pet insurance

shelly

ben501 wrote: »

Also wondered how people manage without insurance.

We don't have pet insurance and never have. We are lucky enough to have a big rainy day pot so vets bills would come out of that.
We had Coco for 15 years and in all that time her 2 biggest bills were under £500 each. One op was to remove most of her teeth a few years ago and more recently she had a tumour removed from her chest in November 08 but we lost her in Dec 08 due to the tumour being so aggressive it had grown back in a month and invaded her chest.

We now have had Lily a couple of years and she has only been to the vet a couple of times. Once to be chipped and once for a checkup due to me worrying over nothing. (once I thought she had a lump, turns out nipples cover a bigger area on the belly than I imagined ) :rotfl:

Maybe we have just been lucky Who knows?

All I do know is that whatever happens in the future Lily will get all the care and money spent on her she needs.
Not having insurance would never be an excuse for us to have her PTS. Only time that would happen is if her quality of life is badly affected and letting her go would be the kindest thing.

Brightness

I think it depends on the breed you have Shelly. I would go without so that my furries could have medical treatment. In fact, my eldest dog got a jaw infection and so did I. He's been to the vets and had a dental and few extractions (then they found it was coming from his tonsils so he's had them operated on too) and come home with a bag of pills.

Guess who is still in agony????

frankie55

I've just, today, changed from M&S to Greebee as M&S wanted alsost a fiver more for this year. Greenbee are John Lewis Partnership and pay the vet direct, I'm now going to pay around a pound a month less this new year than with M&S for this last year, also a 5%discount if you insure another animal with them. The cover is actually slightly better than M&S and is a reinstatement policy which means the Vet fees don't run out .

cakeordeath_2

It's going to be credit card for us, we got a gorgeous 3 yr old mastiff x from the RSPCA 4 weeks ago and they told us she may have a bit of arthritis in one of her legs 'cos she sometimes limped a bit in the mornings....after 3 days with us (hour long walks each day) she was limping pretty much constantly. We took her to the vets and had £200 worth of xrays to discover she has a luxating patella (and has had for a considerable length of time ) which is causing arthritic change in her bones and so she's off to the orthopaedic specialist for an op next Thursday, we're talking £1500- £2000.

The RSPCA had her for 7 months so we think they played down the severity of her problems in desperation to get her re-homed, but they won't help financially as we knew she had a problem before we adopted her and the insurers wont entertain a pre-existing condition. Our only other choice is to take her back to the RSPCA and there is no way we'd send her back to them, we think we're her best chance. I'm going to look into getting a new credit card with 0% on purchases for 6 months to spread the repayments. There are always ways around these types of problem.

geri1965_2

You need to consider your own financial situation - is it better for you to pay a small amount every month, which gives you peace of mind, or take the chance that your pet may never need treatment.

If your pet does need treatment, and you don't have insurance, do you have money set aside to meet the cost, or are you able to get hold of the money if you have to?

Some people are not willing to spend money on their animals and would rather just have them put to sleep at the first sign of a problem - I don't understand why such people have pets in the first place.