...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?

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?

Trust me: I could, and would.

This isn't about my dog getting put to sleep over a few K, as that's not going to happen.

Our very elderly cat's insurance premiums shot up to about £76 pm when he was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid.....but wouldn't pay out for any overactive thyroid treatment, including his medication.

We've cancelled the insurance (though still paying for his tablets). He's 17, while we love him to bits, if anything serious was to happen it would be time to have him PTS.

Haven't read through all the posts so unsure if this has already been said, but anything she has had up until this point will be a pre-existing condition and not covered by a new policy should you swap over.

So you need to be careful with swapping insurance companies, I've seen many of our clients stung by this. Think they're saving a lot of money but they really aren't cos insurance no longer pays out on some things.

Then what is it about?

If you can afford not to have insurance, then don't have it. If you're confident you can rustle up several thousand at a moment's notice for broken legs, or £100's for antibiotics or painkillers, then go for it.

It's your finances and your pet at the end of the day. I was stung by not insuring my old house cats - of course they both got sick within months of each other and cost me thousands. Nothing life-threatening or ongoing for either of them - just standard injuries/illnesses that could affect any animal. Both were absolutely fine after treatment.

If you can afford not to have insurance, then don't have it. If you're confident you can rustle up several thousand at a moment's notice for broken legs, or £100's for antibiotics or painkillers, then go for it.

Yes, because the cost/benefit analysis is that simple.

I'm not going to go into my personal finances, but is it too difficult to understand that a) I could get hold of the money if I really had to, but b) my finances are currently not so liquid that a $700+ chunk on something I might never use is not negligible?

Just a small point about switching policies - exclusions for pre-existing condition are based not just on what you've claimed for, but on what is in the pet's clinical history - so any minor things that the vet saw (and therefore recorded in the notes) but you didn't claim for may be excluded as well.

I do get that - but at the end of the day it is that simple. You either spend the $700 and risk not needing cover, or you cancel the insurance, and risk having to shell out $5000 next week because he broke his leg or whatever.

It's upto you whether saving the $700 today is worth it in the long run - only you can decide that :)

Unfortunately, you're probably right. . .

My dog's insurance shop up to the same as yours from £324.

I couldn't understand the rise, as I'd not had to use the insurance at all in his first year and he has no pre existing illnesses, in fact he's as healthy as a dog can be.

At the time I did have a shop around and to get the same kind of cover I was being quoted the same everywhere else, but if it rises as much this year then I will have to look at a cheaper but lesser cover for him.

I couldn't even consider not having insurance though, as I saw my mum go through the mill 18 months ago when one of her dogs got ill. He had to have a specialist perform surgery on him and at one point it was touch and go if he'd even come through. She never would have afforded it without the insurance as I think the whole cost would have been about £20k by time she added in the emergency appointments, the many overnight stays, the specialist consultancy and surgery and all of the medication etc.

Do think of the possible costs before cancelling, but if it's too much then surely a lesser but cheaper cover would be better than no cover at all.

As someone said above, it isn't just what you have claimed for which is viewed as pre existing illnesses it is 'anything' you have seen the vet about as they will ask for a full history from the vets.

I only have a 4K limit on mine but I can find a few thousand to top up if I needed to in the event of an big accident or illness. What people forget though when they say they put money aside each month rather than pay for insurance it might be multiple bills e.g dog swallows something needs an op several thousand pounds year 1, next year develops a lump and needs lots of investigations resulting in another big bill, then has an accident and breaks a leg etc. My insurance would mean I am not left with big bills in such a scenario and I just view it as lucky if I never have to make a claim.

Make sure that you retain public liability cover. This might be through membership of a society or home contents insurance rather than a pet insurance company but it is really important as a claim against you if your pet caused say a road accident could run into millions!

They're lucky we love them aren't they?!

Please don't cancel your policy without another in place. Vet insurance isn't just for vet bills - it covers your personal liability too.

I don't know if it's the same where you are, but in the UK, a dog owner is liable for any damage or an accident caused by their dog. This also includes dog bites.

If your dog got out of the house and caused an accident, you could be liable for all the property and personal injury claims resulting which could be 10's to 100's of thousands of £ (or $).

I know paying pet insurance for a perfectly healthy dog feels daft (I did for years), but it really isn't worth the risk for the 3rd party liability alone.

Assuming your insurance also covers public liability? Have you got tens of thousands to pay out if your dog causes an accident? (Runs into the road, kidnaps an old lady etc)

The only pets I don't insure are those that I am happy to have dispatched if they get sick. Dogs and horses do not fall into that category, the chickens do. And yes, we do have enough money in the bank to pay large vets bills for both animals but as one serious surgery for the horse is about 5 years of premiums, insurance is the way forward.

"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."

Expensive and prolonged aren't the same thing...

We've already made the decision with my dog that he gets no more invasive treatment, but, he still needs painkillers and allergy tablets...they're really not cheap, my £120 a month is worth it in drug costs over the year.

Home Insurance often has Public Liability which can cover pets. Check the details.

Our cats used to be uninsured, and I had a similar attitude to many posters here: if they have a big accident (unlikely, since they're indoors) we'll find the money somehow; if they develop a debilitating long-term condition, we'll do the best possible but would not want them to undergo invasive treatment or prolong a life of diminished quality, so what's the point of insurance.

Well, that turned out to be total bollocks. After eight years of zero health complaints, one of them started to lose weight and became distressed and withdrawn. There was no 'hey, your cat's terminally ill: time for that difficult decision' flag. For one thing, you'd have to be pretty shitty to have a family pet PTS without knowing, or even trying to find out, exactly what their illness was, so in the absence of insurance you have to pay for some potentially-very-expensive diagnostic tests.

Our cat's diagnostic tests costs over a grand. He didn't have a terminal condition - turns out he has diabetes, which is perfectly manageable. Now it's controlled, his daily insulin and syringes aren't too expensive, but it took a lot of vet trips, glucuse curves and monitoring to get here, and those costs really added up.

I imagine there are plenty of other conditions which are chronic but still allow your pet a perfectly decent quality of life for many years. I didn't really appreciate this when we were uninsured: I thought any illness would be rapid-onset, obvious, and probably terminal. I feel like I should post a picture of my diabetic-but-very-happy cat laughing his arse off here.

Its not just about whether your dog gets ill though. There is third party liability - if your dog causes injury etc to a third party you could be sued. Insurance covers you for that....
third party liability

Should have read whole thread before posting as I see this has been mentioned above

I had the same problem. Nearly £1000 a year for two chihuahuas who have no health problems and are only 3. We put more than that away instead so that should anything happen we can afford it (our vet also has payment plans which is great). Then if nothing happens, great, we have savings that can go towards other things rather than paying into insurance we'll probably never use

Maybe try to find some unbiased statistics about vet bills for dogs (excluding pedigree, which are often more likely to require treatment). That's essentially what you're weighting up: how likely is my dog to need expensive medical treatment (which would save its life and return it to health, rather than prolong life unnecessarily - I too am not in favour of extending an animal's life when that quality is not good enough)?

You then have to decide if you can afford to risk not having insurance. Chances are, you wouldn't need it, and the little incidental bills, while irritating, would not be impossible to meet.

It's the big bills which pose the problem, and only you can decide whether you could "afford" to meet them uninsured. Perhaps see what the cost of, say, a seriously broken leg, or commonly suffered trauma from being hit by a car, is for a dog of his/her size.

For instance, our dog (then a puppy) received about £4000 all-in of cutting-edge surgery and treatment after an accident. He was/is insured: I could never have met that bill, and would have had to have gone for the cheaper option (just a cast) without insurance, which probably would have left him with an uneven gait and lifelong problems with his leg.

Recently, he committed a "dietary indiscretion," which, had we realised even an hour later (we were out and came back just in time to whisk him to the emergency vet), would have meant the objects would have moved to his gut and he would have required surgery to remove them (as it was some Oramorph meant he puked them up, poor lamb). In that instance, I was relieved to be insured, not because I could recover partial costs for the couple of hundred for the emergency vet and the injection, but because I knew that, unpleasant as it may be, I could give the ok for surgery then-and-there, regardless, had it been necessary, rather than be forced to wait and see whether he would be one of the lucky dogs who poop out the objects (less likely, as he's a small dog).

Anyway, trouble is, for everyone who has a healthy, accident-free pet who lived to a happy old age, you'll get responses from people like me who couldn't have managed without their insurance. Only you know your circumstances well enough to decide. Good luck with your decision!

I wouldn't be without it personally. I have two older dogs (originally my parents dogs) that it would be pointless insuring at this stage of their lives and I have had to drop a full months wages on vets fees for them since March (and I am on a very low wage so it's all gone on the credit card I was trying to pay off).

Contrast that with my own dog who is 7, and I insured him when he was about 1ish - insured up to the eyeballs. Up to £12k per condition per year. Plus rehab fees covered, help with costs if he goes missing, even homeopathic treatments.

Currently costing me £65 a month. Since he got insured he has developed very bad dermatitis, mild epilepsy, and had blood work to determine he is very allergic to bloody everything. Bloods for that alone were £500, which I would not have been able to afford, and if I hadn't got them done I'd still be feeding him food he was allergic to. He is on daily meds that cost about £35 a month. At present I pay it all then claim it back in a big lump that pays off the overdraft. It's hard to afford it atm but no way would I not have it.

I'm with the 'I don't have insurance' gang - across an array of random animals.

We insured the horse for the first few years but then switched to the put the money into a separate account approach - which is working okay so far. One real problem with animal insurance is that it WILL increase with age as risk obviously goes up - it's no secret old things get more wrong with them....and 2) if horse damages a leg then insurance will exclude it in future - which given how things work is likely to be what goes wrong again. We are fortunate in that we could find the money if something bad happened but that isn't the underlying reason we have decided to forgo it.

As an aside, i work in healthcare. I am somewhat shocked by the prices of the same treatments in animals (just go and look at what you can get an MRI scan for privately as a human vs how much it costs for a dog). This is, I'm sure, because insurance is paying rather than the person.

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.

That's OK providing you don't need to pay out before you've got enough saved.

I pay £23 a month for my cat's insurance and I wouldn't be without it. In the last 18 months his vets bills have come to over £3K after a broken jaw, bone infection and the loss of 12 teeth. We would have found the money as PTS wasn't an option but it was good that we didn't have to.

I have 2 2 year old basset hounds, a breed known for a number of health problems so insurance is essential.

Elvis (my rescue) has short ulner syndrome which requires £78 worth of meds a month.

Elvis also has auto immune disease and we recently nearly lost him due to this. All in all his treatment over 2 months came to £8,976.

I pay animal friends £22 a month per dog for their top level of cover which is unlimited per condition, lifetime cover with no annual limit so in total, Elvis would have to live for 34 years in order for me to pay back the cost of his treatment or to have saved enough over his lifetime to pay for it myself if I'd put the premium in an account instead.

I was worried about animal friends because I've heard of them not paying up. Elv's autoimmune manifested in his mouth so to begin with they tried to argue that it was a dental and gum problem and therefore not covered. However, my vet wrote to them and explained it wasnt dental or gum related, and they paid in full the day after they recieved my vets letter. They've also covered his short u;ner syndrome x-rays and meds despite it being a birth defect so arguably pre existing (we didnt adopt him until he was 5 months old). They're cheap for insurance and I cant fault them.

Just as an aside, I also have a credit card with a £4k limit that i keep in a kitchen drawer. It's a backup in case anything happened that the insurance wouldnt cover!