With all this talk of a recession in the US, it's easy to get nervous about spending money.
Every penny that goes out the door is one less penny you have in hand to buffer any financial surprises that might occur during tough times.
So you might think that pet insurance is another needless expense, another luxury, and not something to get when you are pinching your pennies.
Well, I would argue that for some of us, it's in times like these when we should buy pet insurance.
Let me tell you what happened to me during a time of financial difficulty.
Back in 2003, my husband (John) and I had just finished our MBAs. We graduated with huge debt, a small cushion of savings, and no income.
I worked on building Embrace and John worked on getting a job but all the while the savings were dripping away, our first baby was on the way, and we were a little stressed to say the least.
We also had two 8 year old cats - Simon and Barnes - who had no health issues up to this point. Because I was working on Embrace Pet Insurance, a start-up pet insurance company, I had bought a pet insurance policy for each cat from our competitors earlier that year. The premiums were about $45 a month in total.
As the months ticked by and John still has no job, our savings got lower and lower and I seriously thought about dropping the policies to keep our monthly spend as low as possible. But I didn't because of Embrace.
That's when Barnes got really sick with kidney disease and he had to spend several nights at the Veterinary Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania - one of the most expensive hospitals in the US.
The bill ended up being around $1,500 (including big discounts because they felt sorry for us), which was money we did not have.
And that was when I realized the true benefit of having pet insurance. It was there when we needed help with a large unexpected vet bill we really could not afford. Barnes and I say amen to that.
So, if something happened to your cat or dog, do you want to have to choose your pet's veterinary care based on your finances in a recession or based on the right thing to do?
What do you think?
