Reply With QuoteNot a cat but a puppy.
I decided not to insure. Then he ate a packet of ibuprofen ! 3 days in vet hospital and a large bill later - probably not the best decision I've ever made !!!
M
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We've just added a little four-month-old cat to our family. She's from a local Cat Protection charity and has been wormed and had flea treatment, had her first round of vaccinations with the second round due in a few weeks and she will be spayed soon as well. This is all included in the adoption fee. She has also been chipped and registered.
So, do I need pet insurance? Is it worth it for a young, healthy (so far) cat? I read that there are several different types of cover: Annual, lifetime, accident only. We intend for her to live a long and happy life with us and would like her covered for all eventualities, but she's only four months old so do we wait until she's got a couple of years under her belt?
What do the other TZ cat owners do?
Not a cat but a puppy.
I decided not to insure. Then he ate a packet of ibuprofen ! 3 days in vet hospital and a large bill later - probably not the best decision I've ever made !!!
M
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Put what you would pay monthly on insurance in an account, when you hit say £500 leave it then you're covered if there's any surprise vet bills. Insurance is ok but they always find a way of not paying out, age, recurring illness etc.
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Yes - £500 is small change for a vet bill.
It does not take much to get up to beyond £1k.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
From experience within the trade a comprehensive pet insurance plan is worthwhile 'if' needed, if you scrimp on the cost of it expect them to scrimp on the cover or ease of use. It does reach a stage where as an older dog the premium will get heavy and you have to decide if the dog would survive an operation which is where the bills will spiral.
RIAC
I'm owned by a cat, insurance is a bad financial decision if you've a moggy rather than a pedigree puss.
As has been mentioned, if you're owned at a young age then simply put the 'insurance money' into a savings account instead. Unless of course you're living pay check to pay check.
I can only go on experience , one of my staffys had a issue with both her knee caps popping out knee cap displacement , to cut a long storey stort I had to take her to the Royal vetinary centre and the bill was just short of £9000 , so is it worth it in my case yes yes yes
I think it should be compulsory for dogs. My friend didn't insure his dog. The dog broke its leg playing fetch. £3k vet bill.
Yes, £4k bill in first year !!! Fortunately we were insured. Working Cocker Spaniel Pup
maseman
in first year we used it a lot and got our money's worth (dog) £500 as said above is nothing -if it goes up too much as he gets older we may think about self insurering but at the moment yes, it is worth it
Had pets all my life as a kid. NEVER had an issue and my parents never insured them.
Bought a house etc, got a couple of cats, first was fine. Second one, within weeks has hurt his paw and it got infected. £1600 as he was in a few nights etc. Luckily we had insurance with Tesco
I'd say it's worth it. Just in case - vets are not cheap.
Cat.Dog.Any family pet if not insured could cost a lot of money.
http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...ight=insurance
This was a little ago.I am hoping to buy a new labrador and will certainly ensure she is insured.
Last edited by itsgotournameonit; 27th April 2017 at 22:48.
Yes, absolutely no question. £20 a month for cover up to £6k or so - pet plan are good.
We've (through the insurance) spent literally thousands on ours over the last 15 yrs, I really wouldn't be without it.
Get the right insurance then. A friend with a huge dog, a Bouvier, and my sister's standard poodle have both needed expensive treatment, and they're covered regardless of previous illnesses. £500 is nothing for vet's bills. Add a zero for any sort of invasive treatment or care.Originally Posted by Appleshands
Pet insurance is a must.
Now- that's just plain crazy.
Yes. Absolutely yes. While the pet is young premiums shouldn't be too high.
Our Springer Spaniel ate a latex medical give when he was 2. It was left on the floor by SWMBO's Mum who is a nurse. Must have fallen from her pocket? Anyway, that entailed x-rays, 2 nights in the vet hospital as well as exploratory/invasive surgery. The bill was well into the thousands.
Just make sure you get decent insurance and you shouldn't have them not paying out. I'm with Pet Plan. The times we've needed them, they've been great.
With dogs it rises every year and for our dog who was 8 last year it would have been £45 a month so to date we have saved nearly £800 quid
Insurance for a dog is a must. I had insurance with John Lewis for our Golden Retriever puppy. The dog has got meningitis, first visit to the specialist vet circa 3k, insurance paid. Next year premium came along, massive increase, so we swapped to Pet Plan, premiums just about the same as before, but meningitis not covered - fair one, dog was getting better. Since then the dog has had two relapses which has included at least 6 nights in the doggy hospital. I now have vets bills like the national debt.
Our Bully had an ongoing condition which needed specialist treatment so costs reached £6k plus. The premiums increased each year until we ended up paying 3 times the original premium costs but insurance paid out more than we put back.
Insurance companies are all the same and will try to get their money back somehow, but he was a big part of our lives and as we didn't have £6k available, we may have faced a much more difficult decision. As much as I hate insurance companies, it was a must have as far as we were concerned.
One of our cats had kidney failure. Treatment was about £3k covered by insurance and moggy is still going strong 4 years later. The other two cats have never made a claim so I suspect we've paid more in premiums than claimed overall.
However to avoid sudden financial shocks or having to put animals down I think it's worth it.
We've got it for our cat and over the last 6 years we've viewed it as essential. As others have said it's only got to pay out once and you're quids in.
If you love your pet, it's an absolute necessity.
Our 13 year old Lab has gone through Operations for Pancreatitis, (£6k), snapped cruciate, (9k), blood tests, innocs etc, which over time would have taken us past 20k realistically.
So yes, very well worth it and total peace of mind for the welfare of your pet.
Andy
Yes, yes and yes.
Vets bills are fearsome.
For us, Pet Plan have always been the best, not the cheapest, but great with claims and they deal direct with the vets.
One of the reasons we don't have a cat or a dog, seems like another worry and a huge financial commitment. I must be very unusual in the U.K as nearly everyone has meet has a Dog up here in Norfolk, but I remain ambivalent. Thousands of pounds spent at a vets? Not for me I'm afraid. Kids are too expensive already!
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100% yes, also go with a company like 'Pet Plan' who will cover pre existing conditions, otherwise when one policy expires they'll not always cover a known condition the following year; so they'll have paid out the first year of something happening and exclude it on the renewal. Pet Plan don't do this; although you can expect an incremental rise in premium.
I'd still say it's worth it. Our previous cat developed diabetes and needed insulin injections, it would have cost a fortune over the last two years of its life but the insurance took care of all this. Also our current cat recently had a seizure and that, alongside tests and treatment run into well over £600 and we drew the line at a brain scan which would have cost the same again even though the insurance would have paid just because we did not want to distress the cat or have him put out for this, plus knowing more would not change his condition/prognosis.
I'd always have insurance, but if you don't, put away £30/month in a 'Pet fund' and see what happens, you never know you may never have to dip into it and you may end up with enough after 15 years for a new Rolex (at current prices at least!)
My sister has 2 dogs and for her having pet insurance has not only been invaluable but also offers her peace of mind. She's had to use it a couple of times and as others have said here vet bills do quickly ramp up even for the most simplest visit.
I've got mixed views. Over the lives of our two dogs there were several events where the vet bills were over a thousand e.g. one dog had two cruikshank ligaments done at over 6K and another spent a week in hospital over christmas (after three emergency call outs in the middle of the night the previous couple of days). So for those times the insurance was worth having. BUT, over the lives of the dogs, money wise, I'd probably say it's 50/50. Towards the end of their lives (the last couple of years) we stopped the insurance when the amount payable was costing more than the total of the cars (two) and house insurance added together!! What I've found it is avoids any nasty money shocks by spreading the vet bills out but the net cost, compared to simply putting the money in a savings account, is about the same.
Got to be close to 50/50 or the insurers wouldn't be making anything.
What insurance does do is lead to a spiraling increase in vets costs.
Pet insurance has saved me circa £6,000 over the 7 years I have owned my adorable but maniac Kelpie Collie cross. A few years ago she got something behind her eye, all of a sudden £3k vets bill (MRI scans, surgery, xrays etc). Most recently she had a stomach problem (bowel disease we think). Didn't take too long to get to my £3k payout limit (lots of overnights at the vet hospital). So in my experience, pet insurance is absolutely worth it and I encourage everyone with a pet to take it out.
The thing with any insurance is it works by spreading the risk over several insurers. So some people will find the insurance was a waste of money but some will find it worth having i.e. they had to claim. Overall the insurers win because the 'not-claims' outweigh the 'claims'. As Harry would say "do you feel lucky punk?" :-)
Be careful which policy you get with pet plan. Some policies only cover a condition for a year and you're on your own after that. I know this from personal experience.
I have had 1 saint with cancer, 1 with epilepsy (both passed a while ago) still have 2 elderly saints one has DCM and another with arthritis and suffered a GDV last year, I have one cat with bladder cancer and another who has various other things wrong with him
I pay (and always paid) a fortune for insurance as you can imagine (think Rolex every six months expensive) and I still think I am massively 'up'
I am amazed at people taking on the responsibility of pets and not bithering to insure with no savings/contingency, my OH works in a vets and I lose count of people (some very well off in fact) who request a PTS on their pets or let them suffer on with an easily sorted problem due to the financial aspect, I think this is animal cruelty!
I am in a hurry and must admit to not reading the thread so I am not making accusations here just my personal standpoint on pet insurance
Not my experience at all, My OH deals with claims daily and as long as the insurance provider is a good one (petplan etc) this is very rare
My mum has been paying for cat insurance since she got her rescue at 2 years old back in 2001.
Last year he had double ear surgery, a bunch of scans (yes, catscans!) and loads of other treatment. Easily made back more than her premiums have totalled in the last 15 years. Without it, they would have had to put him down, and he's such a dude.
If you can't afford to pay the potential vet bills then insure. If you can afford it & are happy to take the risk then save your money.
We have had between 2-4 dogs for years, I stopped insuring when the premiums for the oldest (10+) went through he roof even though it's usually the youngest (all Springer Spaniels so hyper active) that get into scrapes, eat stupid things etc.
Years later and I have had bills to pay, but by my reckoning I'm several thousand better off than if I had paid premiums for them all.
If you do self insure and find yourself at the vet make sure you tell them the dog/cat is not insured, suddenly it seems you don't actually need all the bells & whistles drugs/therapy etc that vets are happy to charge to an insurance company..........
As with all insurance it depends on your ability to pay if you're not insured. On average, insurance policies will cost more than you get back or the insurers couldn't pay their staff or shareholders. So if you can afford to drop several thousand to keep your pet alive then insurance is a losing bet.
With pets, though, it's complicated by love! You can scrap a car but it's much harder to scrap a dog or cat. Conversely, having 'unlimited' spending power at the vets can - in my bitter experience - lead to dragging an animal's life out when euthanasia would be more humane.
Our eventual decision was insurance while they're young and pragmatism when they get old.
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I am firmly in the "yes" camp. And if like us you have dogs with a genetic predisposition to certain ailments (cancer and epilepsy) get the best there is and pay for it. You will need it unless you are very lucky.
Self insuring is ok for minor, short term conditions.
Let's be clear, if you don't have the money for your pets' care, and he is suffering, you are going to have to look him in the eye as the vet puts the needle into vein and he slips away. If you can do that, fair play. Most of us can't, so we insure.
Thanks for all the replies and for giving me a few sleepless nights considering exactly how much an ill pet can cost
I'll shop around this weekend and see what's out there. Wish me luck
100% agreement. If you can't afford to look after the potential medical bills then you shouldn't get the animal.
Story.... the daughter of my business partner is a vet nurse. They had a pit bull into the practice a few months ago with a broken leg. The owners didn't have farthing to scratch their whatever. So the vet says the options are an expensive correction operation or the cheaper option of chop the leg off or the even cheaper option of put the animal down. Anyway they opt for the leg off choice. So the vet does the amputation operation and the dog spends quite a long time in hospital. Anyway when the owners are presented with the bill they can't pay!! The vet was just about to put the dog down then (that's after it's gone through the pain and trauma of the amputation) when partners/daughter steps in and says she'll take it rather than see it destroyed due to scum owners. Net effect now is my business partner has now become the owner ;-) Daughter lives at home and it out at work all day so effectively it's now dads dog!
Two points:
Would you say to the pensioner who struggles for money - "sorry. no companion for you because you can't afford £3,000 to fix the dog"
and
The vet you quote - should know better than to embark on a course of treatment from "skum owners" without payment up front. How many defaulters can he afford in a year?
Presumably business partner works from home?
Yes, 100% worth it. Personally we believe that all pet owners should be required by law to have insurance, so that no pet suffers needlessly due to their owner's financial situation.
Wife does.
I suppose that's the rather archaic attitude that all the animals etc. of the earth are put there just for the enjoyment and use of man...
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
In think we've probably progressed a bit in our attitude to animals and our caretaker ship of the earth, so yes, IMHO, if the pensioner can't afford the upkeep of the animal they they shouldn't have it.
However, as usual, the thread's drifted off course.
My advice to the OP is take insurance or have the resources to hand to cope with any unsuspecting vet bill e.g. sell a watch ;-) and I don't say that glibly. When our dog needed 3 pounds a day for its cushings and heart tablets we were lucky to be able to afford it but I would have gladly sold a watch if it meant having him around for another year.
Like all insurance, it's worth bot all until you need it!
I've insured dogs in the past, paid a fortune to insurance companies for nothing in reality.
My last Bully broke her leg and it cost me around a grand but over her life I probably saved money.
The thing to remember is that insurers will usually double the premiums when a dog reaches eight years old and of course there are plenty of exclusions including of course the mandatory excess which pretty much negates normal vet visits.
Cheers,
Neil.
Pit Bull? Isn't that a banned breed under the dangerous dogs act?
45x12x8. Nearly £800, something wrong there.
Luck of the draw. My Brittany is thirteen next month, apart from jabs and an annual check up he has never been to the vet. Saving? I don't know but probable around £10,000.
Actually it's not that much. He was insured for some five years, without a claim. But when the insurers annual increase got to the premium being seventy pounds a month I decided to cancel. And even at that amount there were so many exclusion clauses and exess fees it hardly made it worth bothering with, so I didn't.
It's cheaper just to get a new dog if something goes seriously wrong them
These two I have were only around £500 each
No brainer
Yes they are. There though are a number of dogs there who look like pit bulls which makes conviction more difficult.
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