Self-Insure Your Pets Instead of Buying Insurance

If you've ever been stung by a stiff bill from the vet, pet insurance can seem mighty appealing. But socking away one dollar per day on your own may be just as effective, and unused money doesn't go to waste.

                                                           Image via Average Jane.
Guest writer Sierra Black posits at the Get Rich Slowly personal finance blog that, despite her experiences with a terminally ill cat that she loved dearly, she can't bring herself to fork over the funds for pet insurance. Her logical alternative is to put away the average cost of insurance in a savings account instead:

• Pet insurance costs about $1 a day. That's $365 a year. My cat's medical care typically costs about $300 a year. I can readily save that money myself.
• Routine care isn't covered. While an accident or serious illness could suddenly befall my cat, routine care is the bulk of expenses I have ever paid for a cat. It's true that a sudden illness could escalate those costs dramatically. This just happened to Monster as he was dying. After 15 years of cat tending, though, I have a decent sense of how much it costs on a day-to-day basis, and how common these expensive accidents or illnesses really are.

As West notes, it takes the discipline and willpower to actually do this, rather than spend the savings stream on fancy drinks. But if you can automate the withdrawal, you've basically got your own pet insurance that will cover most every cost.

Send an email to Kevin Purdy, the author of this post, at kevin@lifehacker.com.