Should I bother with insurance for dog

idristhedragon

I insured my two new baby kittens this week (monday) and one was taken seriously ill this morning- she is currently in the vets in special care on a drip and has cost me £290 so far and the meter is still ticking so to speak (we're looking at am overnight stay and a battery of tests)
because this has happened in the first 14 days of the policy the insurance wont pay out. Up until today she was a healthy normal kitten.
How gutted am I that I didnt insure her immediately when I got her 2 weeks ago?

bugslet

I have 6 dogs and have never insured them; so far I'm ahead and that is after 30 years of being a multi-dog household.

Just hitting some costs now as one is 15 next year and a semi-rescue that I took on has had tracheal collapse. But if they need it, it gets paid for.

Of course there may come a point at which I say no to further treatment; I don't necessarily believe in putting an animal through a lot of on-going unpleasant treatment, so the point at which it becomes financially difficult will be around the time I would decide not to proceed even if I had insurance. Fortunately that point has never been arrived at yet.

If you can't make provision, either by putting away some money or being prepared to throw it on a credit card, then insurance is vital.

It really depends on your individual circumstances.

Sorry to hear about your loss Mrs Atobe.

light_bulb

To be honest, my two dog's aren't insured. They're technically my parent's dogs and it's there decision not to insure and I respect that as it's their decision.
With my own dog, when I get one, I'll very likely get insurance as I'm more in the mindset of 'Better to have insurance and never need it, than to not have insurance and need it once.'

jackomdj

We took out insurance when our dog turned 7 (just before it would have gone up!), about a month after he had a stroke and ended up on daily medication. That medication alone was more than his annual insurance. He also had several operations costing about 1000 each.

So I would say get insurance, make sure it is the right insurance though (a lot of policies only insure once for an ailment or up to a certain value)

KxMx

It's also worth considering that credit cards are a useful tool for emergencies; but it's not free money it has to be paid back with interest.

It only takes a member of the household losing their job, credit rating going down etc for a bad situation to be compounded.

In my mind credit cards are a very unstable alternative to proper insurance.

bugslet

I was referring to credit cards if you can pay them off straightaway. Last ime I had to do that it was for an op of £1600.00, which I paid off in two months. Still a saving on insurance for me.

If you can do that, credit cards are fine, if it's going to be a debt forever and a day, insurance. Really depends on your circumstances.

KxMx

Circumstances do change though and insurance helps plan for those cases.

You could have put the money on your credit card because you could pay off in full but then financially things changed for the worse next day.

Personally I would just not risk it.

moomin5

Unless you can afford to cover the bills with savings i think opting for a decent lifetime insurance policy is the best option. You can guarantee you'll leave it and then an illness/accident will crop up:o i was going to switch my policy and then both dogs were ill so i couldn't as they'd be excluded and often it covers related conditions rather than just actual thing you had treated.

My greyhound had a problem with a spinal disc recently, we just came home and found her in pain unwilling to lay down and no idea what she managed to do while in the living room to tweak it. Thankfully it just needed rest rather than an operation,but was couple of hundred still. There are plenty of long term conditions were dog can have reasonable quality of life but the medications are expensive.

mum2one

MrsAtobe wrote: »

Yes, insure! Our spaniel unexpectedly got onto the railway tracks last week, sadly she did get hit. She survived the impact but had a head injury, and the insurance meant that when the vets had stabilised her, and advised that she should be transferred to a vet hospital for a specialist neurological examination, that I didn't have to worry about the cost, I could just tell them to do their best for my little girl.

Sadly her injuries were too great, they couldn't guarantee that she would ever regain consciousness, let alone recover from them .

If they had been able to treat her, they told me that it would cost £15-£17,000 to treat and nurse her. Got that sort of money hanging around? Because I don't. The accidental death insurance is also paying for her to be cremated separately, and her ashes returned to us in a casket.

I couldn't imagine going through what I did on that day, and then having to pay for it as well.

So so sorry you lost your pet, we hd to have our spaniel PTS 3 yrs ago, and had his ashes back, theres always a part of him looking over us.

We do have another Spaniel, he's mad as a hatter, but would do anthing for a belly tickle, thou he thinks everyone who walks past should be there for a belly tickle xx

chucknorris

MrsAtobe wrote: »

If they had been able to treat her, they told me that it would cost £15-£17,000 to treat and nurse her. Got that sort of money hanging around? Because I don't. The accidental death insurance is also paying for her to be cremated separately, and her ashes returned to us in a casket.

I couldn't imagine going through what I did on that day, and then having to pay for it as well.

Who was your insurer? They covered you up to 17k? Mine was M&S which only went up to 7k anyway. Which I stopped and self insured when they started increasing the premuims significantly, introduced an excess and a 25% contribution when my dog reached 9 years old. He actually died of cancer on Monday, the cost was absolutely irrelevant it was the tragedy of losing him that concerned me.I would have gladly given up 3 years off my lifespan for him to have 3 more healthy years.

Insurance can't be good value, it stands to reason, they aren't a charity, they assess the risk then add their overheads and profit, it is only value taking out insurance if you can't cover the worst eventuality, because any dog is worth more than any vet bill.