Is pet insurance really worth it?

mariamintonwa

In most cases an insurance investment is a good choice but in this case I have never bought any insurance for my pets

fuzzgun19

Aretnap wrote: »

Whether the cost is below the excess depends on the size of the excess - that's something that varies from policy to policy and there's generally a trade off between the monthly premium and the excess. Very minor treatment will often cost less than the excess, but if it's more than the excess it will be covered. The important thins to check the excess on the policy you choose is at a level that you're confident you could afford to pay. Personally I tend to take quite a large excess to keep the premiums down, but then I'm fortunate enough not to have to worry about the prospect of putting my hand in my pocket for a couple of hundred quid if my cat needs an X-ray - it's only the prospect of a bill in the thousands which worries me. Your mileage may vary of course.

It's a myth that insurers commonly wriggle out of claims because of "some loophole". The terms of the policy should make clear what is covered and what isn't - and if something is covered it will be paid for. The most common reason people find that they're not covered is because the illness or injury was already preent when te policy was taken out. Some routine things like vaccinations and annual check ups are also not covered which is fair enough - insurance is there to protect you against things which might happen, not things which will definitely happen.

Thank you. I ended up going with MoreThan just over £10pm for the basic cover for 12mths.
Will re-evaluate in a year.

Aretnap

fromtheshires wrote: »

Don't you find your insurance goes up year in year anyway? I have always found with my pet policies that the older they get it increases exponentially. My current dog is three years old and its gone up from £11 a month to £29 a month without any claims. Im sure if I had claimed it may be higher I don't know, just genuinely interested in this discussion / point as its not like normal insurance where it goes down if no claims have been made.

Pet insurance does increase in price as the animal gets older because the chance of illness (and therefore a claim) increases massively with age (just like with people) - particularly when you get past doggy miiddle age. That's not the case with car insrance, home insurance etc, at least not to anything like the same extent. For that reason pet insurance tends to have no equivalent of a no claims bonus.

That said I'm surprised it's gone up that much when the dog is only 3 years old and it may be more to do with the general tendency for insurers to ofer new customers better prices than exiting ones. You can get round that by changinginsurer at regular intervals, provided that our dog has no ongoing conditions of course as those probably won't be covered one you've sw it'd insurer.

Torry_Quine

I have never had insurance for any of my cats and would have paid out far more than they ever cost if I had. I think it may be different for dogs but for cats I would say no.

dacouch

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/70105392#Comment_70105392