Self insuring your pet via savings. Anyone do this? How do you find it?

sheramber

Jenni_D said:

I'll have to tell my vet that they're using the wrong term in their literature and consultations then, as I'm 100% positive my boy was neutered last October.

Some people are too sensitive to use a word like castration.
neutering is what castration and spaying achieve.

couriervanman

MovingForwards said:

Slightly different as I've an indoor cat, but she has a pocket money tub and if I needed to go to the vets, she could pay for it herself.

I've never insured any of my other cats.
The first one I lost ended up being PTS as treatment didn't work. 
The next one died instantly in hit and run. 
The third one I lost had cancer ops twice, I didn't subject her to a third one.

In 27 years of having cats I've spent about £1k in total, including having spayed / nuts off, but I had a good vet practice who didn't cost a lot.

It is personal choice, down to financial stability and knowing the money you've allocated won't be spent on anything else but your furball.

"Slightly different as I've an indoor cat, but she has a pocket money tub and if I needed to go to the vets, she could pay for it herself".......... made me smile it sounds like a small child

donnac2558

sheramber said:

Jenni_D said:

I'll have to tell my vet that they're using the wrong term in their literature and consultations then, as I'm 100% positive my boy was neutered last October.

Some people are too sensitive to use a word like castration.
neutering is what castration and spaying achieve.

Spaying the term used for females as it is actually the same as a hysterectomy they take the ovaries out.

Jenni_D

I've always thought it was neutering for boys and spaying for girls, but a search on Wiki (after guidance above) has put me right ... neutering is the non-gender-specific generic term; the specific term for boys actually being castration.

purplebutterfly

We have a 12 year old house cat with asthma and hyperthyroidism as well as a 6 year old house cat with pancreatitis. 
The 12 year old currently has insurance with a premium of £125 per month,  which is slightly less than her average monthly vet bill (regular blood tests,  checks,  meds).  In June it is renewal time and we will probably cancel the insurance as it is going to rocket again.  It's scary.   She's currently covered in insurance for up to £7k per year - which we can't afford to put aside ourselves - so we are taking a big gamble.  
We will continue with insurance for our other cat until the premiums outweigh her annual expenditure.  So far she has had ultrasounds,  specialist liver scans,  regular blood tests,  teeth removed etc all covered by insurance.  


I generally recommend pet insurance as there are so many investigative procedures that we wouldn't have been able to immediately give the go-ahead to if we hadn't known the insurance would cover it.  

We've used M&S insurance for our last 4 cats and they've always been brilliant and paid out really quickly.  They were a godsend when one of our cats was taken in to vet hospital with kidney failure and ran up a £1200 bill in 3 days! 

MovingForwards

couriervanman said:

MovingForwards said:

Slightly different as I've an indoor cat, but she has a pocket money tub and if I needed to go to the vets, she could pay for it herself.

I've never insured any of my other cats.
The first one I lost ended up being PTS as treatment didn't work. 
The next one died instantly in hit and run. 
The third one I lost had cancer ops twice, I didn't subject her to a third one.

In 27 years of having cats I've spent about £1k in total, including having spayed / nuts off, but I had a good vet practice who didn't cost a lot.

It is personal choice, down to financial stability and knowing the money you've allocated won't be spent on anything else but your furball.

"Slightly different as I've an indoor cat, but she has a pocket money tub and if I needed to go to the vets, she could pay for it herself".......... made me smile it sounds like a small child

In a way better as I don't get the 'but why.....' questions 😃 

pat1976

We self insure the dogs, cats and horses, after all insurance companies make a profit so on average you will come out ahead.

But... you need to consider whether you have enough  to cover them right now. It's no good saying you'll save the premiums in an account if something expensive  happens almost immediately. Similarly if you buy a very expensive pet and it dies tomorrow would you want/need the money to buy another? 

You also need to think about what level of treatment you'd consider, my horses were insured to age 18ish then most illnesses were excluded and I wouldn't want to put them through much by way of surgery anyway so could cover anything I'd consider. 

A good vet can keep your pet going for a long time at great expense, if you'd want that insurance may well be a good idea.

And always get public liability insurance for dogs or horses just in case they 'happen' to someone, costs around £30 a year. 

Puddleskipper

My dog is 10 years old, she has an ongoing Dry Eye condition which means I pay approximately £450 per year for treatment. She is covered on Pet Insurance but they have put her premium up 22% this year to £1,562 plus an extra excess of £250 per condition. She is insured on the Plus Policy £7,000 p.a.  Vets Fees, up to a couple of years ago she was on the Premium Policy £12,000 p.a. but the renewal was too high so I downgraded to the Plus Policy.

 She is fit apart from the Dry Eye in one eye only and  have never claimed for any other condition having been with them for 8 years. I have now decided to self insure as the premiums have reached a point where I feel that both vets and insurers are just making money out of me excessively. Each time we visit the specialist Eye vet the 15 minute consultation fee has increased - last visit was £85 - previous visit was £80, previous to that £75 - we are never in there as long as 15 minutes!  During this pandemic I asked for her repeat prescription eye drops to be posted out as it is a 110 mile round trip - they wanted £14.95 to post them.  Each time I send a claim form into the Insurers the vet charges me £7.50 just to sign it, I always pay the vet at the time for treatment, I fill in my part of the form and send it to the insurance company for payment back to me.

I know I'm probably making a mistake in not renewing but I'm just feeling that both the Insurers and some vets are now taking advantage of the fact that we love our pets so much they can just milk us, they each blame each other for the increases in premiums (My insurer blamed the vet fees in my local area)

I will immediately put the £1800 in a savings account and continue to add to it.

pat1976

Wow, they do sound like they're milking you there, it's poor service. With horses the vet asks various questions which amount to 'are you insured' and 'how attatched are you to this horse'.

You hit an important point there too, meds are much cheaper if you get a prescription then buy online. My prescriptions cost £15, some last a whole year and others are for one box at a time despite the vet only wanting to see the animal and repeat the diagnosis once per year. My vet emails the prescription to the supplier (365vet) for free and the supplier holds it on file until it expires . 

Plumjam

I currently do a mixture of self-insuring my dog and a cheap policy with high excess.  I pay just over £11 a month to a John Lewis policy with an excess of £250.  I can afford the £250 and have the policy to tide me over should my dog have a serious illness or an accident that's going to cost hundreds or thousands to treat.  He's had ear infections, stomach problems and eye infections so all of these would be considered as pre-existing conditions and so wouldn't be covered by any policy.
In addition, I put £50 into premium bonds each month.  When I've done that for a year, I'm going to increase it to £75 a month, then to £100 a month after another year and then keep paying in £100 every month.  I'll stop any insurance policy when I have £5k in premium bonds (I'll keep adding to the bonds).  If I need the money for treatment it'll be there, if I'm fortunate to not need it, then I'll have a substantial amount of money saved that would otherwise have been paid to insurance companies.  And, I have the chance of winning lots of money in the prize draws!  I started this after I pretended my dog was 10 years old when doing insurance comparisons and realised that the premiums were going to get ridiculously high.