How should I think about using my pet insurance?

sheramber

It depends on what you can afford.

If  paying a sudden large bill will not be problem, whether you have savings, can use a credit card or get loan, sell something, 

But if none of these is possible then insurance can give you peace of mind.

I have used several vets due to moving around but only one has asked if I have insurance.

On the other hand there are those who will go ahead with treatment because they have insurance

Vets are required to give you all the options but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Quality of life now and in the future should always be important.

I had great respect for my first vet.  who would give me the options then tell me if I he considered I would be wasting my money if I went ahead.  It was my choice.

Hennymore

I looked through my claims. £0 for one cat; about £1500 for the other, across 10 separate claims, most of them continuing the same condition. 

With £69 per year + 20% excess.

So I guess they paid out about £1150 in a year, and increased the premium by £160/year, to a total of about £490/year. I guess that’s not completely unreasonable; they’re pretty far off from reclaiming all they paid out (which would have made insurance basically pointless). 

Undervalued

Hennymore said:

I looked through my claims. £0 for one cat; about £1500 for the other, across 10 separate claims, most of them continuing the same condition. 

With £69 per year + 20% excess.

So I guess they paid out about £1150 in a year, and increased the premium by £160/year, to a total of about £490/year. I guess that’s not completely unreasonable; they’re pretty far off from reclaiming all they paid out (which would have made insurance basically pointless). 

The vast majority of people "get back" nothing at all on their house insurance as relatively few houses burn down! However if yours is one of the few houses that are totally lost in a fire you are might glad you paid the premium!

Few people can afford to take that level of risk themselves. However, for something where the total loss amounts to, say, £10K then vastly more people can afford to take a considered gamble if they so choose and effectively become their own insurer.

Some very large organisations (certainly BT at one time) had a special dispensation from the government so that they didn't have to insure their motor vehicles. The argument was they were a larger business that most of the insurance companies!

SensibleSarah

KxMx said:

I had a 3k bill just to diagnose a terminal condition for my last cat- so big bills don't always come from treatment, which I didn't even go through with for her.
The testing was necessary, there was every expectation from even the super specialist vet that it was at worst likely to be IBD, unfortunately it was a terminal illness.
Thankfully I had insurance so I was spared the worry of how to afford the tests on top of everything else.

This is an important thing to consider. It's the tests and scans etc that tend to cost the big bucks as much as any actual treatment. I know for my cat with the broken leg, the next step, if the x-ray hadn't shown the break, was a scan that would have cost around £2.5k - all of this just to determine the cause of the injury. If surgery had have been needed to fix it, it could have easily been another £2k+ on top of that. 

In terms of vets suggesting treatments that might not be in the best interests of the animal due to insurance, I think that's generally not the case. They are obliged to give owners all of the available options regardless, and the specific risks/potential outcomes for these. For example, one of my older cats was diagnosed with heart failure. The vet told me that he could have had twice weekly treatments under sedation to potentially extend his life by a few weeks - even though that was clearly not in his best interests IMO, she had to tell me that it was an option but I could tell that she wasn't in any way recommending this as the right course of action. He was insured. She very much agreed when I decided it was time to end things, which was nothing to do with money: zero quality of life and no way of improving his prognosis meant that to keep him going would be unfair to him. 

Mnoee

When I was doing some back of a napkin maths, insuring each of my cats would cost around £5k per cat over 15 years - it's hard to get accurate prices as like the OP has discovered, if you dare to actually use your insurance then prices hike.

One thing I've noticed is that they ask very few questions compared to other types of insurance. My mogs have safe outdoor access, not free to roam, and are fed a high quality diet. Insuring them costs exactly the same as insuring a hypothetical cat down the road who darts between cars, gets in fights and is fed nothing but go-cat. 

I'm lucky enough to have savings for them, if that changes then I'll look into insurance again - but it really does seem like bad value for those who spend money on preventing problems for absolutely no insurance discount. (Yes, I do know that there's no guarantees - same as humans, some cats just have bad luck with their health - and same as humans, there's a lot you can do to minimise the risks!)

Hennymore

Undervalued said:

The vast majority of people "get back" nothing at all on their house insurance as relatively few houses burn down! However if yours is one of the few houses that are totally lost in a fire you are might glad you paid the premium!

To be clear, my calculations were to show that the premium increase does not make the insurer back what they paid out. Not in one year, anyway. If they had, it would have made insurance basically pointless.

I would be very happy if good health meant I never “got back” what I paid in to insurance.

sheramber

My dog had cruciate surgery , at a  cost of nearly £3000, when 3 years old.

I paid less than £30 per month for her insurance. ( £25 increasing to £28  over the years- one year it actually decreased) 

At that rate, I was quids in for 10 years and still covered for any other claims although I did not have any.

With another dog Petplan paid out far more than I paid them

But there  is no guarantee.

Another one had one small claim in 10 years so I paid out more than I claimed.  But I had peace of mind  that any large bills would be covered, which was important at that time.

ladyholly

i have had dogs for whom I have claime nothing and at the moment I have a 12year old collie who is on more medication than I am (a lot) with regular consultations and a 16 year old Jack Russel with mitral valve disease. I would say its like buying a lottery ticket. most times your money will be wasted but you might hist the jackpot and have a animal that needs a lot of treatment. Operations are expensive, ongoing drugs are expensive, X rays, scans and blood teats are expensive. You pay your money and take your choice.