of car insurance, home insurance, life insurance, health insurance... By design, it's a matter of "I hope I won't need this, but if I do, I don't have to worry about the cost." Over the course of your life, there's a good chance you're going to spend more on health insurance than you make from it, but in exchange for that you get a consistent, predictable cost so that if something does go wrong, you don't end up facing a larger bill than you can afford.

Now, saying that, that doesn't mean you should always have insurance for all of those things (unless it's legally required, like car insurance). If you've got enough spare income/savings or other safety nets that you can absorb those large costs, you'll likely come out on top by not having insurance, so in those cases you can/should skip it. That buffer is often quite a bit larger than people realize, though. Most car insurance covers a million or more, because it's surprisingly easy to cause a million dollars worth of damage in a car accident (especially if the other party is injured in a way that affects their ability to work).

Ngl, I thought the topic title was "pot owners". Was curious about what was going on.

I can see wanting some kind of insurance if you've got several Le Creuset pots or something similarly expensive.

adjl posted...

The same is true of car insurance, home insurance, life insurance, health insurance... By design, it's a matter of "I hope I won't need this, but if I do, I don't have to worry about the cost." Over the course of your life, there's a good chance you're going to spend more on health insurance than you make from it, but in exchange for that you get a consistent, predictable cost so that if something does go wrong, you don't end up facing a larger bill than you can afford.

Now, saying that, that doesn't mean you should always have insurance for all of those things (unless it's legally required, like car insurance). If you've got enough spare income/savings or other safety nets that you can absorb those large costs, you'll likely come out on top by not having insurance, so in those cases you can/should skip it. That buffer is often quite a bit larger than people realize, though. Most car insurance covers a million or more, because it's surprisingly easy to cause a million dollars worth of damage in a car accident (especially if the other party is injured in a way that affects their ability to work).

Yeah. Except the other insurances are usually more useful/required. Car insurance is needed to legally drive. And most offer other services (roadside or whatever) Home insurance just depends on what kind. But even then, I feel stuff will almost always eventually happen to a house that insurance can help with... Life insurance is useful to your family after you die. And since we havent found immortality yet, people will die as of right now (it might be less useful when we can live forever, if that happens) Health insurance (and dental and eye) are already useful Well, if you go to the doctor and stuff cheaper dentist visits, a couple hundred dollar glasses for like $10, and doctor visits costing nothing extra (or being cheap with certain insurances), while emergency room visits are cheap (or possibly cost nothing) Those insurances actually are useful, and usually used. Pet insurance seems to not cover much And seems like Ill still need to cover the cost in most cases. I consider it very different from the other insurances It seems useless in most cases, where the others seem way more useful

Like I said, I understand how it works. It just seems pretty useless in most cases. Especially compared to the other ones mentioned here

Nope, never did for any pets

Only for one of my cats because he ate a needle once and he's an asshole

Insurance on horses is very hard to obtain. Insurance on goats? Never even heard of it.

Herd. Goats. That's a joke, son!