Do You Have Medical Insurance For Your Dog Or Cat?

We don’t, but we’ve often thought about it. Just recently when we lost our 10 yr. old Cockapoo, Molly, the vet bills for her care and treatment amounted to nearly $2,000 and we would have spent more had there been anything the vets could have done to try and save her. It made me wonder how many times owners have lost their pets simply because the cost of diagnosis and treatment was just too high.

Just the other day while browsing some web tech sites, I stumbled across this headline: Pet-Insurer Trupanion Sees IPO Pop. While there are well over a dozen other companies offering insurance for pets,Trupanion broke new ground recently by being the first ever with a singular focus on insuring pets to debut on the NYSE. They claim to cover 90% of all covered costs of veterinary care which includes:

If your puppy, adult, or senior gets sick or injured, we reimburse 90% of all covered costs of veterinary care, including: diagnostic testing, surgeries, medications, hospitalization, and medical care from emergency veterinary clinics and veterinary specialists.

I decided to check into Trupanion a bit more as I’d never heard of them before. To my surprise, I found that Trupanion was founded by current CEO Darryl Rawlings as Vetinsurance in Vancouver, B.C. in 1999. The very first member enrolled in the new health care plan was Monty, CEO Darryl Rawlings dog.

In 2007 Trupanion moved its headquarters to Seattle, WA in an effort to raise funding from local venture capital investors to help them penetrate the United States market.

One of of the venture capitalists who invested in the company was Howard Schultz of Starbuck’s fame and fortune. When Schultz isn’t selling coffee he and his partner, co-founders of Maveron a venture capital firm, invest in startup ventures.

Maveron has a 25% stake in Trupanion and the IPO that debuted last month on the NYSE raised $73 million. That’s small potato's (or is that Tall Potato’s) to Schultz but the potential for growth in pet insurance is staggering in the U.S.

You can get a Dog or Health Insurance cost quote from Trupanion’s website:

The biggest question to most pet owners is undoubtedly “what does it cost”? According to Trupanion’s website, the cost of insuring a pet varies based on age, breed, gender, where the animal lives and whether the pet has been spayed or neutered. The average monthly premium for a cat is $26, and $40 for a dog, which represents 85 percent of its policies. At first glance, $40 a month does seem like a lot of money to me and that’s probably why we never pursued insurance.

On the other paw, $40 a month is $480 a year and as we all know just one visit to a vet can add up to $500 pretty fast especially when further tests and medications are involved. We’ve always been concerned about emergency pet costs while we’re down south each year and far away from our family vet. This usually means a whole battery of blood tests etc. if emergency care is required. I just might check into this and get a quote for Rylie. If I do, I’ll let you know what I find out.

Thanks for visiting!