Pet insurance enables owners to access veterinary care that improves animal welfare outcomes, with uninsured animals receiving less treatment and facing more decisions based on cost rather than welfare when illness occurs.
Pet insurance directly enables welfare by removing cost as a barrier to veterinary care at the time it is needed. The animals whose conditions are treatable but who are euthanized for cost reasons represent a preventable welfare failure. The correlation between insurance coverage and welfare outcomes is not surprising — it reflects the reality that modern veterinary medicine can address many conditions that are fatal without treatment. Expanding insurance uptake, particularly in lower-income households with high human-animal bond value, represents a tractable welfare improvement.