. . . to not have pet insurance?

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We have two Maine Coons and they've been insured all their lives. They're now ten years old, which is getting on a bit for this particular breed, and the monthly insurance cost is going up from £60 to £85. Not only that, but even if we claim, there is a big excess (£150-£250) and we also pay 25% of the total vets bill, even if it's covered.

They're both in good health, no pre-existing conditions, neutered and indoor-cats only. Would I be mad to put the £85 in a savings account each month instead, and hope they don't get ill for at least a couple of years?

YABU - your cats will keel over the second they're not covered; get the insurance

YANBU - pet insurance is a racket and you should definitely risk it

It depends on if you’ve enough savings to pay if your pet becomes unwell or needs lifelong medication.
vet treatment is so very expensive!
it boils down to the fact imo if you can’t afford treatment you’d have to pts
my dear little dog had good insurance and yes it was expensive but totally worth it as she had a lifelong condition

This is what I was going to post.

I wouldn’t have a pet without insurance. My cat (6 years old) costs me £40 a month with pet plan for £12k cover. I don’t ever want to be in the position where whether I can treat or not is a financial issue. Yes, there’s a debate to be had over whether an older cat should undergo invasive treatment but I wouldn’t want to have to PTS because I couldn’t afford something. The £10 a week it costs me is worth the peace of mind.

YANBU. Pet insurance is a racket. Paid insurance for our dog for his first year. He managed to scoff a whole Easter Egg, we had to see an emergency vet on Easter Sunday. Cost £300-odd ( can't remember if this included the excess). Insurance paid out, but at the next annual renewal the premium increased - by £300! So we take the risk and will pay out if we need to - so far we've saved paying any rip-off insurers for 7 years and counting... fingers crossed!

Yes this..it’s only that money for super vet type procedures!

there is always another way!

OK if you would spend that much on a cat? Personally I adore my cats, but if they needed that kind of level of work, then I would have them put to sleep. Its not just the money, its the standard of life / quality etc

We have 4 dogs and have never insured them and are thousands of pounds better off as a result.

In 24 years of owning cats I've never had insurance and only used the vets to pts the elderly. I've saved a fortune.

Agree with this , my dog is insured up to £10k a year lifetime , I pay over £100 a month for this , but if I could put my hands on £10k easily then yes I’d probably forego insurance .

This. If you have funds available to cover a high cost emergency then you don’t need insurance. Don’t cancel then cross your fingers that nothing happens.

Depends on the breed . An MRI on a large breed dog could easily cost thousands , a hip replacement close to 8k , both hips… you get the gist !
also ongoing medication , physio , hydrotherapy … £20k is perfectly do able unfortunately .
Have you never watched super vet? I’ll bet not many walk out of there with change from 20k

We don't have insurance but we do have enough money to afford any treatment.

Also my friends dog had a kidney removed , big dog ( 50kg ish ) - total bill £4800 . Went on to live a happy and healthy life with 1 kidney , PTS was never an option.
this was 8 or 9 years ago , probably cost double that now

Never had pet insurance.
We have had 3 large bills in the last 5 years in total a bit under 10k - but sod all for years before that.

Four cats, two 14 year olds and two 7 year olds.

See, for all those saying "it's not worth it", consider this...

You have a large dog who's in perfect health, around 10yrs old with another 4-5 years in front of her based on family history, but has a ranula (saliva sac) in her mouth that's preventing her from eating. She has a minor surgery to try to fix it (the easiest option, about a 30% chance of success but no chance of complications), but it comes back a couple of months later and is worse than before. Now they have to have another more serious surgery with imaging to guide it, but it doesn't catch all the salivary gland tissue because dogs' anatomy can sometimes be weird and unpredictable, and it pops up again but this time at the back of their mouth and might stop them breathing if not dealt with. Now they need the first surgery as an emergency, but a final fourth one (with more imaging) to get absolutely everything.

That's about £10k in surgeries, none of them more than £2-3k, because anaesthesia is expensive for large dogs (but surgery is often easier than for smaller dogs).

That's what happened to our Akita last year. The last surgery wasn't covered by her insurance, so we were about £3k out of pocket. Personally, I would happily have paid for the whole lot if necessary, she's part of the family.

We didn't have to make a decision on whether to proceed with surgery based on money while the insurance was covering it; that alone is worth it, because having a pet put down on the basis of how much you want to spend is a shit thing to have come back at you in the middle of the night when they're gone.

However, the point is that these things don't always come in one big "This is going to cost you £10k right now and have a low chance of success" easy-to-answer question, they're often piecemeal and complicated.

My question is: in the scenario above, at which point would you have said, "No, this otherwise perfectly healthy and happy dog's not worth the cost"?

Our local vet offers a healthy pet plan. For £15 a month, regardless of age, I get six monthly health checks, annual injections nail trimming, flea and tick/worming treatment and 10% off any treatment for our cat. He's 15 now and we do have savings for any major needs he may have, but he's not insured.

It's worth enquiring if your vet has a HPP if you don't want to carry on with insurance.

I disagree with posters saying the time to forego insurance is when they're young. That's when you need to be able to cover big bills, because if they have something fixable wrong with them they potentially still have a long life ahead. When they get older and develop chronic conditions, and are less likely to recover well from trauma, you may well make a different choice.

My dog is 15 and has arthritis and kidney disease. I stopped her insurance this year because if she develops something else major, it may be time to let her go. Hopefully she will just carry on the way she is, so I asked the vet to take a punt on the ongoing cost of her medication. It was about a third of the monthly premium they were looking for (actually they wanted more to insure her than my health insurance wanted for me) and the vet couldn't imagine what medications, monitoring or treatment she could need that would add up to anything like the cost of the premiums. So in the end it was a no brainer to stop.

Save in an account OR Premium Bonds - if you buy little and often you increase your chance of winning. My friend made more in winnings (small ones) than the interest would have been over the last couple of years…

I’ve got insurance at the moment for two young cats. One has already had two incidents where he needed to stay overnight at the vets - one illness and one accident.

My old cat was 14 uninsured and had only ever attended the vets for health checks to prescribe the flea/worm treatment. Never a day’s illness in her life before she developed a tumour in her mouth, went rapidly downhill and had to be put to sleep. I’d have wasted money insuring her but not for the other one. It’s just a gamble.

YANBU if, and only if, you’ve thought it through properly.

apart from vets bills, the other thing to consider is whether you’ve got adequate insurance for third party liability (what happens if your dog trips someone up or causes an RTA somehow?) I’m not sure if owners are held liable for animals other than dogs

How many policies cover for £20k!!?? If they do it's a huge premium.

I don't have cats (but we get maines come into our cattery, my fave breed!!).

I've always find the premium soars after 10 with dogs so assume with cats too). If a pet needs thousands of pounds of treatment at that age I'd argue it's selfish to keep them alive depending on the illness.

I would just bank it OP. If tou read t&c of policies, once over an age, alot is not covered.

I feel the same, I stopped insuring my mixed breed rescue dog (apart from 3rd party included with house insurance) when he was 2 yrs old. Money was put in prem bond account instead and now there’s over £16000 there.
He’s now 14 which is old for a big dog and never needed vet treatment.
if he’d needed treatment when younger I’d have been able to pay out of other savings.

It’s ridiculous for any animal ! A cat can run out and get hit by a car after you e spent £20k ! Madness.

I’ve never insured any of my dogs or cats over 20 years. So far I’m up on the deal as they’ve been pretty healthy. But if I needed to I’ve got access to funds.

I think this is sensible actually, though it does depend on the animal a bit. 2 year old dog in the prime of health eats a rock, in and out of surgery in a couple of days and he's forgotten all about it. For a minute there he was really very unwell, but he had the reserves and strength for it and as soon as the rock was removed he healed in no time. My senior cat is still very well, but she turns 15 this year and in my heart of hearts I think that's probably too old for a major intervention.

My single biggest piece of advice when you get a new pet: train them to have their teeth brushed. I'm serious. I've trained four different cats to it now. Its very slow going, and have to do it a tiny bit at a time, but I haven't failed yet. They may not learn to like it (though one did!) but they can learn to put up with it for fifteen seconds, and you can use a gel that continues to disipate around their teeth when you've finished. Because of this I've never had to put a senior under a GA for a cleaning.

I think it is all very well now to say pts over a certain age for a cat, but in reality that is a terrible decision to have to make. In fact would a vet put to sleep for that reason?
I have had cats all my life and never insured any. However last year my 18 year old cat became unwell gradually and was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.
Cue regular expensive blood tests along with expensive medication.
I constantly asked myself were we simply prolonging the life of an elderly cat?
The vet never mentioned pts so despite the expense I could just about afford I could not make that decision itself. Despite the medication he was also continuing to lose weight.
Sometime later he was prescribed antibiotics for a nasal problem which caused severe constipation. I saw a locum vet this time who did not hold back with her opinion that apart from the current issue my cat had been suffering for some time and should be put to sleep. She also explained the treatment for his constipation would also require an admittance etc which went in to several thousands.
How one vet a week earlier was keen to prolong his life and was suggesting we book him in to have most of his fur shaved off due to matting, leaving an already skinny cat bald is beyond me. He was a moggy but in appearance looked like a maine coon and the matting was difficult to resolve myself.
From my experience now I am of the mind that it is important to purchase pet insurance, maybe more so as they become elderly.