If you’re a regular reader of our blog you know just how much Wendy and I absolutely adore our pets, aka four legged crew members. Mel and Lulu are as much a member of our family as any humans could ever be. Non pet parents probably find this fact sort of odd, but pet owners can most likely understand where we are coming from.

Warning: We will be peppering this post with cute pet photos that have little if anything to do with the post, you may be powerless to resist.

Though Lulu is a young and energetic adolescent dog at just over two years old, Mel is a bit of a grumpy old man. Though his face tends to make him look more like a kitten, he’s been with us since 2001 and just turned 11 this past October. Because of his age he undergoes a “geriatric” screening when we have his bi-annual vet visits. Last month we had a little bit of a scare when Mel’s routine checkup showed an elevated liver enzyme level for the first time.

Now let me first say, Wendy and I will freely admit we are a bit seriously neurotic. When something a little off shows up in our lives, we fear the world may be ending. Wendy's mom even calls us the "happy hypos" (as in hypochondriacs). Quite honestly, Oliver’s diagnosis of canine lymphoma and the resulting treatment didn’t do much to calm our nerves with this sort of thing. So when we heard “elevated liver enzymes” we thought “how long does he have?”

Lucky for us, our long time veterinarian, Dr. Jenifer Farrell of the VCA Old Town Alexandria Hospital, is far more level headed and reasonable than we are. She wasn’t alarmed and told us that it could have been an anomaly with the test, and that she recommended we wait a month and have Mel retested. If his retest came back elevated, then we would figure out the next steps, which could include ultrasounds, scans, more tests, and who knows what else. (Note: that’s me freaking out about it, not Dr. Farrell.)

So Wendy and I had a month to wait. That’s a month to try and stay calm, to try not to worry, to try in every possible way to encourage ourselves that nothing is wrong, that everything is going to be okay, but it was also a month to quietly prepare ourselves for the possibility of a need to fight something new like we had fought Oliver’s cancer, and enjoy what could be the last bit of normalcy with Mel for quite some time.

During this time there was one thing we really didn’t have to worry too much about, and that was how we were going to pay for the vet bills if there was a problem. When Oliver was diagnosed with cancer, Wendy and I quickly realized that we would do whatever was necessary to ensure the health and medical care for our four legged family members. It may be a little crazy, but we followed through with tests for diagnosis, treatment with chemotherapy, and weekly blood work and x-rays for Oliver. And throughout the eight months of treatment, the bills never let up.

After Oliver passed away Wendy and I talked about the fact that we now understood where our priorities and commitments are with our pets, and that it was probably a good idea to look into pet insurance. My parents had pet insurance long ago and had nothing but horror stories to tell about their experiences. Payment limits, reimbursement difficulties, and haggling over covered items like accidents, and non-covered diagnoses like congenital issues. This was not something I wanted to deal with if we were going to look into pet insurance.

I started to research the various options quite extensively, and what I found was surprising. There are really two different types of pet insurance providers out there. The first covers pets the way we typically use our human insurance. Routines checkups, medication, surgeries, tests, pretty much anything is covered…to an extent. It seems that the majority of these services are the ones my parents had their bad experiences with. Maximum benefit allowances, coverage limitations, and any other areas where a customer can get tripped up are all standing in the way of providing the best care for you sick pet.

This first type of insurance is not at all appealing to me. I understand the general and routine commitments that I make when deciding to adopt a pet, and I am aware of those routine costs going into it. I don’t think I should pay an annual fee and deductible for what is essentially routine animal care. I just feel like if I’m paying less on the routine items, the cost is being passed along to me elsewhere. I determined that if we started paying the monthly fee and Lulu remained healthy for a normal amount of time, our payments would begin to exceed the maximum benefit amounts allowed on the various payment limits. And if Lulu were to get sick very early on, the maximum payout for many of the expensive tests and treatments that Oliver went through would be exhausted quickly, and we would be left paying out of pocket again.

The second type of insurance I saw is the major medical type of insurance. If one of our pets comes down with an ailment (congenital or not) or is involved in an accident, the insurance provider covers a significant percentage of expenses after a deductible. This seems like a far more logical approach to pet health care. Essentially you along with other pet owners are all paying into a pot. The majority of those pets will not get sick, but the pot grows to support the unfortunate animals who do get sick. This just makes SO much more sense.

Shortly after adopting Lulu in 2010, and after doing some pretty exhaustive research, we chose a pet healthcare company based out of the Pacific Northwest called Healthy Paws Pet Insurance. They offer varying levels of coverage and deductible amounts based on your preferences what you’d like to pay monthly.

We actually chose the company based largely on the rave reviews that we saw from existing customers online (just look at the consistently great review they've been getting). It’s not often you see people talking about how great health insurance is (for pets or humans), so this really struck us as notable. I filled out a form online requesting a quote and actually received a phone call within two hours of submission by one of the management team members in the company. Healthy Paws is a smaller family run organization, and the customer service that I was receiving really helped to confirm our decision. The final push to get us to commit was when we discussed all of Oliver’s various bills associated with his diagnosis and treatment. We were told that after paying the annual deductible, we would have had a full 90% of all remaining bills covered. Boy, did I ever wish we had known about this services earlier.

Wendy and I opted to cover both Lulu and Mel. Since Mel was older, we simply had to provide documentation of a vet checkup that had occurred within the prior 30 days. If we didn’t have one, we just needed to get him checked out. Since our primary concern is with adequate coverage in the event of something serious, we opted for a higher $500 deductible to lower our monthly costs, but we also chose the 90% coverage option so Healthy Paws will cover 90% of all bills after we pay the initial deductible. They do have lower deductible and lower reimbursement options, and each has an impact on your monthly charge. In our situation, it is roughly $25 per month per pet.

So back to Wendy and my concern over Mel’s elevated liver enzyme reading. As I mentioned, we did our best to push it to the back of our mind for the month since there was nothing we could do during the waiting game. Once we reached January we made an appointment to have Mel re-tested and hoped for the best. Wendy had many long talks with Mel before taking him back to get retested, specifically about getting his liver enzymes under control, and more generically about living a long and healthy life.

In the midst of a little home renovation project we received a phone call from Alexandria Animal Hospital. Wendy looked at me and said “You better take this, I don’t think I can.” She was right, there is no way she could hold it together if the news was bad. I answered the phone and Dr. Farrell was on the other end. I nervously waiting for the results, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Assuredly, Dr. Farrell reported that after the retest Mel’s liver enzyme level had returned to normal. She’s unsure if it was a lab issue, a one time thing, or something else, but told us not to worry and we’ll just check it again in six months to make sure everything is still okay.

I gave Wendy the thumbs up and we both collectively breathed a huge sign of relief. For a moment our lives and what the coming months and even years would bring hung in the balance. Luckily, in this scenario, the outcome was a very positive one, and our monthly payments to Healthy Paws Pet Insurance can continue to support the sick animals in need that are not our own.

I can’t really describe the sense of relief we both felt at that same moment. After I hung up Wendy picked Mel up to hug him and tell him he’d done a good job managing his liver enzymes. Lulu got jealous and jumped on us, and all was right in our household.

However, I do have to say that the prospect of dealing with an illness is slightly less terrifying knowing that if the unthinkable occurs, we’re not under the direct and large financial burden of vet bills and can focus more on the treatment and care aspect than the impact it can have on our savings.

If you’re like us and are willing to do anything to support and care for your animals, pretty much no questions asked, it may do you well to look into Healthy Paws Pet Insurance. If you’re already an active participant in Healthy Paws or another veterinary health care provider, let us know which one and what you think of it. We love to hear the experiences of others in this sort of thing. It’s amazing how many people out there have no idea that veterinary health insurance even exists.

And best of all, if you use our referral code to sign up for Healthy Paws, you will get 10% off for the duration of your membership and Healthy Paws will donate $25 to a homeless pet in need. It's a win for everyone! What are you waiting for?

Note: We weren't compensated for this review. We simply want to share good products and services when we see them, and hope that our time researching this issue could be helpful to you.