We hope pet insurance doesn't save you money. If you lose money on pet insurance, that means your pet DIDN'T have health problems that were severe and miserable. However, it will protect you from catastrophic expenses. If you are exactly average for pet medical expenses, you will pay out a little more in premiums than you receive in coverage. The idea of insurance is that you pay a little more as a monthly average, to not have to cough up $3500-5000 for orthopedic surgery, etc. One of our team recently had Trupanion pay $6500 of her dog’s $7000 surgical bill for knee surgery.
We recommend pet insurance for everyone because we hate animals suffering when the pet owner just doesn't have the money to pay for a needed procedure. A single trip to an emergency clinic is rarely under $1000, and a case needing a specialist often runs several thousand dollars. We hear of emergency and specialist bills totaling $10,000 to $20,000. If you can pull out your checkbook and just pay that today, maybe you don't need insurance.