I pay $25 a month for pet insurance, a small price for the excellent care my cat receives, with affordable co-pays. I’ve seen too many people, including my husband’s family and my sister, get hit with massive vet bills. Pre-existing conditions can also make it difficult to get insurance, which is why it’s crucial to plan ahead.
I’m a 31-year-old journalist, living in Portland, Oregon. I’ve always felt like I had a cat-shaped space in my heart, and after moving around so much in my 20s, I finally adopted my first cat with my husband a few years ago.
My husband and I got Poppy, then a two-year-old tabby mix, from the Sherwood Cat Adoption Center in Oregon’s wine country. Now she’s four and thriving (and so clever!), and as a new cat mom, I do everything I can to ensure her happiness and health — including paying for pet insurance.
Pet Insurance: The Details
I have Fetch pet insurance, which costs about $25 a month for one cat (it initially started at $22). The signup process was easy and online. Fetch has an app, so I can upload documents right from my phone, even when I’m not home. It gives us peace of mind to know we can take care of Poppy as if she were our daughter.
Around $25 a month for pet insurance compared to potentially thousands of dollars in vet bills to keep our house tiger healthy is definitely worth it to us.
The first time I took Poppy for vaccinations, the vet asked if we should give her the leukemia and rabies shots on the same day. I said ‘sure,’ assuming the more vaccines, the better.
Unfortunately, giving her both shots made Poppy sick. She’s only seven pounds, so it may have been too much for her. She became lethargic and didn’t eat for a whole day. After 24 hours, I took her back to the vet.
Fetch covered most of Poppy’s IV fluids, and I only paid $35 out-of-pocket. She was already perking up on the car ride home.
Pet insurance also helps cover her annual vet visits, where we ensure Poppy is up-to-date on her vaccines for cat leukemia and other diseases.
Seeing the Value of Pet Insurance
Pet insurance is absolutely worth it to me, and I will continue subscribing. I’ve seen countless crowdfunding campaigns for people whose pets have had accidents or illnesses, requiring expensive care or emergency treatment. I want Poppy to live with me as long as possible, and I want to be a good cat parent and ensure her quality of life.
I’ve also learned firsthand just how expensive pet care can be. For instance, my husband Marshall’s childhood cat Cuddles was hit by a car and had a pin in his leg for weeks. This cost his parents an entire paycheck back in the 1990s.
My sister, Rose Rogers, a Zillennial living in Seattle, adopted her first cat in November 2023 — Mariner, a one-year-old domestic rescue with fluffy black fur. Mar’s required some initial care, as well as more that wasn’t immediately obvious.
Rose used to have pet insurance for Mar through her job, giving her access to Nationwide pet insurance for about $8 a month. Rose is a professional bassoon player for symphonies and orchestras and, like me, moved around a lot in her early 20s. Being in between jobs, her pet insurance lapsed. She intended to sign up for a private pet insurer but didn’t do so quickly enough before she had an emergency.
As Rose was looking into getting new pet insurance coverage, Mar started acting sick and unusual — throwing up, hiding, and not playing. She took her to an urgent care vet because it was after hours, where they took her temperature, gave her an X-ray and an IV. The next day, the situation escalated to the pet hospital. At first, the vets thought Mar might have feline infectious peritonitis, a mutated coronavirus for cats, but they eliminated that diagnosis and eventually her diagnosis remained unknown. Mar had inflamed organs, a high fever, and wasn’t eating or drinking.
Eventually, after a four- or five-day stay at the pet hospital, Mar was prescribed antibiotics, which solved the problem.
Without pet insurance, the entire scenario cost Rose $5,000. Now, Rose is having trouble signing Mar up for pet insurance due to the pre-existing condition, which remains undiagnosed. Rose expects to pay a higher cost than before when she does her research on pet insurance.
If there’s an opportunity to mitigate risk for the ones you love, we purchase pet insurance. We want to take advantage of that opportunity to ensure the future health and long life of our beloved pet.
Jules Rogers is an independent business journalist operating out of the Pacific Northwest. She has more than 10 years of experience in print and online journalism and specializes in research and meta-analysis on topics concerning insurance, automobiles, business, finance, government, economics, and socioeconomics.
