to ask how much your biggest dog vet bill was?

[Friedbanana]

Paying £35 a month for pet insurance at the moment and it seems a waste as weve (very thankfully) never had to use it for our 3 year old golden retriever as she’s luckily in perfect health! i have decent savings now and im wondering if we should cancel and ill just pay bills out of my pocket if she ever needs it? it seems to go up by £7 a year despite no claims so if she lives to 12 i’ll have forked out £6300- do vet bills even go higher than that?
So just asking to help me to decided whether to keep the insurance/ maybe look to swap to cheaper!

@Friedbanana

thanks everyone, poor puppas go through a lot dont they!! and ours certainly loves to eat anything she spots before i even see what it is so yes i think we’ll keep it! currently have £25k savings so we would be able to cover it but then i guess it would feel a bit rubbish having savings wiped away like that! looking at compare the market so i might swap to something cheaper! i’m just generally quite frugal so the pet insurance seems quite big to me but as PP has said, you don’t need it till you need it!!

What company are you with?

Cheap insurance is cheap for a reason.

And changing is a bit of a mine field. If your dog has had a bout of vomiting or diarrhoea which you haven't claimed for because it cleared up with a course of antibiotics, and you then change your policy, you'll have an exclusion for all gastrointestinal disorders.

If your dog had a simple case of conjunctivitis which cleared up with some eye drops and wasn't claimed as was under your excess, you'll have an exclusion for eye disorders.

If your dog had a limp that was checked out and resolved by itself with rest, you'll have an exclusion on the limb(s) including things like arthritis later on.

Think carefully before changing.

currently have £25k savings so we would be able to cover it but then i guess it would feel a bit rubbish having savings wiped away like that!

The way I think about it is that I don’t miss the premium per month or per year - it’s not a big amount. But if I had to decimate my savings to pay for an operation or for ongoing drugs, I’d really feel it. So I pay the insurance in order not to have to give myself a difficult decision at a stressful time.

@KitchenConfidential

You never want to have to make a decision between life saving surgery or having your beloved pet put down on the spot simply because you don’t have the money to cover the vet’s bill.

This. We maxed out at over £5,000 because that's all I could afford to pay trying to save my dog. I'm not sure more money would have helped in her case but at least I would have known that we had tried absolutely everything. I lost my gorgeous dog and my savings too. Afterwards I added up how much I would have spent on insurance premiums and it didn't even come close. All my pets are insured now.

I’d definitely keep the insurance. We learnt the hard way a few years ago that it’s very needed! We had a large breed dog who became very lethargic and off her food, and being sick. A few days later she collapsed at home on the weekend so was rushed to the emergency vets. Lots of tests later they realised she was diabetic. Because of her size she needed high doses of meds which was expensive, plus almost a week into the vets. I had to take a loan out to pay the bill because we didn’t have her insured and I couldn’t just have her put down because we couldn’t afford the treatment, it was thousands and thousands. She needed twice daily insulin injections after but lived another 3 years, as she wasn’t insured we obviously couldn’t claim for her meds either so were spending a couple of hundred on that a month too. Will never have a pet again without having them insured.

Our girl isn't insured, we have the savings and insurance is limited in what they pay out. To increase the payout you increase the monthly payment so it didnt seem to make sense to us, but different breeds are different costs

Our dachshund is 14, and this year we have had the only significant claim on his insurance, about 4K for a slipped disk. We didn't have to claim all that much for our previous dog either. So without a doubt it's cost us way more in premiums - well, that's how insurance works, I'd rather have it that way round than to have needed to claim more! DH commented that he doesn't mind so much paying a lot for pet insurance as for car insurance because it's effectively subsidising treatment for other people's pets rather than other people's bad driving.

£4K ish for springier spaniel slipped disc surgery in around 2006. We weren't insured and I wasn't convinced it was worth doing but I was wrong. Surgery was very successful and he went on to live a long and happy life.

I'm of the opinion that saving money instead of paying for pet insurance is the better option, but I am prepared to euthanise if that's what needs to be done.

After one instance when a pony needed an emergency callout and the vet guilt tripped me for not having him insured and told me the differences between the rolls Royce treatment and the basic treatment I requested, I felt it was the vets that benefited from the insurance more than the animal concerned.

£6,500. Tore his cruciate (knee).

My mums dog cost her over 7grand for one issue and probably another 3 for a different one so yes.. can go massively over that especially if your dog needs specialist treatment like knee/ hip surgery or heart

Don't cancel when the dog gets older you could experience any amount of health issues that involve complex testing and treatment, not to mention if the. Dog had an accident

My cat - £4000 for a transfusion, medication, overnight stay and cancer diagnosis- glad I had insurance!

1800 biggest individual bill.

Now on long term medication that costs just over £100 per month.

I wouldn't cancel the insurance she may be in good health now but develop a chronic condition (mine is diabetic) or have an accident or god forbid get run over.

Vet bills can certainly go over 6.3k. I used to be a vet nurse,

Our old boy had cushings with a tumour on his adrenal gland. The op to have it removed would have been about £6500, which our insurer agreed to cover

We decided against the op in the end as we felt it was too big an op for a dog of his age but we were comfortable that we’d made that decision solely based on what was right for him, not what we could afford.

His medication, regular tests and check ups were about £3k - which was covered

My DD’s retired pony seems intent on paying off our vet’s mortgage - individually the bills aren’t that big, but they all add up pretty quickly. Especially as she seems to have a bit of a penchant for out of hours, emergency call outs 😂

Ours was/is apparently in good health too

£4k for knee surgery
£500 twice in one year when he ate something outdoors.
£750 for an allergic reaction to something after a walk

how much your biggest dog vet bill was

The Alsatian's was £40.

The Jack Russell's was significantly higher, but your not interested in that I guess.

2 labradors here, one has cost approx £300 (ate something dodgy & needed stomach medication) & the other approx £600 (had a lump removed).

The above costs don't include regular flea/worm treatment etc.

They are both almost 13 & in great shape.

Beware the premiums go up more and more even without claims. We made a minor claim when he was 9. Next year the premiums went up to over £100 a month and getting a new policy for a 10 year old dog is hopeless as most things are excluded or restricted.

I ditched the insurance and he’s now 12 and fingers crossed nothing has made me regret that yet. Having said that we can afford the bills if they arise and I also have a pragmatic approach to illness in an old animal.

I've just lost one elderly big dog. Not insured. Throughout her life I probably paid out about £600 in bills. With excesses I would have been able to claim back maybe £400.
I have another elderly big dog. Also not insured. Probably paid about maybe £1800 throughout his life. Of that I probably would have been able to claim maybe 1300. A few times it wouldn't have been worth claiming for as it was just over the excess.
When they're old, the excess is higher. The premium is also higher. Both dogs were on metacam which I get online after paying for vet prescription.
Had either of them needed an op, I can afford to pay it. This is something you need to factor in.

The ironic thing that posters with massive bills (insured) are paid for all the owners who don't ever claim (or whose claims are turned down) there must be much more of those or the books don't balance.

Insurance companies make a profit, the house always wins, so it's just a gamble and what your approach to risk is.

The ability to have decent savings and perhaps having a pragmatic view about animals/healthcare is why I don't have insurance.

Eg I don't think I would ever treat an elderly animal for cancer for example.

I hope I haven't tempted all the gods!

For me it's the paperwork too, and the small print.
I CBA with more life admin and the fights with insurance companies to get them to pay up - or even worse discovering that you're not covered despite playing the premiums.
I don't have a law degree to understand the clauses, I have to trust my house & car insurance, but I don't trust pet insurance.

I CBA with more life admin and the fights with insurance companies to get them to pay up - or even worse discovering that you're not covered despite playing the premiums.

Petplan have always been good, IME - the vet does most of the paperwork and billing, we got sent a prompt refund for what we paid upfront.

We could afford to pay for treatments out of our savings; the thing that convinces DH to insure is the liability cover element. He is a meticulous reader of fine print, and also the financial press etc. He's not convinced by the liability cover available via household insurance for accidents caused by pets (or bikes, we have extra for cycling too).

My DD’s retired pony seems intent on paying off our vet’s mortgage - individually the bills aren’t that big, but they all add up pretty quickly. Especially as she seems to have a bit of a penchant for out of hours, emergency call outs 😂

Whyyyyy do horses always do this?? Only once has one of my horses had the decency to hurt themselves during the working day! 😂

@Antonov
🤣🤣
it’s the size of the bill she’s after not the size of dog 🤣🐶

£1600 for the dog's cruciate ligament repair. The other leg was covered on insurance when it went a year before. The insurance company wiggled out of paying for the other leg as it was a repeat condition - ridiculous!
She's getting older and the insurance is increasing every year. Not sure how much longer we'll pay it.

My dog has also always had his crises out of hours, and/or weekends. We didn't have to give a moments thought to the Sunday surcharge for the orthopaedic specialists.