Why you should insure your pet...

meames_2

Joyful wrote: »

My Dog has just had the operation on her Cruciate ligament. £2000 and counting! Hopefully the other leg will hold up for longer depending on the recovery for this. This problem often also diagnoses Arthritis which is long term. I'm so glad I took out Pet insurance. I pay £17 per month and my Dog is 7 so already I would not have saved enough to cover this one operation never mind when she needs another.

I can't believe it cost £2000!! My dog had this done recently at £550, including at least 3 post op visits and pain killers and its not a PDSA clinic. He will need the other leg done as son as the first one is strong enough.

Tbis is the first claim i have made, all the other treatments, though annoyingly costly at the time have come to below the excess. Mind you over the 2 years i have had hime the first year was £13 a month, second £15 and this year £20! but I would still insure hime, £75 is much easier to find than near on £1000 per year

simontheiceman

Joyful wrote: »

For those that enquired if it shows up on an Xray I found this site http://vetsurgerycentral.com/tplo.htm It shows everything my VET showed me and also what is inside my Dog now. Hope this helps. This is more expensive than the traditional repair but my Vet advised it is better for an energetic dog.

Surgery for treatment of Cranial cruciate disease has been evolving for 40 years and the current Peak is the peri-articular geometry reorganising technques such as TPLO, TTA, TTO,CWO, CWO etc. I do the TPLO now (4 down and all doing well), but I do not yet think it is superior to the lateral suture. It is indeed a lot more technical and a lot of equipment is required. I do TPLO for £1500 (without follow-up /physio costs), but I will also do "lateral suture" for about £750. I have done hundreds of these with very few post op problems and have good long term follow-up. If you need to pay from your own pocket then "lateral suture" will do for anyone. The results will be fine. Make sure you do get it done by someone who knows what they are doing. Same goes for TPLO but I think insurance is really the only way for this one. TPLO is better for larger dogs but this is not yet borne out by studies.

Simon

orlao

My rottie had the lateral suture repair on both his back legs last year. The cost wasn't the only reason for going for that op.......he is very bouncy :eek: and the vet college advised that if he damaged the TPLO repair during the recovery period it was very difficult to put right again, they were right as the first day he came home( 3 days after the op) he hurdled a babygate:eek: :eek: and ran upstairs so he did damage the repair and had to have another op on the first leg when the 2nd leg was done 3 months later. He also ended up with an infection in the 1st leg so was on antibiotics for 6 weeks afterwards.
I added up the total bill from start ( diagnosis, xrays etc to final check up) and they were just shy of £4k......in saying that, he has made a full recovery and the only difference I can see is that his stride is slightly shorter now and luckily he can now longer jump as high a fence;) so well worth the money and the pain he suffered having the ops but I did make the decision after seeing him after surgery that it is not the type of thing that I would put an older, less fit dog through because IMHO that would be selfish on my part:o just because I wouldn't want to lose them IYSWIM.

However everyone has to make their own decisions in those circumstances as they are the only ones who really know their indivdual pets so I would never condemn people who decided to carry on whether or not it was funded by insurance........

longforgotten

Variation on a theme here....I've been told that if my dog gets out ( god forbid! ) and causes an accident, I will be covered by the home insurance.

Worth checking with your insurance company.

samuela66

I was thinking about insuring my Jazzie again, see avatar, thats her permanent position really except when she is eating:p , but you never know do you what might happen, what I would like to ask is my Jaz has never had her jabs except when I got her does she need to be jabbed to be covered by these insurances, and also can you claim asap or do you have to wait months..........

thanks
Sam

simontheiceman

I have taken to telling clients that there are 4 possible options for dealing with big bills:

1. Insured - no worries apart from the excess
2. Pet-Aid - the charity covers the worst of the bills - limited cover and only one pet in household allowed but is brilliant for those on Council Tax / Housing benefit.
3. Loaded - If you can afford up to £600 without issue then this would cover most problems (only a few exceed this but you should be aware that costs can get very high).
4. Bonkers - No plan, no clue, no money, bad pet owners.

To pick a scab: To those who do not vaccinate - I have had one unvaccinated dog had to be put to sleep this week suffering from Distemper (a preventable condition), and one dog barely recovering from Parvovirus (also preventable), which might get better but will have a bill of £1500 dead or alive. Do you need ANY more evidence to vaccinate your dog?

foreign_correspondent

is that £600 or £6000?

The first I could do - the second wouldnt be so simple!

lowis

Perhaps I wasn't coming across well. I just think that insurance for a rabbit is going a bit far. There is more chance (and FAR more expense) of something going wrong with a dog rather than a domestic rabbit.

rabbits gets serious illnesses too. my rabbit developed cancer next to and attached to his kidney. chemo wasn't possible, and an operation wouldn't get rid of all of the tumour but somehow, through care, love, good diet and appropriate medicine he carried on for another three years! however, i claimed about £2500 in that time (to include the diagnostic work and a three week stay at the vets whilst I was on holiday). i could have purchased 100 rabbits for that to replace him, but he was my Boy and irreplaceable as far as I was concerned.

more recently i have had another pet affected by cancer (hmmm, wonder if this is anything to do with the mobile phone masts on my roof?), and I treated her and ended up claiming about £12,000 over 18 months.

yes, pet insurance is most definitely worth it!

simontheiceman

foreign_correspondent wrote: »

is that £600 or £6000?

The first I could do - the second wouldnt be so simple!

Most conditions come in within Six Hundred pounds - I have only ever known one case which exceeded six Thousand and did that by some margin. My experience is that the £1000 bill occurs about once a month and the £2500 bill about once every 2 months. £250-300 bills occur every day and £600 bills occur regularly. Referral is actually quite rare and if you can tolerate the possibility that you might not have access to referral services if you "self insure" then this would seem an OK option. Referral services are out of most peoples pocket without insurance.

MrsTinks

Well having HAD a £1500 bill I can assure you they happen although in my case the dappy cat thought he could play chicken with a car - in fairness to the cat I don't know what state he left the car in... But a 4am call out, 3 operations and a multitude of tests and x-rays managed to run that bill up nicely... being as they managed to save his leg and the only visible damage is a slight deformity of his paw and a tiny limp when it's REALLY cold outside I'd say it was money well spent... And thank crunchie he was/is insured!
My cats haven't had a vaccination for several years now... I do sometimes wonder if I should start them again but they get incredibly stressed and they did have 5 years of jabs without ever missing one which in my view gives them SOME protection...
Most insurance policies will ask if you pet is vaccinated or not and then point out that any condition that would have been possibly prevented by the vaccination will not be covered under your policy.
Anyway - off to the vets with the daft moggy who's managed to rip a claw *sigh* love him really Honest!