Have a Pet Who Needs Surgery? Here's Why You Might Need to Shell Out the Money Even if You Have Pet Insurance

Not so long ago, my friend's dog needed kidney stone surgery, and not shockingly, it was a multi-thousand dollar procedure. Thankfully, my friend had pet insurance that would cover the bulk of that expense. And since her dog is fairly young, doing the surgery was really an easy call.

The problem, though, was that my friend still had to charge that procedure on her credit card and carry the balance forward for a bit of time, all the while racking up interest. This annoyed her immensely since she had pet insurance and the expense at hand was a covered one. But because her pet insurance company took its time to process her claim and reimburse her, she wound up losing money to interest charges.

You need savings even if you have pet insurance

With human health insurance, what'll often happen is you'll present your insurance card at the time of a service or procedure, and the provider will bill your insurer from the start, leaving you to only be liable for a copay. Pet insurance often doesn't work like that.

Instead, with pet insurance, you'll commonly have to cover the cost of your pet's care yourself, submit a claim, and then wait for it to get approved or not. Once approved, your insurer should issue you a check for the amount your policy allows for given your pet's procedure.

But at the end of the day, you're still shelling out that money upfront. And if your pet insurance company drags its feet on the approval process, you could end up waiting quite a while to get paid.

That's what happened to my friend. She submitted a claim to her pet insurance company right after her dog's procedure. But her credit card bill came due before her insurance company had so much as approved her claim. Since she didn't have the money in her savings account to pay her credit card bill in full, she racked up some interest on it.

Thankfully, it wasn't a catastrophic amount of interest, since she got reimbursed shortly thereafter and was then able to pay off her balance in full. But it irked her to rack up any amount of interest in that situation, and understandably so. And if you don't want to land in the same boat, make sure you have some money set aside for pet care costs -- even if you have a comprehensive pet insurance policy.

Don't risk debt

Carrying a credit card balance forward for a month or so may not seem like such a big deal. But every dollar you waste on credit card interest is a dollar you don't have for something else, whether it's food, utilities, or treats for your dog.

Recent data by Lemonade found that 70% of pet owners don't have any savings for a pet care emergency. If that's the boat you're in, sock money away in the bank in case your pet winds up needing surgery that you need to pay for. That could help bridge the gap until your insurance company reimburses you.