Pet insurance - does anyone self-insure?

lindens

Hi. Just after people's experience of self-insuring pets rather than pay insurance.
I have 3 cats of various ages all under 9 (which is considered old). I am insured with Churchill and pay £45 per month in premiums.
There is a £55 rolling excess , plus as the one cat is "old" i must pay 20% of all costs over the excess.
In the last month all 3 cats had to go to the vets (unusual)
Cat 1 - the "old" one was sneezing and had runny eyes. Bill was £61. I will get nothing back due to excess and extra 20% payment of bill
Cat 2 - the young one stopped eating and looked to have a sore mouth - infected gums, needed to be put under for a clean and polish on her teeth and had a course of anti-biotics. Bill was £250. I will get nothing back as teeth excluded from the policy.
Cat 3 - had the same cold as cat 1 . Bill was £51. I will get nothing back due to the excess.

Apart from being very annoying, I am seriously thinking of stopping the insurance and just putting the £45 into a savings account. Does anyone else do this?
Thank you for reading

pramsay13

Aside from the vet's bills you have other things like third party insurance.
What if your cat causes a car accident?

System

pramsay13 wrote: »

What if your cat causes a car accident?

I don't think cat owners have any legal reponsibility for their cats' accidents, except in proved cases where an owner has failed to take action because of a cat's known propensity to cause accidents.

sheramber

You can get third party insurance by joining The Dogs Trust.

Self insuring or buying insurance is a gamble.

If you are able to build up a sizeable pot of money, if you have enough excess income or have access to a credit card or loan then you may think self insurance is worth the gamble as long as you can guarantee to never dip into it for something else when money is short.

But if you do not have access to these then what happens when you are presented with a large bill? Insurance can give you peace of mind that you will have funding for that bill.

One person I know self insured but she did not withdraw any money for a bill that was under what would have been her excess. That way she was able to keep the money for a large bill. That seems a good compromise.

But if you have a pet that runs up large bills then your self insured pot may nit be enough.

Self insurance works for some but not for others.

trailingspouse

I've had a cat or cats off and on for 30 years. Never insured any of them.



The most expensive vet visit was when a kitten managed to break her leg by pulling the ironing board over on to it (no, we've no idea how she managed it). Vet call out at 2am, X-ray, plaster cast, check ups - total cost £175 (about 15 years ago).


Overall we've certainly made a profit. But we're in the fortunate position that if there was a big bill we would have sufficient to cover it.

chucknorris

sheramber wrote: »

Self insuring or buying insurance is a gamble.

That is not correct:

Self insuring is a gamble that you are not unlucky enough to be landed with a vet's large bill. Buying insurance however is a hedge (so the opposite of a gamble, it actually reduces risk) that you might be landed with a large vets bill.

I self insure, it isn't value because I can easily afford any eventuality with any health claim for my dog, and I am a member of the Dog's Trust (which as you say covers third party liability claims).

pinknsparkly

We insured our kitten for the first year, in order to assess whether he was likely to have any pre-existing disorders, but since then have opted to self-insure. At the moment we are in the process of buying a house so if he did manage to land us with a vet bill for a couple of thousand then we wouldn't have the savings to hand to pay for it. However, we do have the capacity on an interest free credit card to cover that so would pay that way, and our savings will be built back up straight after the house purchase. We don't have a set "cat" savings pot, rather we have a general emergency fund that we would use in that situation. As you say, in the year we did have insurance, nothing we needed done at the vets (check ups, vaccinations, neutering) was covered by the insurance.

hollie.weimeraner

We actually do a bit of both. Insure what we think is a reasonable amount for our dog and put something away each month as well in case the bill is more than the cover. We have had bills up to £2,000 for previous dogs which were all met by insurance minus the excess so do consider it worthwhile.

System

chucknorris wrote: »

. (so the opposite of a gamble, it actually reduces risk).

Hedge or gamble or insurance are in essense the same thing.
You pay money in anticipation that some event may or may not happen.
You take a chance ("risk") on some event, and then your money with hindsight may or may not have been needed in securing the satisfactory outcome.

kazwookie

I have a 'cat' bank account, (spare account) each month over the years, I have put £10 in there by standing order, that has covered any vets bills for 5 cats and one dog, over various lengths of time.

The staff at the vet think it is funny, that the money comes out of the cats bank account.

It works for me, it wouldn't work for everyone. Each to their own.

trailingspouse

Loving the idea of a cat's bank account. They could build up a bit of a fund, then when they finally succeed in destroying the sofa completely, they can pay for the replacement.