Pet Insurance: Is It Right for You?

Fido might be as beloved as one of your children, but should you shell out hundreds of dollars a year for puppy insurance just in case he needs an expensive life-extending operation?

Unless Fido is Westminster-bound, the answer is likely to be no.

"Pet insurance is probably not a good economic decision," says Bob Hunter, the director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. Tobie Stanger, a senior editor at Consumer Reports, agrees. She calls pet insurance a "crapshoot" and suggests pet owners allocate a certain portion of their budget toward a pet-emergency fund instead. (In case you're wondering, the average dog owner spends $261.30 per year in vet bills, according to an October 2007 study by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. Cat owners spend $156.90.)

Still, the same study shows that less than 4 percent of American pets are insured, though that number is growing. The pet-insurance industry sold $230 million in policies in 2006, a number that was expected to increase by 24 percent in 2007, according to Consumer Reports.

Potomac veterinarian Tony Greenblat says the number of his clients with pet insurance has jumped from "one in a couple hundred" to about one in 40 in the past decade. He attributes the increase to a greater variety of life-extending procedures and higher demand for them.

If you really want to get the insurance, he says, it is important to look over your options carefully and "never lie on your application. They will catch you." That means reviewing your pet's medical history with its veterinarian.

"Pet health insurance is okay if the consumer is purchasing catastrophic insurance," says Peter Glassman, a veterinarian and director of the Friendship Hospital for Animals in Tenleytown. "If they're paying for wellness visits, they'll probably pay out more than they get back."

Brian Iannessa, spokesman for Veterinary Pet Insurance, a company that insures 462,000 pets nationwide, says that pet insurance provides people with "an ideal way to manage the risk." The cost? Depending on your pet, emergency-care insurance from the company can run from $20 to $30 a month. And owners can tack on $12 to $22 a month to cover annual checkups.

-- Amy Orndorff