Soon after leaving home for college, I got my first cat in 1996. While I wasn't aware of pet insurance back then, it's become something that I've contemplated in depth.
While I've owned various dogs and cats, one pet I will never forget is Charlie. Charlie was found on the streets of Chicago and picked up by animal control. He was a scrappy, naughty, tabby tom cat and he scratched his way into my heart.
With all this changeover in pets and the consistency of Charlie, it occurred to me that those pets who were or seemed to appear purebred had more pet health issues. Whereas I found myself comparing dog and cat insurance companies for my Persian and Ragdoll cats, the idea never occurred to me for Charlie. I began to wonder if there wasn't some merit to being deemed a "rescue" animal. Maybe Charlie came from a long line of scrappers, and he somehow inherited "heartier" genes. Regardless, I wasn't sure that pet insurance was right for him.
Then I found a study published in 1997 by the Department of Veterinary Sciences and others at Purdue University. In a study of over 23,000 dogs treated at North American veterinary teaching hospitals, it was found that, "the median age at death was lower for pure breed dogs compared with mix breed dogs."
In speculating as to why this may be, the study suggested that, "selective breeding of dogs over time...has accelerated physiological aging."
The study also made it clear that all the dogs in the study were well cared-for pets or show dogs. As all the observed pets were patients at teaching hospitals where costs are likely high, and many were likely referred from their own vets to these hospitals, the dogs had a history of proper veterinary care and vaccinations and were likely even covered by pet insurance companies.