Who insures their animals?

penguin83

I insure my elderly mare although due to her age only accidental injury or colic surgery is covered in respect to vets fees but my insurance also covers Liability to 3rd parties, Death of rider, Disposal costs and Personal accident cover which for 12.00 pm I think is reasonable xx

orlao

I don't insure for anything but public liability (for the horses) anymore.
FWIW, does anyone know if I can get stand alone PL cover for dogs? I am covered at home through my house insurance but not off the premises....

I agree with Hinza that a lot of it is because of having lots of animals and also being in the fortunate position of being able to cover a large bill if I had too. A few years ago I got a quote for 3 (ageing) cats, 2 JRTs and a rottie and that came to nearly £100pm and that wasn't even proper lifetime cover!
The Welsh Cobs insurance was nearly £400 a year before I cancelled it and the other horse wouldn't get full vet cover due to his age (17) when I bought him.

I have to admit that if I ever have another pedigree dog, that will be insured though:o as the rottie is the only one who's cost me real money in vets bills.

moomin5

We insure our 2 dogs and went for a decent cover so costs about £35 a month. We don't have much in the way of savings and i'd hate to have to consider PTS because we couldn't afford to pay the vets bill.

My friend has 9 dogs so for them insurance wouldn't work out worthwhile, but then they wouldn't have that many dogs if they couldn't afford to cover a big vets bill.

viktory

feelinggood wrote: »

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.

Ah, you see I am the complete opposite. Knowing how quickly buns can go into stasis and how hard some vets have to fight to pull them through, I was adamant that my rabbit would be insured. Another forum I frequent talks of bill in excess of £1k for rabbit that are suffering stasis.

My cat is also insured, even though she is (and I hope will continue to be) as fit as a fiddle. I also make sure both my pets have their innoculations, flea treatments etc.

They are my responsibility and therefore it is up to me to ensure that they have the best and healthiest life they can.

elsien

orlao wrote: »

I have to admit that if I ever have another pedigree dog, that will be insured though:o as the rottie is the only one who's cost me real money in vets bills.

That's part of my problem I think - I'm now a bull terrier nut (both the last two were from rescue centres) and they've both cost far more than the previous mongrels. Also the public liability side of things - that was my main priority on the insurance front this time round, due to mutt being a bit of a headcase.

elliebellie

I have insurance and over the last 8 years, it has paid for itself over and over and over again.
To date, our darling pooch has had nearly £50k:eek: paid out by the insurance company, admittedly we have paid out a fair bit ourselves with excesses etc, but we would literally be living in a cardboard box without the insurance.

My insurers pay out with very little quibbling, they pay promptly and I can't fault them at all!

Everyone should have pet insurance, even if you don't use it, it's so worth it for the peace of mind.

feelinggood_2

viktory wrote: »

Ah, you see I am the complete opposite. Knowing how quickly buns can go into stasis and how hard some vets have to fight to pull them through, I was adamant that my rabbit would be insured. Another forum I frequent talks of bill in excess of £1k for rabbit that are suffering stasis.

My cat is also insured, even though she is (and I hope will continue to be) as fit as a fiddle. I also make sure both my pets have their innoculations, flea treatments etc.

They are my responsibility and therefore it is up to me to ensure that they have the best and healthiest life they can.

The only concern I have is the liability aspect - but then again, my rabbit isn't likely to kill, hurt or damage anyone, is he?

listerofsmeg_2

I insure my three cats. It's more than paid for itself in the money it's saved me.

One of my cats, 2yr old, otherwise healthy female got an infection, which filled her chest cavity with fluid and led to her lung collapsing on Christmas day 2006. The vet bill came to over £2000 as it was all 'out of hours', being over Christmas/new year and she had a two week inpatient stay. If it wasn't for insurance, she would have had to be put to sleep, as I didn't have the money to pay this huge bill myself. After treatment, she was perfectly healthy again.

Then there were the minor infections. All three cats caught giardia (common dihorrea causing bug) and that took hundreds of pounds worth of treatment to put right.

I wouldn't hesitate to insure any future cats/dogs.

UKTigerlily

I think for someone in *my* position (Unable to get loans/no savings) Insurance is essential, even if I saved up each month it wouldn't have helped with the Dog BUT in the case of others, like my Mum & Stepdad, it's probably not worth it as they can easily pay for any Vets bills, of course if anything happened they'd wish they could get that money back, but the animal could still be treated so only they would suffer through not having Insurance & they wouldn't mind anyway no matter what the costs. Everyone's different, if you can cover the costs then it's probably better to not bother with Insurance (Other than PL), they had Cats & none ever needed Vets treatment that'd be over the cost of an excess, but should they have then they'd have been able to pay it.

The only thing I hate is how 99% of Vets demand you pay them first, even if you can prove you've paid the Insurance Premiums & even if the Insurers do the Pre-Authorisation forms & agree to pay before. My Dog needs an Op & I might have to put it back a few weeks as I can't just find £400 & the Cats Op tomorrow (Over £200) just like that. If the Insurers are going to pay up within 1-2 weeks I dunno why they won't go direct for big bills in these cases!

hermoine_2

I have two dogs and they are not insured, I did insure my daughters dog because I did not want her to make a decision to have him put to sleep on financial grounds if the need arose - in the end we did use the insurance for behavioural therapy which just about recouped the premiums spent, but still had £80 excess to pay. We then had to rehome him as he was not suitable for my daughter.

I think that I would have my dogs put to sleep if the bill was going to be high or the treatment prolonged. My girl dog has a skin condition which needs occasional meds and dry eye which I can treat from the chemist - no need to go to the vet and costs about £5 a month in drops.

If they got a cancer or knocked down and seriously hurt I think it would be kinder to have them put to sleep - but that is purely my opinion.

H