£1000 vet bill I cant afford :(

ShadyEssence

My dog may need urgent surgery he's in the vets now and they're not operating till tomorrow. he has a blocked intestine and they've given him laxatives but they may not work, my issue is its about a grand for surgery and my dogs only 10 months old so has to be done. He's insured but I have to pay up front and claim it back... What am I meant to do??

McKneff

Credit card ??

Don't forget, there may be an excess on your pet insurance, perhaps if you could pay the Vet the excess they may be kind enough to wait till you are paid out.

Bailey101

If you have a good relationship with your vets clinic, they may let you have the insurance pay them direct. I have insurance through Petplan and there's been quite a few occasions when one of my cats has had huge vets bills. The clinic have been fine with me having the insurance pay them instead of me paying up front.

The best thing to do is ring them asap and explain the circumstances. Maybe offer to fax over your insurance certificate to show that you can pay eventually.

I hope your dogs better soon and his treatment goes well!!

xx

eta McKneff reminded me that I paid the excess at the time of the treatment, and the vets returned the claim forms direct.

skintandscared_2

I really hope the vet will let you pay the excess and wait for the insurance company to pay the rest.

I have just done the insurance for our Teddy and although it is more expensive I have gone with PetPlan mainly because they will settle vets bills direct. We don't have a credit card and although I'm starting to put a bit aside now when I can, we wouldn't have the option of paying up-front either.

~Chameleon~

If you're insured with Petplan, most vets will claim direct from them as they're a long established and incredibly reliable insurer.

lee111s

As above, ask the vet if they can claim direct from the insurance. If not a credit card is the next best option.

zaksmum

I always just maxed out my credit card when my dogs needed expensive vet treatment.

With Marks & Spencer insurance though, I don't have to pay upfront...they settle the vet bill and I just pay the excess.

skintandscared_2

zaksmum - that's what worried me when I was looking at various insurances. We don't have a credit card and it would literally kill me if Ted couldn't have treatment just because we couldn't afford it. I am starting to save now, just in case, but the more expensive PetPlan seemed a better option in our circumstances than a cheaper plan.

rising_from_the_ashes

I know my vets generally expect you to pay for reasonable sums & wait for your insurer to pay out but if it's a large bill (over £500 I think) they'll wait for the insurer - as long as it's someone they know will pay out eg petplan

G-WWBB

Same with our vets and Pet Plan, when our boy cut his paw pad open on a broken glass, the vets claimed back from Pet Plan and we just paid the excess. I think the vets limit was £500 for payment from the owner, then if the bill is higher than that they claim from the insurance direct as they said they couldn't expect people to have that kind of money to pay in full.
Definitely worth checking with the vets though if they offer something like that.

krlyr

Your insurance may do something called a pre-authorisation form, where they agree to pay the costs which vets will then use as security to proceed without direct payment. My insurance do it for anything over £500.

Otherwise, speak to your vet - I wanted to do a direct claim for something under £500 and my vets did this by having me call my insurers to give permission for my vets to call and speak about my policy, to reassure themselves that the policy was in place with no exclusions.