...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?

Should have mentioned, Elvis is fit as a bloody flea now

One of our dogs managed to rupture both cruciate ligaments, which meant orthopaedic surgery on both knees, following which she dislocated a knee cap, which required another major op, and she also developed a gastric ulcer due to the pain killers she was given.

All in all, the cost of her treatment came to over £10,000 - which our insurers, PetPlan, paid without a murmur. If we hadn't had the insurance, we would have found the money somehow, but it would have been a real struggle.

iloveeverykindofcat my Boycat costs a little more than my Girlcat to insure, as apparently they are more likely to get into fights & need treatment. This irritated me a bit as mine are indoor cats so any fight would be just between the 2 of them (no chance, they are siblings 7 very bonded to each other), but equally no discount for them being indoors so much less likely to have any accidents or poisonings etc.

Pet Insurance is such a rip off, ours - for an 8 year old German Shepard - goes up every year, we started at £25 a month this year it's jumping up from £50 a month to £65! The excess is £190 and we haven't claimed in 8 years. Really wish I'd put the money into a savings account every month from the outset. Time to shop around - again!

We've had 8 cats over the years - 3 at the moment.
Never had pet insurance and (so far) this has been financially the correct decision by a very large margin.
To me the problems with pet insurance are that it has pushed up the prices of vet treatments for everybody (though my vet offers a significant discount to those without insurance - which I think says it all).
It encourages additional treatments which may really not be needed.
It encourages more expensive and complex treatments, but - and this is key - with a much longer recovery time for the animal (i.e. more pain and distress). In the past a cat with a crushed back leg would have it amputated. Quick, short recovery time and cheap. Result happy three legged cat. Now you'll be offered a £10k chrage
I know I'll get flamed for this but I also believe that it encourages people to accept or continue treatment where actually being PTS would be fairer to the animal.

All of our animals are insured right down the the rabbits (who American Express insure and covered when one decided to limp for a week, nothing wrong with him; just turns out rabbits are sometimes attention seeking asshats like everyone else in the house).

I wouldn't have them if I couldn't keep up with insurance on them as the costs of treatment are astronomical.

My dog is 4 years old. This year he has been diagnosed with epilepsy. So far racked up almost £2k in vet bills since Feb after he was hospitalised after a bad seizure. He will be on medication and regular blood tests for life. We've had almost all the money we've spent back from the insurance company so far. Yes the insurance bill will be more next year but at least it's covered!

I pay £45 per month for our dog. I had only paid one premium when we claimed £800 and they did cough up ( pet plan)
Ddog isn't 2 yet and our claims probably add up to a couple of thousand already so it's certainly been worth it for us so far.
Our family dog was pts many years ago as my parents couldn't afford a vets bill so it's something I would never be without if it was at all possible

Why gave vets bills risen? Is it insurance?
Our costs have risen heat, electric, insurance are all more expensive.
Staff are more expensive 20 years ago most of the 'nurses' were unqualified home trained staff, now most 'nurses' are RVNs qualified registered professionals.
Client expectations have risen dramatically when I first came into practice many animals were euthanased for relatively minor conditions the vast majority of clients want treatment for long term chronic health conditions. Clients expect vets to have the same equipment as a human hospital on much lower patient numbers the equipment in my main surgery is currently valued at 250K and we don't gave everything.
Drug costs have risen dramatically and we have been stopped from using generics legally vets must prescribe branded drugs.
Regulation has increased, this is good, but all the regulation costs we spend around 5K per year just on obligatory regulation.
My net profit is the same now as it was 13 years ago, but my turnover has increased 30%. This is the picture across the UK in general owners of veterinary practice are absorbing quite a bit of increased costs, but we can't do it forever.

Insurance has maybe made certain procedures more available to clients who want them and has definitely been responsible for the massive increase in secondary and tertiary referral practices. But in first opinion practice it is not really the cause of increased costs.

Personally we think it's a rip off. Ever since first having pets ( dogs mainly) we saved £50 a month into a savings account. Have only spent about £500 of that account and have several thousand still available if needed.

It is very tempting to not pay pet insurance and you may be very lucky and not have to make a claim. Best thing if your dog is healthy try putting £40.00 each month into an account just in case but be very careful. Like you our insurance went up to £40.00 and my husband decided we couldn't afford it so we ended it. Two months later our beloved dog got very ill and was dignoised with diabetes! We had to pay out over £2,000 for treatment and things. Every month we had to pay for insulin and needles which came to abour £100. Then he went blind and then just under a year later he got pancreatic cancer which cost about another 1500. In the end his whole body was ridiculed with pain so we had to put him to sleep. He was just 5. A lot of the bills would have been covered for the first six months and we wished we had kept the payments up. But be careful unless you get the full lifetime insurance which is more expensive when your insurance is up for renewal if your dog is diagnosed with an ongoing illness most insurers will not cover you for that treatment.

lonecat why do vets have to prescribe branded stuff? That's shocking if so. I have recently had a pony on Prascend and knew there was a cheaper generic drug that was for humans but we only needed 1/2 tab a day so didn't make much difference.

Is it the drugs companies that insist?

Call your insurers and haggle. Say you must cancel unless they can reduce it. There may be cover which you will never need, so cut that, and you can always reduce payments by agreeing a higher excess. They won't want to lose your valued custom (!) and will probably prove quite flexible.

On average most people will pay more in insurance than they ever get back. So you have to figure out if you can afford to be non-average.

(we don't insure our pets)

We have had cats for 30 years (not the same ones, obviously) and had never insured any of them.

We bought 2 Bengals and they came with 4 weeks free insurance. When it was up we went on to the paid insurance. We didn't think we'd need it because they are indoor cats. Last summer girlcat started holding her head on one side so we took her to the vet. Could be this could be that. A week later she had a massive stroke and had to be PTS. She was 3. Insurance paid the bill and gave us what she'd cost us, with which we bought 2 kittens (cross breed).

Insurance quote was too high and they were only moggies so we didn't insure them. In March I came across a new insurance company Bought By Many which gave me a ridiculously low quote with no excess.

A few weeks ago girlcat stopped eating. She didn't look very well and went to the vets a couple of times. The second visit they discovered she had leukaemia and she was rushed to hospital. They did everything they could but she was so ill she had to be PTS.

I called insurance company and gave them name and number of vets. Within 2 days I had an email to say they'd paid the bill in full, including the cremation costs. Really impressed.

'tis the law!

Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2011

We recently changed our pet insurance because ours doubled on renewal to about £1500 per year
The nice bloke from the insurance company who rang to explain didn't get much of a chance to talk as I cancelled it as fast as possible!

We found that by having an annual treatment cap and removing any cover for treatment abroad it made it much more affordable, although it still has decent third party liability (as DDog is daft and it's not unlikely that he could cause damage!).

So it's a buffer if something goes wrong but we might have to make up a shortfall, which is ok for us. And if we travel abroad with the dog we get one trip insurance.

I have a story for you re. dog insurance. My dog had perfect health for 8 1/2 years of his life. Never ill, never any worry about health. Then suddenly one Saturday night he started coughing up blood. More and more came and he had to be rushed to the out of hours vet. They found he had a bleeding stomach ulcer and I had the choice of pts or a 3 500 pound operation. I chose the operation and he pulled through and went on to live a happy life until he died recently aged 13 1/3. Total cost was about 4000 pounds.

I had insurance for him that I had never used, just paid the premium once a year. So I did get money back, BUT as I had never used it, I had also not updated the coverage on it. So I only got 1000 pounds back. If I had updated it, I would have got 3 000 pounds. The lesson is: don´t just get insurance, also look at your policy and update the amount each year!

Frouby, Phoenix is right it is the law. All veterinary medicines are licences to the same level as being suitable for the food chain, so the legislation that covers medication given to dairy cows is the same as for cats and dogs. The fines for prescribing generics when there is a branded product are massive 5-6 figures. The medicines for your animals are far tighter regulated and controlled than human medicines.

I didn't know that. Seems to be holding pet owners to ransom. Especially as pets don't end up in the food chain! Even horses arent allowed to enter the food chain if they have ever had bute!

Seems a way for drug companies to benefit to me. Something like Prascend that is pretty cheap to make and manufactur or even codeine which I have known be used for gastro issues becomes triple the price when you stick an equestrian logo on it. Piriton is another that springs to mind.

I feel for vets as well. There is some stuff you can buy otc but charging clients 3 or 4 or 5 times the actual cost price for meds must be difficult especially if cost is an issue for the owners.

EwanWhosearmy did you insure directly with bought by many?

I have a rescue dog insured with John Lewis and am struggling to get them to cover an MRI.

Actually piriton (well chlorphenamine) and codeine are two where we do routinely use generics, because there aren't POM-V versions (well there is a codeine in combo with paracetamol POM-V, but if you want to use codeine alone we go with generic)

That's one thing at least. So from a drugs company point of view developing a drug to use on animals as well as people is financially rewarding. I suppose it wouldn't be worthwhile for something that can be bought otc.

I stopped insuring mine three years ago due to premiums going up and up and cover going down as they got older, despite the fact that I have never made a claim ever on any insurance in my life (I'm 48). I joined the Dogs Trust for canine third party insurance and the BHS for equine third party cover. I've had X-rays on both a horse and a dog, a bone chip, a ruptured cruciate ligament, and a dog that's allergic to various things, so lots of treatments, but I'm still better off financially than if I'd kept paying the premiums (just!). I have two very good, very sensible vets. I see a big difference in the equine vets - if the horse is insured the vet said he'd try X, although it probably wouldn't work, whereas because it's not insured and I don't want to risk wasting your money we will try Y. Our dog vet is of the opinion that people spend far too much money treating animals that should be let go.

It does give you sleepless nights though. When our dog ruptured her cruciate I cried thinking I'd let her down (we'd have afforded it if the vet had said operate, but he said rest her and treat the pain, and she's good as new now, albeit with a slightly wobbly leg action). Now my horses are veterans and two of my three dogs are old it's safe to say I wouldn't put them through anything major now.

"if the horse is insured the vet said he'd try X, although it probably wouldn't work, whereas because it's not insured and I don't want to risk wasting your money we will try Y. Our dog vet is of the opinion that people spend far too much money treating animals that should be let go."

Um, I don't think your vets sound sensible, one puts horses through treatment he thinks won't work, so of no benefit to the animal at all because it's paid for by insurance and the other judges owners for paying for treatment he provides.

The only impact whether an animal is insured or not on treatment options at my vet is whether she gives you a rough estimate or gets an exact quote if it's going to be expensive, the actual treatment is decided on what's best for that pet at that time.