Who insures their animals?

1sue23

I have never insured my pets, but have always put money into a savings account I have been lucky in so much as my saving always cover vets bills .
My german shepherd broke her leg last year and had a bill for over a £1000 she is 13 years old, other than injections this is the first time she has needed treatment so if you added up the cost of the insurance over 13 years it would have cost me more to have had her insured than the cost of the treatment.

Penny_Watcher

elsien wrote: »

I pay for the peace of mind and because of my uncanny knack of only choosing unhealthy dogs!

We cost PetPlan about £4,000 within a month or so of getting our first dog (road accident), so I have no qualms about paying insurance premiums.

Dog #2 has had two claimable incidents in her 4 1/2 years - once for a gippy tummy and once for another dog's bite. She's much less accident prone and sedate than the other two.

Dog #3 cost PetPlan about £2,000 last year (badly gashed foot on discarded glass in the woods and huge wound to chest wall from discarded barbed wire). The previous year was less, but he smacked his head of a tree in the woods and was concussed .

So for me it's peace of mind and my dogs' innate ability to search out danger and have accidents. I don't want to ever have to make the decision not to be able to treat any of my dogs because I don't have the money.

There is also the 3rd part liability cover that I wouldn't be without.

shoppaholic_returns

I have three cats and a dog insured under a multipet cover with petplan, moan cause it costs around £60 pm to insure them all,but Im sure I d be moaning even more if I needed to pay the massive vets bills of these days!

Hintza

Seem to be a hell of a lot of accident prone people/animals on here.

I can quite understand if you have only one or two animals then the cost of insurance is probably easy to justify. But once you get into multiple animals then you are into a different ball game.

We live on what remains of the farm (my OH late father's) combined with having been brought up with large numbers of animals when I was young I think we peaked at 26 pets when I was young (imagine insuring them!!)

I also wonder sometimes when reading these forums whether the amount of money some spend on putting their animals back together can be justified. But I suppose when you are used to lots of animals you can have a slightly different mind set about whether to put the animal down.

Quite a few folk on here IMHO find it very hard to take the decision to euthanase when an elderly animal is obviously on the way out. It takes a brave decision to able to say enough is enough (my sister is one of those and normally needs some to make the decision for her)

hethmar

Ive just taken my two to the vet. One boy has dry eye - cant just ring up for the meds, have to take him in (hence another fee for examination). Other boy has had exzema in one ear for months on and off and surolan hasnt got rid of it.

So while Im there I ask the vet to cut a few of one dogs nails please - I think he did 4. When I checked the bill £7 had been added for nail clipping!

UKTigerlily

Buttonmoons wrote: »

I don't have insurance for my cat though I've been looking at getting some, she has never had injections though, as she is an indoor cat so never saw the need, but I notice on the quotes they ask for that info first. So should I get her yearly injections, THEN get insurance?

You normally don't need to Vaccinate them to be Insured *but* if you don't & they get an illness that they can Vaccinate against, say they get Cat Flu, treatment won't be covered because the animal wasn't Vax'd. If they have had the Vax & get it, it will be.

feelinggood_2

My rabbit isn't insured. Looked into it, and figured that chances are, in the long run, it'll be cheaper to just put the money aside. We could (and would) cover whatever bills came up without insurance, so it didn't seem to be sensible for us.

Barneysmom

I have both of my dogs insured an it costs me £50 a month. It is a lot but I think that older dogs probably get all that back in the end, with diabetes cataracts etc.

I know the day I cancel it something will happen.

lowis

i insure for peace of mind - i don't have thousands (or access to it) should i need it to pay to treat my cats. i also never want to be faced with the decision of having to put my cats to sleep because i couldn't afford the treatment...or them missing out on the best treatment because I was not insured.

i am completely 'quids in' with my insurance. roughly, this is what i have claimed:

£16,000 throughout one cat's 12yr lifetime (£12k for chemo and aftercare)
£5,000 for my pet rabbit throughout his 10yr lifetime;
£3,000 for my blue-point boy during his 13 years so far
£800 for my 14yo siamese (i have only had him 6 months).

zzzLazyDaisy

I have my cat insured. Costs £6.50 a month - roughly 20p a day - and worth every penny for the peace of mind that I'd be able to cover the vets bills if he was injured or got a chronic illness.