...to cancel my pet insurance?

[KoalaDownUnder]

I have just discovered that my pet insurance auto-renewed last week. $726 (or £434) for 12 months, for one dog! She's only 4 years old, with no pre-existing conditions.

WIBU to cancel the bloody policy and take my chances?! Anyone got any horror stories that'll convince me otherwise?

I agree with Richard. We don't have pet insurance and have a dog and a cat. Our dog is 14 and has had a few "incidents" which have cost around 300 each and that is it. Our car lived to 17 without any major expense.
Remember insurance will go up year after year, as they get older.

I know I'll be very unpopular here but I've seen many pets going through expensive, prolonged treatment and the outcome has not been good. We have always agreed that if this was required with our pets, their happiness would come before numerous trips to the vets.

Shop around. My cats are on £10/month each with Petplan (actually 9 and 11. Not sure how they figure that out). I've claimed several probably up to a thousand for one (ongoing stomach probs) and several hundred for the other (corneal scratch). They also paid out thousands when my old cat was in an accident and needed surgery - sadly he wasn't regaining use of his back legs after and we PTS in the end but the insurance allowed me to feel I did everything I could for him, up to the point it stopped being in his best interest.

"But those without insurance pay more than they should for those exact reasons."

That isn't true really. They don't "pay more" in the long run as they have not paid insurance premiums every single month.

I put a lump sum into premium bonds when I got ddog and add £400 a year to it.

Most animals don't need insurance but you never know that until they die of natural causes after living a long and healthy life.

I can't afford to drop thousands if one of mine gets sick or injured, but I can afford the £13 a month it costs me to insure both of them, and the £120 excess it costs me to treat them if they do need surgery or medication.

I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I didn't insure them and had to have them PTS for a condition that could be solved or managed by surgery/medication, just because I thought they wouldn't need insuring, iyswim.

If you've never claimed on it, you might as well shop around and see if you can get a better deal.

But my dog's insurance started at £36 a month as a puppy, it's now a time £120 a month... I have claimed about 20k right enough.

2 surgeries for unrelated health problems and 2 different ongoing illnesses.

it's now a time £120 a month.

Holy moly.

My friend has a dog of a similar age who hurt her leg quite badly. She was extremely glad to have insurance - the cost of the necessary op was over £4,000

Remember insurance will go up year after year, as they get older.

Yes, that's my concern. She's currently 4, and could easily (I hope) live to 14 or beyond. At this rate, I'll soon be paying $1000 per annum.

Oddly enough ours hasn't gone up, and I've claimed on both cats.

If you've never claimed on her policy, you can easily cancel and switch to a cheaper one. But be careful if you have claimed - it'll be a pre-existing condition and most companies won't insure for the same as problem (or anything related to it) again.

Could you possibly start putting away what you were paying for insurance last year?
Put it in a savings account and it will be there to help with bills. That's what I would do in your situation.

I know I'll be very unpopular here but I've seen many pets going through expensive, prolonged treatment and the outcome has not been good. We have always agreed that if this was required with our pets, their happiness would come before numerous trips to the vets.

No criticism here; I agree with you.

I'd always pay for treatment as long as her quality of life was good. I don't agree with prolonging a pet's life beyond that, though. After a point, it becomes selfish.

If you've never claimed on her policy, you can easily cancel and switch to a cheaper one.

Nope, not once.

Could you possibly start putting away what you were paying for insurance last year?

I would do that, at a minimum, if I cancelled her policy.

I guess my fear is the big $10,000+ accident that the money 'put away' would never cover.

Thanks Koala, I agree with you. My parents kept their JRT going until he was 18. He was blind, deaf, incontinent and had numerous visits to the vets. But they pushed for every single treatment. His quality of life was awful. I saw that as teenager and vowed I'd never, ever do that to a pet.

I agree about the prolonged expensive treatment, particularly if its painful. That's why we had Sammy PTS eventually. But the thing was in his case, we had to do the op to see if it would work first - the vet said in results were very variable.

If you are sure you would be unable to request a vet to put an injured or chronically ill animal to sleep to the point of selling your house, then yes, pay for some insurance. I think that insurance has caused a huge inflation of treatment so vets are less likely to get early requests for humane killing and everyone is less used to the idea.

We cancelled out pet insurance when our dog was two. We put aside a small amour each morning ,onto in lieu of the payment we are saving. She's eight now and we've not spent a penny on her.

I think pet insurance is the biggest rip off going. Put aside a similar amount each month and you'll save yourself a lot of money, or, if the worst happens you'll have your savings.

I've had dogs all my life and never had a massive vet's bill. If my dog needed ongoing expensive treatment I would have to question what was in the dog's best interests.

Saying you'd happily PTS is one thing, actually doing it when you know having insurance could have saved her life is quite another.

What if she broke a leg? Or something else that while expensive to treat, wouldn't kill her or effect her quality of life at all once the operation was over. Would you really be okay to have her PTS just because you couldn't afford the op, knowing if you'd paid for insurance, she'd be absolutely fine in a couple of months?

Friends dog ate a 5 inch wooden skewer on Saturday... emergency trip to the vets hospital and £2000 later, skewer was cut out of his stomach.

I think you should keep dog insured but perhaps shop around?

If you are sure you would be unable to request a vet to put an injured or chronically ill animal to sleep to the point of selling your house, then yes, pay for some insurance.

Well, realistically I wouldn't have to sell my house.

I was just emphasising how much putting her down to save money (as opposed to putting her down to saving her from suffering) would not be an option.

*put aside a small amount each month in lieu of the payment

But can you magic up thousands of pounds/dollars at a moments notice? Lots of vets won't take payment plans these days.

How would you get the money together if they needed a 5-10k op tomorrow because they caught their leg on something and broke it?

We don't have pet insurance, but we probably should considering the beagle cost me $270 just today with his bacterial infection and allergy issues.

That does sound extortionate for a dog that young with no prior conditions. Shop around. Or wing it like me and then regret it because your dog seems to get every ailment under the sun.