sharing the spaniel insurance guide i found the week our cockers third ear infection of the year turned into a 4800 dollar total ear canal ablation quote, because those adorable ears are apparently a lifetime subscription and nobody itemizes that at the breeder, what four years of chronic otitis actually cost us, and the enrollment timing lesson i learned eleven months too late

came across this while sitting in the surgical consult parking lot doing the math on my phone, and its the clearest breakdown of spaniel specific coverage ive found, so im putting it in front of this group before somebody else learns our lesson at our price.

Spaniel Insurance: Coverage Guide

our version, for context. Biscuit is a 6 year old cocker and his ears have been a part time job since he turned 2. the running tally i finally forced myself to add up, cytology and ear meds at $180 to $250 per flare, three or four flares a year, a sedated deep clean with video otoscopy at $600, an allergy workup at $450, and now the left canal is what the specialist called end stage, calcified on the rads, and the fix is a total ear canal ablation quoted at $4,800 for that side alone. we bought insurance when he was 5, which felt responsible at the time, except by then there were three years of otitis in his chart and the ears came back excluded as pre existing before the first premium cleared. eleven months of coverage on a dog whose single biggest health cost is carved out in writing. so two questions for the spaniel people, has anyone actually had a TECA covered, and if so how old was your dog when you enrolled, and for the folks with young spaniels reading this, is an ear exclusion basically inevitable or does enrolling at 8 weeks genuinely beat the clock