Who insures their animals?

suki1964

dannymccann wrote: »

My dad insures his choc lab for more than his FocusST :rolleyes: , something like £300 a year for the dog and £270 for the car :T

Would love to know who hes insured with - costing DH closer to £500 for his ST:eek:

I dont insure.

Years ago when pet plan was about the only pet insurers about I did - because premiums were cheap enough and pets were covered for life. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon, premiums went through the roof, conditions werent covered and excesses became more then a vet bill.

We are fortunate that our vets are cheap as chips (compared to what a lot of you pay)

My dog is prone to skin/ear/eye complaints so out montly vet bill is around £5 - £10 depending on if its drops or shampoo hes needing.

If he needed major treatment then we have savings - or worse case scenario - the credit card

He also has arthritis which atm isnt too bad and is controlled with gentle exercise and diet. I know that soon enough he will be on meds but would I go as far as replacing joints? I dont think so.

RacyRed

My 2 outdoor cats both have Petplan full life-time cover, not cheap but necessary in my view.

The indoor girl isn't covered, I thought about it but decided not to, as she has a pre-existing condition and when I read the small print I realised that a lot of things she may need future treatment for would probably be classed as "relating" to the condition, so I wouldn't be able to claim for them. I've a bank account for her.

foreign_correspondent

I have never insured pets till the dog I have now, and I chose to do that because my income is more sporadic now than prevously (rather than have 1 f/t salaried job, I work for three different employers, some of it on an ad hoc basis) - however, I went with Halifax's lowest lever for life cover - I pay about £7 a month, and am insured for £1000 worth of costs, with a £50 excess. I figure if she needed something doing that cost over that I can raid the ISA, but it should cover most eventualities.

I agree with thr OP that sometimes we can be too reluctant to let our pets go when they are old and suffering, but on the other hand, if my healthy middle aged dog had an illness or accident which was fix-able, with a good prognisis, I would hate to have to PTS just because I could not afford to get her sorted. (I was talking to a lady the other day who had taken her son's young dog out, it had shattered its shoulder when its leg went down a hole, £2000 vet bill to get pinned and fixed!)

robpw2

i do rather have it and not need rather than dont have and do need

SusieWinwood

We have 2 of our 3 cats insured through Direct line at £16.77 per month. Its peace of mind that if they need treatment it will cover it. The alternative I don't even want to think about

Susie

maemaesmummy

I had insurance for years with Cassie and never needed to claim.. the cost went up to around £30 pm at age 6 so we cancelled it & within 6 weeks she was incredibly ill... the emergency vet £80, blood test £90, transfusion x 2 £1000 PTS & cremation £200+...

I will always have insurance now regardless...

Tribulation

[quote=UKTigerlily;19635715
Is the Vets you go to a Tier 1, 2, 3? Here we have a small, 1 Vet & 1 Receptionist practice with no fancy stuff & it's dirt cheap, the huge Vet Hospital is about 2x as much, which you'd expect, they have much more overheads. There's at least 2 Vets on here who post on this board & i'm sure they'll tell you they don't make tons of money. I for one wouldn't care if they did, they do 5+ years of training & deserve every penny.[/quote]

http://www.havenvets.com/ Not a small practice Loads of receptionists, nurses etc. My previous dog was insured by Direct Line, my current one is by Pet Plan. They have always been more than happy for me to simply pay the excess on my policy and them claim the rest directly.

I've got nothing against vets making a good salary, however from a lot of posts on this board, I get the impression (as others do) that some of the vets out there are milking the system and taking big advantage of insurance policies and we all suffer in the long run. I notice that even on pet plans premium plan, there is now a limit to how much will be paid. I suspect this is entirely down to some vets taking the !!!!.

With regards to vaccinations, Pet plan say,

3. You must keep your pet vaccinated against the following:
Dogs - Distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis and parvovirus.

although it does then go on to say that if you haven't, it wont pay out for the above conditions. But knowing what insurance companies are like, not having the vaccination, they could use the fact that they say you must get it vaccinated, as an excuse not to pay out, so I'm not taking the risk.

Cats are a lot different to dogs. My dog got pancretitis (spelling?) and had to have a special diet all his life. No problem, we could control exactly what he ate. He also got diabetes just before he died, again no problem as we can control him. My cats are a different matter. They go outside and it would be impossible to control what they eat.

In my opinion if say a cat of mine became diabetic, it would be more cruel forcibly keeping them indoors for the rest of their lives, leading a subnormal lifestyle, than having them put down.

I'm not saying they're dispensable, I'd spend any amount of money if it wasn't a waste, but in a case like that, it would be.

I appreciate some people have house cats, but my cats aren't. We were advised by the vets that for one of our cats we should keep as a house cat if at all possible as he was likely to be stolen, we tried (as a kitten when he'd never been out), he spent months trying to get out of windows, trying to run out of the door, was constantly stressed until we finally gave in, let him out and he's been happy ever since.

I also wouldn't pay out loads for cancer treatment in either a cat or a dog. Unlike humans they cant understand what they're going through, I would simply let nature take it's course as I believe that's the best thing to do.

Even with humans, fine go through chemo and see if they can get rid of it. But I know people that suffered for month upon month in a lot of pain and agony, leading no decent quality of life (my mum included) on loads of meds to keep them alive as long as possible and I think that if that was me, if the chemo didn't work, I'd simply want nature to take it's course as quickly as possible. I also know of one man that did exactly this, he was in a bit of pain for just under 3 weeks then passed away peacefully, still able to function and have his dignity.

I also know far far more people in real life that have had numerous cats and dogs, all live to a healthy age that have never had vaccinations than I do those that have.

Then you get reports like this http://www.healthyhappydogs.com/Vaccinations (also read links at bottom of that page)

Tribulation

Notsosharp wrote: »

I don't think what I pay (£14 for two)

Out of interest, what level of cover do you get for that? and how old are your cats?

Trouble with insurance companies is the older your cat, the more the policy rises (see the post below yours)

One of my concern is that where 30 years ago they would have put an animal to sleep to end it's suffering, due to insurance, they sometimes do surgery etc just because people have insurance.

A friend had an elderly cat, you could see it was on it's last legs, they took it to the vets for a vaccination to put in a cattery and their vets wanted to do all sorts of investigations etc to find out why it was getting thin and lethargic. The fact that it was something like 18 years of age and was simply old, simply never occurred to the vet.

IsoChick

We insure both our dogs, and have claimed twice for the eldest dog and once for the youngest...

Max had a histiocytoma removed at a year old - cost us about £400 all in
He also had an unexplained serious eye injury last year - cost about £250, and we were lucky that he didn't need an eye specialist

Murphy had an accident with a garden cane (yes he was playing with it, no we hadn't given it to him). He ruptured his soft palette (sp?) and needed emergency surgery. That cost us about £500 altogether.

Had we put the equivalent of the monthly premiums in an account, we wouldn't have been able to pay for any of these accidents!

UKTigerlily

Tribulation wrote: »

http://www.havenvets.com/ Not a small practice Loads of receptionists, nurses etc. My previous dog was insured by Direct Line, my current one is by Pet Plan. They have always been more than happy for me to simply pay the excess on my policy and them claim the rest directly.

I've got nothing against vets making a good salary, however from a lot of posts on this board, I get the impression (as others do) that some of the vets out there are milking the system and taking big advantage of insurance policies and we all suffer in the long run. I notice that even on pet plans premium plan, there is now a limit to how much will be paid. I suspect this is entirely down to some vets taking the !!!!.

With regards to vaccinations, Pet plan say, although it does then go on to say that if you haven't, it wont pay out for the above conditions. But knowing what insurance companies are like, not having the vaccination, they could use the fact that they say you must get it vaccinated, as an excuse not to pay out, so I'm not taking the risk.

Cats are a lot different to dogs. My dog got pancretitis (spelling?) and had to have a special diet all his life. No problem, we could control exactly what he ate. He also got diabetes just before he died, again no problem as we can control him. My cats are a different matter. They go outside and it would be impossible to control what they eat.

In my opinion if say a cat of mine became diabetic, it would be more cruel forcibly keeping them indoors for the rest of their lives, leading a subnormal lifestyle, than having them put down.

I'm not saying they're dispensable, I'd spend any amount of money if it wasn't a waste, but in a case like that, it would be.

I appreciate some people have house cats, but my cats aren't. We were advised by the vets that for one of our cats we should keep as a house cat if at all possible as he was likely to be stolen, we tried (as a kitten when he'd never been out), he spent months trying to get out of windows, trying to run out of the door, was constantly stressed until we finally gave in, let him out and he's been happy ever since.

I also wouldn't pay out loads for cancer treatment in either a cat or a dog. Unlike humans they cant understand what they're going through, I would simply let nature take it's course as I believe that's the best thing to do.

Even with humans, fine go through chemo and see if they can get rid of it. But I know people that suffered for month upon month in a lot of pain and agony, leading no decent quality of life (my mum included) on loads of meds to keep them alive as long as possible and I think that if that was me, if the chemo didn't work, I'd simply want nature to take it's course as quickly as possible. I also know of one man that did exactly this, he was in a bit of pain for just under 3 weeks then passed away peacefully, still able to function and have his dignity.

I also know far far more people in real life that have had numerous cats and dogs, all live to a healthy age that have never had vaccinations than I do those that have.

Then you get reports like this http://www.healthyhappydogs.com/Vaccinations (also read links at bottom of that page)

I know what you mean about keeping them in, mine has to be in for 48hrs (6pm Friday) & is doing my head in trying to escape, she HATES being in!