Three Reasons to Consider Pet Insurance

By Marshall Loeb

RISMEDIA, July 12, 2008-(MCT)-The cost of owning a pet has gone up in recent years. New technologies in medical treatment make it possible for pets to undergo treatments similar to those available to humans for life-threatening diseases. And just as with humans, these treatments aren’t cheap.

If you’ve never thought about buying health insurance for your pet, you might want to entertain the idea. From Liz Pulliam Weston at MSN Money, here are three reasons to consider pet insurance:

- More treatable diseases. Cancers and other once-fatal conditions for your pet can be treated and even cured. That’s right. It’s possible to have your pet receive radiation therapy or a kidney transplant. While this is great news for Fido–he may live longer now-it’s not great news for your wallet. These procedures can cost $1,000 and up.
- New medical technology. Vets have more tools handy to assess a pet’s health. These tests and screens can be quite sophisticated. MRIs are just one example. Not only do these screens come at a price, they often turn up problems that otherwise would have gone undiscovered and untreated.
- Health care inflation. All those medical and technological advancements have caused vet’s fees to rise. As you bring your pet in for annual visits to the doctor, it’s going to cost a little more every year.

Marshall Loeb, former editor of Fortune, Money, and the Columbia Journalism Review, writes for MarketWatch.