AIBU?
To think pet insurance is pointless!
SputnikBear · 24/10/2018 11:55
My renewal quote for a 5yo dog is £600. So if he gets sick I’ll have paid £600, plus £100 excess, plus 20% of any vet bills. Which basically means for any claim under £1k I’m no better off for having insurance!
And there’s a limit of how much you can claim for each condition before it’s classed as a pre-existing condition and you can’t claim any more. Think it’s £2k. So you pay insurance for years and if your dog gets sick they only cover a certain amount! Plus the premium will go up and up if your dog actually has a long term condition.
AIBU to not insure my dog and just put the £600 in a savings account in case he needs it?
Rosesadie · 24/10/2018 15:48
We just stopped the insurance for our 11 year old cav for the same reason. Ours was £1200 per year plus £140 excess and 20%. Not worth it at all but only because we wouldn’t put him through anything ‘expensive’ like cancer treatment or ops now anyway as he has a number of conditions that we self-pay for and hos quality of life isn’t good enough. 5 years ago I’m not sure I would have stopped it as his quality of life was excellent so wouldn’t have wanted the alternative if couldn’t afford vet bills. It’s a tricky one, if he has no pre existing conditions you could look around.
OutPinked · 24/10/2018 15:55
I know a woman who runs a local cat sanctuary and she is always pleading with owners to have pet insurance. So many cats end up with her because their owners can’t afford the vet care when their cat gets sick as a result of not being insured. Any pet can be in an accident or become sick, it’s not worth going without. I pay £3 a month for my moggy so I really can’t complain.
OlderThanAverageforMN · 24/10/2018 16:12
I used to think this, and never insured our cats, until one day our cat was knocked down. We paid for x-rays and drugs, and pain relief, the final bill was £800 odd, and the cat was put down anyway. The price including putting him down, and cremation.
What really upset me, and I hated the vet for it, and never went back again, she was an awful person, but she literally blamed me as being irresponsible for not having insurance as if we did they could have done extensive work on his broken pelvis at "SuperVet" (he is local) and accused me of being uncaring. I was devastated.
Our new cat is insured, as I can't go through that again.
Missingstreetlife · 24/10/2018 16:58
All insurance and extended warranty is a rip off. Never have it for anything you could afford to pay for. Ppl and service contracts likewise. Put the money aside, have a local repair person. There are exceptions, pet insurance may be one. It depends how much you would pay for your pet's treatment before you say it's not worth it and they should be put down. 3rd party liability for horses on the road.
You should always have travel insurance in case you have to be brought home in air ambulance, hideously expensive, car insurance is compulsory and buildings insurance in case of subsidence of fire. Life insurance if you have children. All the others are a case of calculating worst case scenario and how often they are likely to occur.
SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 24/10/2018 17:30
It is utterly illogical to say that ‘all insurance is a rip-off’ and to then say ‘don’t bother with it for things you can afford - if insurance covers things you can’t afford, it isn’t a rip-off!
Explain to me how our pet insurance was a rip off when it paid for £10,000 of treatment for our dog, @Missingstreetlife. We could borrowed the money, if we’d had to - but we didn’t have to, because we had laid out a few quid on insurance.
girlinleeds · 24/10/2018 17:54
We only have house cats, one of there vets bill last year was £5000+ as she was diagnosed with a heart condition and then heart failure, uptil that point I'd considered cancelling but now I wouldn't. Our cat got the best treatment and lived out her life in comfort, insurance allowed us to do that
dudsville · 24/10/2018 17:54
We always get older dogs who come to us with pre-existing problems that insurers won't cover in a way that makes financial sense. We made the decision ages ago to to make a savings account specially for them. We use our ordinary house account for annual check ups and jabs and ordinary issues and have not yet needed to tuck into the larger amount of savings.
CherryPavlova · 24/10/2018 18:09
Since taking on our dog 14 months ago he’s had two separate two night vets stays with intravenous fluids, antibiotics etc. He’s had stitches for a barbed wire accident. He’s had analgesia and anti inflammatory for a shoulder injury. He’s had drops for conjunctivitis.
We think insurance is very worthwhile.
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