Pet insurance? Or vet pet plan?

[behappy1736]

Help please.
I would like to insure our cat to cover vet fees what's the best way to do this? Insurance for cat? It's a mine field 🙈
Is it cheaper to insure your pet and then if you need the vet it's covered by insurance?

Insurance. Vet plans usually only cover routine care like flea and worm treatments.

I thought they were two separate things?

vet plan for regular treatment insurance for everything else

With the price of Vets fees no, unless you're on a really good income I think it would be really hard to cover vets fees without insurance, especially if your cat needs an operation or develops a long term illness.

Insurance definitely- covers the vet fees. The vet plan is not insurance- it is a monthly payment that covers annual vaccinations, flea & worm treatment- it does work out cheaper than paying for them when you do them-

I have both for my cat. The insurance is a lifetime cover at about £10 a month. The vet care plan is the same price and covers flea/worm treatment, boosters etc. if it's a kitten you are getting then vets4pets do deals with pets at home app and you get money off the 1st year.

My OH works in a vets, and we still have pet insurance to cover the cost of treatment (minus the excess). Wouldn’t be without it.

Thank you so much for replies so far!
I'm so clueless I don't want to be done over 🤣🙈
So my worry is if she got sick and needed the vets it would cost ££££££ so if insure her does that cover vet fees? What do I need to check for? I see a lot say pay an excess of £100/£150 but I'm assuming this is better than paying £££££££ on vets fees if she was un insured?!

Pet insurance policies cover most of the cost of vet consults, medical and surgical treatment for illness and injury. Ask your vet which insurance provider they recommend .

Whether or not the animal is insured the owner still needs to pay for annual vaccinations, flea and worm treatments.

Vet plans are an economical way to cover those annual and routine treatments, they don't cover surgery or illness.

Vet plans and pet insurance are totally different things.

Vet plans normally include things like free check-ups, flea and worm treatments and vaccines for a regular monthly amount - normally around £10-12 per cat with a multi-cat discount. Some also offer a discount on spay and neuter.

Insurance covers you if your cat gets sick, injured, lost, hit by a car etc. You'll need to pay an excess (anywhere between £60-150 normally) for each claim as well as your monthly insurance amount.

The more cover you go for (in terms of bills) the higher your monthly payment but you can bring that down by choosing to pay a higher excess for each claim.

You also want to make sure you have lifetime cover so that if, for example, your cat has a stomach bug when they're one, you can claim again when they have another stomach bug aged six.

As they get older (as in, elderly - 10+) you may find you have to pay a percentage of their vets bills on top of the excess too. Normally around 20% or so but it depends on your policy.

We have Tesco lifetime cover for our three - it covers up to 15k of bills per year, per cat and costs £30 a month. They're seven, six and two we've had to claim once and they paid out immediately and were very easy to deal with.

I really rate PetPlan. It costs about £20 per month per cat and the excess is around £80. A few years ago my cat broke her ankle badly and the bones were very dislocated, requiring surgery to plate them. Total cost over 3k. Total cost to me, £80. The surgery was successful and she can run and jump with no pain.

Definitely get insurance - it’s not worth being in a position where you’re faced with not being able to afford treatment. Our dog needed very expensive x-rays, two leg surgeries, and follow up treatment (£12k+). It’s all been covered by insurance apart from about £300

@rougechaotic wow, that's quite a bill! I thought 3k was stiff but my cat only needed one surgery, to plate her ankle. The plate's still in there but it doesn't bother in the slightest, she can jump from the floor to the kitchen counter top on it.

If it helps some vet plans such as vets4pets even offer a month’s free pet insurance too when you sign up to their vet plan!