INSURANCE shall I just cancel it :(

[DailyMailEthicalFail]

Took out Vetsure insurance on recommendation of my Vet a year ago.

For my rescue dog. It was £25pcm inc public liability insurance.

But it has so many exclusions. And I can only use that Vet (who turns out to be not so great) without paying extra.

So they sent an email saying it's going up to £30pcm.

She needs spaying and dental work neither of which is covered.

Shall I just cancel it and spend the money on this instead?

Is there anyone who will just offer public liability???

[Floralnomad]

Routine neutering wouldn't be covered on any insurance and dental work is rarely covered , unless you have a few thousand spare to cover an emergency I would retain insurance with somebody . AFAIK you can get liability cover by joining Dogs trust .

[BMW6]

Re above post, yes Dogs Trust membership costs £25 pa and that gets you 1million cover for public liability.

FWIW we've had our boy for 5 years, had insurance for the first year only (cost £11pm) and none (apart from the Dogs Trust annual membership) since then.
We have a few thousand "spare" so decided to self-insure as it were. Until today we've had one bill of £65 (Kennel cough) and today £260 (grass seed in ear needing heavy sedation to remove).

So in the past four years we have spent much less in direct costs than we would have paid in premiums - not even counting on the excess! BUT you would need to have at least £1000 ready to lay hands on if needed. If you can't access that kind of money immediatley then pet insurance is a must - or don't have a pet.

[gamerchick]

I don't see pet insurance to cover all bills. It's more for stuff that costs eye watering money. Spaying and whatnot I wouldn't expect to claim for, it's a normal expense of pet owning.

[YesYABU]

Definitely dogs trust for public liability.

If you want to go for pet insurance, I found direct line to be excellent and they let me choose which vet I used. They wouldn't cover spaying or existing conditions, so probably not the dental work you need. Did the rescue you got the dog from not include spaying? Some areas/ dog charities/ vets offer cut price spaying promotions to prevent unwanted puppies so this may be worth looking into.

[Wolfiefan]

Don't you need public liability insurance for a dog?
If you have instant access to 5-10k them I would cancel. If not I wouldn't.
Of course insurance doesn't cover neutering.

[tabulahrasa]

"If you have instant access to 5-10k them I would cancel."

Could be more than that TBH.

I looked online at what my insurance has paid out to me the other day, £14 000 that's without excesses, the year we ran out and I had to top it up by £500 and things they've turned me down for.

My dog will be 4 next week.

Yep it's completely out of average vet's bills, but it's always a possibility and without insurance you run the risk of having to make a life and death decision in an emergency based on your bank account not what's best for the dog.

[Scuttlebutter]

Routine dental, health care and spaying are never usually covered by insurance, and I'm amazed that a rescue in the UK would rehome a bitch without neutering or providing a neutering voucher if it was a very young bitch for instance.

There are lots of insurance comparison websites which will advise on the best deals. Issues like whether to go for annual limits or lifetime cover are impossible to for us to answer as you know your dog's breed, health history and what they may be prone to in later life.

If you are fabulously wealthy and can easily put your hands on ready cash (up to £5000) then you don't need it. For the rest of us, it's massively important. Even healthy dogs can and do have accidents, and it's easy especially for broken legs to run up into the thousands.

Insurance always seems expensive until you use it, and then it's a godsend. We are currently with Direct Line and find them OK, but there are lots of good providers out there.

Are you budgeting adequately for health issues generally? As well as things like annual vax, dentals, flea, worm and tick treatment, there are often minor cuts, bumps and scrapes that don't need insurance claims but still need a vet visit. We find on average that ours will need at least two of these sorts of visits each year each , but we have mostly elderly, thin skinned pointies so you may be able to get away with less.

[Wolfiefan]

Tabula I was trying not to panic the OP! We had cats and didn't have insurance as they were sedate, home loving pusses and we could have easily paid out 5-10k if needed.
I chatted to a dog owner the other day whose dog needed £5k worth of op.
I'm hopefully getting a dog in the autumn. It's a big breed. I would have insurance unless I could guarantee a spare 20k hanging around.
FWIW. Although we didn't insure old cats, we now have two 1 year olds. Much more adventurous and I'm not working now. They are insured. It's a safety net. I couldn't stand to risk losing my pet because I couldn't afford treatment.

[tabulahrasa]

Wolfie - see I was trying to panic them

I have had to decide whether mine had life saving surgery at midnight on a Saturday, that isn't the sort of situation where you want to be having to factor in whether you have the money for it as well.

It might never happen with most dogs, but that's what you're paying for, the ability to be able to go, yes, please save my dog when it is needed.

[Betrayedbutsurvived]

Nearly cancelled ours as we have an older dog, they wanted £50 a month and we'd never used it.

Then he got cancer. £6000 bill so far and rising!

[Wolfiefan]

Ha tabula!
I'm trying hard not to be frightened at the implications of taking on a giant breed pup. Spent too long researching and looking into all the issues.
Still want one though!

[Noitsnotteatimeyet]

Our cat got hit by a car and shattered his pelvis- of course, it happened late on Friday night so he was at the emergency vet being stabilised over the weekend then transferred to our normal vet then onto referral hospital for surgery. In total it cost more than £6000.

Our bouncy, sometimes giddy nearly 3 year old dog is much bigger so if something similar happened to him the bill would be much higher

I am happy to pay the premiums for both of them as the idea of having to make decisions about their care based on my bank balance rather than their needs is too horrible to contemplate

[DailyMailEthicalFail]

Ok.
I had a spaniel before. I paid 300pm Petplan for 13 years.
He needed £3.5K of ops on his ears.
To be honest, I wouldn't put another dog through that.
It was awful.

Dog is 6. She was a 'private re-home' but it was a rescue situation to be honest which is why I think of / refer to her as a rescue dog.

She needs spaying (was told she was, vet has confirmed not) and needs teeth scraped whilst under too.

Perhaps I'll look into Direct insurance then.

She is a hound. She has four sedate walks a day, on lead.
She has no traffic sense whatsoever though so public liability is a must.
I will join Dogs Trust (a good idea anyway) - thank you.
I'll look around for a better insurer

[stonecircle]

Agree that insurance is essential for those who couldn't put their hands on a large sum of money to pay huge vet bills.

However, we've just cancelled most of ours. We have 2 cats and 2 dogs and every year Direct Line have bumped up the premiums by a significant amount. Last month they put the premiums up to £230 pcm. I did keep the insurance for our 9 year old lab as my initial intention in cancelling was to go elsewhere and she has a number of conditions which would be excluded from any other policy. So we're paying £80 a month for her.

We've only made very occasional small claims - our excess is £80. The last one was for a tooth extraction (trauma not decay) and Direct Line only met half the cost, refusing point blank to pay for cleaning of adjacent teeth which the vet said was necessary to avoid infection in the gum.

We must have paid direct line in the region of £10-15 and claimed back less than £1k. But I do realise it's a gamble.

We do have the means to cover a big bill ( though obviously there are dozens of other things I'd rather do with the money!)

[EasyToEatTiger]

I think public liability insurance is essential. While hopefully most dogs wont get into trouble, PL insurance often covers up to £1,000,000. It is usually cheap and a bit like 3rd party car insurance. Health-wise, it's impossible to know. I finally cancelled the insurance on my oldies a month before the younger died, and because the older ddog was a teenager and I didn't think it fair to keep her going should she have a traumatic illness or accidect.

[RooDaisy]

I'm with healthy pet club and they charged a flat rate of £160 to remove approx 7 teeth from DD1. She came to me at 8 and hadn't been cared for properly. They sent us home with food for a week and medicine too.

I'm considering whether it's worth carrying on with though. I'm going to post about it!!

[stonecircle]

Public liability insurance was the main reason I carried on with pet insurance. Then I discovered that the Dogs' Trust provide it and access to 24 vet advice if you become a member - which costs £25 a year.