Pet insurance saves the day

Conehead Eddie

There are two lessons in this post. Most importantly, never, ever let your dog chew on a corn cob. Secondly, buy health insurance for your pet – it’s well worth it!

Unbeknown to us, Eddie our Jack Russell Terrier got a hold of a corn cob at a family barbecue and ate the whole thing. Unfortunately corn cobs don’t digest in a dog’s digestive system and part of it got stuck in his intestines. The blockage was preventing any food or water from going through, which means he’d die unless it was removed.

A few days later, we noticed that Eddie was getting sick around 4 a.m. This happened for the next few nights, but we didn’t think anything of it because it’s happened before and he’s gotten over it. But, when he threw up all his food and couldn’t even keep water down, we knew something was wrong and took him to the vet. The vet sent us to Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital for an ultrasound, and they found a blockage in his intestine. Since it wasn’t going anywhere, the only way to get it out was through surgery.

He had surgery on a Wednesday afternoon and everything went well. The doctor pulled out a mass a little larger than a peach pit. He stayed the night in the hospital and we picked him up the next afternoon.

I’m usually pretty negative when it comes to insurance companies. I think the whole thing is a racket and can’t believe that our nation still doesn’t provide medical care for all of its citizens. But in this case, I’m incredibly glad we have pet insurance for Eddie. Without insurance this would have cost us more than $3,000. With our 70% copay insurance the blow was softened to about $900, which, while still a lot, is much easier to swallow. Although the way that pet insurance works is that you have to pay the full amount up front and then submit a claim, which is unfortunate.

Had we known that Eddie ate the corn cob at the time, we could have given him some Hydrogen Peroxide to make him throw it up. Here’s some information on that: http://www.petplace.com/dogs/your-dog-s-medicine-cabinet/page1.aspx

We learned the hard way about pet insurance the last time Eddie had surgery and we’re still paying that off. We pay about $20/month for his insurance. There are other plans that will payout a better percentage, but cost more. So, is it worth it? Yes. In the three years we’ve had the insurance, we’ve paid around $700 and we’re getting more than $2,000 back from the claim.