I have lots of thoughts on pet insurance! I volunteer in rescue and get asked about it all the time. :-)
First question: Do you need it? Some people set up a savings account that they contribute to instead and then they can make the decisions, not an insurance company and if you don't need it, you still have the money. This is a good idea for people who can be disciplined about actually saving AND people who already have some kind of access to funds if an emergency comes up in the first couple months, before the account is built up. If you can answer yes to both of those things, you don't need insurance.
If you can't, then I recommend insurance. You don't want to be in a situation where your pet has something they can 100% recover from and the decision to treat is based on money. When you are choosing insurance, there are a couple main considerations - monthly premiums and deductibles.
For someone who can afford minor emergencies and just needs insurance to cover the unlikely but possible big issue, I say go with low monthly premiums and high deductible. Costs you less each month and you can handle paying the deductible but not thousands of dollars.
For someone who is barely getting by, I say high monthly premiums and low deductible. Would a few hundred dollars for something like an ear infection be a hardship? Then pay more each month (a fixed cost) and be covered for any emergency.
Other things to consider are coverage limits. Does the insurance cover so much per year or per incident? Some companies do cover regular check-ups (for dogs anyway) but basically all they are doing is collecting money from you each month and giving it back once a year to pay for the annual check-up.
With most pet insurance its much cheaper to get when the pet is young and doesn't have pre-existing conditions.
The most common companies I've heard of are Trupanion, Pets Plus Us, and Pet Secure.
Hope this helps!
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