Writ­ten 6/19/26; Updat­ed 6/19/2026

Dog Profile

Cost

As of: 6/19/2026

*per month­ly install­ment

Coverage Analysis

Major Medical Base Premium

Wellness Rider

Overall Total

Conclusion

Any insur­ance is a gam­ble. You have it just in case that major thing hap­pens, because you nev­er know.

Before this dog, I had 2 pure­bred dogs that end­ed up with major issues at the end of their lives. I thought I could just set aside mon­ey for them, but in the end, it was­n’t enough. Enter this dog in 2020 as a pup­py. I decid­ed right off the bat to get her insur­ance, despite her being a mixed breed which are known for being healthy ani­mals. Did­n’t think I’d ever use it. To date, I’ve used Major Med­ical for her twice (once at an E‑Vet for $23 out of $200 cov­er­age, and the oth­er for an ear infec­tion for full cov­er­age of $130). In total, they’ve paid out $191.22 for the $4,040.52 (includ­ing fees) that I’ve put into the “just in case” plan. This means, I’ve giv­en them $3,849.30 in their pock­et in 5 years. That’s $769.86 per year!!

I was unsure about the Well­ness Rid­er when I first signed up yet decid­ed to try it, any­ways. Once you get rid of it, you’re nev­er allowed to have it again for the life of your dog. Now, 5 years lat­er, I do not rec­om­mend the Well­ness Rid­er. Insur­ance is a gam­ble, but there’s no gam­ble about pay­ing out for rou­tine pre­ven­ta­tive care. So far, it’s cov­ered 73% of my claims, mean­ing that I’ve giv­en away (as of today in June 2026) $426.80, total, to the insur­ance com­pa­ny. That’s $85.36 a year. There’s noth­ing they cov­er in full, so, no, there’s no rea­son to have it. I could have put that mon­ey away and invest­ed it, instead. Now, I have to say that I’ve only ever had to give my dog a dewormer med­ica­tion (Insur­ance paid $25 of the $49.24) and some ear med­ica­tion (insur­ance cov­ered the $24.82 in full) noth­ing more. I also don’t use the phar­ma­cy card dis­count (through Wal­mart) because she real­ly does­n’t need reg­u­lar med­ica­tions. Yet.

What will I do now? Giv­en that the pre­mi­um jumped $100 to $420 to $250 a year from 2023–2026? I don’t know. It’s com­mon that insur­ance jumps as years progress (just look at human insur­ance), but as she only gets old­er, how high will it go? I am ashamed to admit that I nev­er noticed how high it got since I start­ed; just assumed that it would go up or I was spend­ing too much some­where else. DANG, though!! Orig­i­nal­ly, I was going to play this all the way through her life and do the cal­cu­la­tions, and decide whether it’s worth it or not, but… at this rate, I’m bet­ter off just sav­ing the $855.22 a year they pock­et from me and invest­ing it! Espe­cial­ly if I only get back 5% of it and the rest is going to some­one else. The ques­tion is: what will she need in the future? It’s hard to know… Just one surgery could wipe me out. And we all know how cost has only sky­rock­et­ed in recent times for every­thing…

Com­mon Dog Pro­ce­dures (Depend­ing on where you live)

• Spay/Neuter: ~$300 — $500
• Den­tal: ~$800 — $3,000
• Lumps/Tumors: ~$800 — $2,000
• Bloat: $2,000 — $8,000
• Slipped Disc: $6,000 — $11,000
• Joint Surg­eries (e.g. hip dys­pla­sia): ~$3,000 — $10,000
• Can­cer: $1000 — $10,000+

When you look at it like that, one major surgery may pay for your dog’s entire life’s worth of insur­ance pre­mi­ums… If, the insur­ance com­pa­ny does­n’t drop you the instant you try to make a major claim, of course.…

In a way, I’m won­der­ing if the insur­ance com­pa­nies try to out­price you so that you drop before they have to pay out big time as the dogs get old­er. They make more mon­ey off of young dogs with min­i­mal health prob­lems, after all. I have to decide, now, if I want to just drop the well­ness rid­er and con­tin­ue with major med­ical, or if I just drop it all togeth­er. I don’t know!! My dog means a lot to me. I had it hap­pen before where I said that if my dog need­ed that much mon­ey in pro­ce­dures, I might just put them down. How­ev­er, when I was faced with that very sit­u­a­tion, I decid­ed I would rather be in debt than give up on that dog. He made it anoth­er 3 hap­py years with me. 100% worth it.