what's been your most expensive vet bill - one off or ongoing?

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I've been saying it for years, but am now seriously thinking of cancelling our pet insurance. We pay Direct Line £154 pcm for 2 dogs and 2 cats (only 12 month cover, not whole of life). We've never made any big claims, only the odd one for a few hundred.

One of our dogs recently had to have a tooth removed (trauma not decay so actually covered by the policy). The whole op was about £400 and Direct Line have sent us a cheque for £156 - having removed the £80 excess, £15 for special food and £156 for 'scaling and polishing'. After much discussion, turns out the 'scaling and polishing' actually includes the extraction itself. The vet says this was necessary to ensure the surrounding teeth were clean and not harbouring any bacteria which could have infected the wound. Direct Line are refusing point blank to cover any teeth cleaning so vet is having to let them know the cost of the actual extraction. If we're lucky they'll be covering half of the cost of the op.

I'm so annoyed with them I'm wondering if we should just cancel the policy. We're paying almost £2k per annum in premiums - which will no doubt go up now we've made a claim and with age. We could cover any biggish bills without too much difficulty, but I'm wondering exactly how big they might be. I know serious ops can cost a few grand and ongoing medication can work out very expensive. Our dogs are 6 and 9 (labradors) and our cats are 14. If i could start again, no way would I take out pet insurance. I'm seriously tempted to just risk it and tell Direct Line to take a running jump!

So what's been your most expensive vet bill?

£80 for some antibiotics and stuff for one of the dogs
£100 for the cat when she fell and hurt her leg

I have two dogs and a cat, I pay £30 per dog and £16 for the cat per month

I feel very lucky but both dogs are now old (staff is 13 and JR is 12ish) and slowing down and as much as they are both so far amazingly healthy it may not continue

She is 10 and I stopped insurance when she was a year old. We have the funds available, if things were tighter I think I would have carried on with it.

£2500 at least I think it was for my kitten with a broken leg. She had to have an operation and a pin put in her leg. She managed to break it about a week after the two week waiting period finished for new policies and we would have had to put her to sleep if insurance hadn't covered it.

She was only around 10 weeks old and we'd had her a couple of weeks. I dare to not pay it now after that but my two cats only cost less than £16 a month between them.

Would you have it at short notice though and then money for care afterwards?

Yes, we would - which is one of the reasons I'm wavering

if you join the Dogs Trust (£25 a year) you're automatically covered

I am a member and either didn't know or had forgotten that this was the case!!!

Lost DDog to cancer last year. Unfortunately chemo was not successful, he caught an infection and we lost him. It cost us about £2000 for all the tests, scans, first bout of chemo and hospitalisation. Would have been a lot more if the chemo had worked.

Isn't the Dogs Trust membership 3rd party insurance only?

BestIsWest yes, it's 3rd party/public liability insurance.
Dogs Trust FAQ Scroll down to third party insurance questions.

"Yes, we would - which is one of the reasons I'm wavering"

Then it's up to you really...I'd have had enough for my dog's first year, which involved a 3k elbow operation and about 2k of diagnostics and medication, but I'd have been stuffed in his second year when the ulcer happened if he wasn't insured, he's 3 now and this year has been the cheapest, still more than I pay in premiums by a couple of thousand though.

He's the first dog I've had insured...because of the cat I mentioned earlier, she had lymphoma and then 5 years of chemotherapy and while I paid it, it would have had a knock on effect if I was also paying for the dog's treatment.

It's not really something you think of really that you might end up with huge bills for two pets at once, when you think it's fairly unlikely that you'll even have one costing that much. Because it is unlikely, of course it is, that's how insurance companies make money...but it's worth paying if finances would ever dictate treatment options rather than the pet's best interests.

This is interesting! I've never insured my pets but been thinking of getting the dogs covered recently. Most expensive was our old dog having an anal prolapse fixed, operation included castration and cost about £2k. This had to come out of savings. The dog was 11 at the time and lived another 5 years with no significant health problems til the end. It was worth it but we don't have any savings now & any expensive vet treatments could mean having to have the dog PTS so seriously considering insurance just in case.

We can cancelled our with DDog2 after premiums rocketed on her 5th birthday. (Large breed). We had a long chat with the vet about it at the time, and decided to put money aside. Over 4 dogs, and as many cats, we're probably on balance ahead at the moment.

Our last, and new vets both run a scheme where you can pay in a fixed amount each month, and they then take care of any bills, and come to an agreement about settling larger balances.

Current DDog's biggest bill was £880 for a bite from another dog that nearly cost him his leg (it bit right through). I'm glad we were in Scotland at the time, because the same injury through our London vet practice would have set us back closer to £3k. As it was, to get just the dressings changed in London cost almost the same as the surgery did.

Dog walking agency here. We always ask about insurance when we book dogs in. We've got our own public liability insurance which covers anything that might happen to a third party when we've got the dogs, but doesn't cover medical expenses. We need to get clients to agree that emergency vet's bills will be paid by them.

A small number of clients don't have insurance - but all of them are experienced owners and put a certain amount aside every month into a dog savings fund. One family in particular has working cocker spaniels who get paid beating fees when they go shooting, and all their 'wages' go in this fund. The owner said it nicely covered their annual injections plus the odd cut paw etc. They did have to pay for one emergency op out of savings, however the total spend over the lifetimes of the three dogs in the household at the time I booked them in was still considerably less than the monthly premiums would have added up to.

£1800 when new girl first came to us.

We took her to the vets when she hadn't eaten anything in the first few days after her rescue (she was an out and out rescue, not an adoption from an agency - she was about to be put down by the auhorities for being unclaimed - we're not in the uk). 8 nights hospitalisation with 2 different tick borne diseases, her weight went down by 5kg in 3 days despite vet care and drips, and we almost lost her. She came through and now has a slight heart murmur. No idea of the ongoing costs that may be associated with that!

For our little old lady, it was around £1k for an eye operation.

For our old boy, he cost us around £600 per month - we adopted him with late stage kidney failure at almost 10 years old. He survived for a fucking expensive but awesome year before it finally took him.

£900 for injury to cats leg which involved tightening the ligaments, X-rays, aftercare & medication.

£15 per month insurance, plus £70 excess, which I know is expensive when you add up all the years payments but it's a "for life" cover so she will be covered for everything and shouldn't increase after a claim.

When we first got her, we weren't going to get insurance but were encouraged to by a family member who's kitten had a lung problem which turned out to be caused by a few different things- the treatment ended up costing £10k (£8k covered by insurance and & £2k paid for with savings)- without the insurance, the kitten would have had to be put down

In your shoes, with pets in decent health, I'd take the £150 a month and put it in a savings account that exists while you have pets and that you can access if you ever need to. If you don't ever need to, you have a very nice little nest egg after a decade.

Our dog is 5 and we also have Direct Line yearly insurance , they've paid out 3 bills at £600ish for small ops and once for X-rays but his SLO is excluded and I've paid out £300 this week as he tore a toenail last weekend and had it removed under sedation on Monday and has needed antibiotics and dressing . I'm going to open a savings account for his uninsured bills from now and if the insurance gets to more than £30 a month I shall cancel as we have the ability to pay out large amounts anyway . In the past I have paid thousands in vets bills for uninsured elderly horses for various ailments .

£30k claimed back from insurance company over 13 years. Plus the bits we didn't get back.

I trying to decide the same thing. For or two cats it is £33 a month and we just got back a whole £79 of a £320 bill. This was a big abcess caused by a bite and tooth cleaning done at the same time and was our first ever claim (cats are 10 and 11). We have enough money to cover any vets bills and I'm not sure how much vet treatment we would now put them through as they are getting old. Also we live up a single track country lane which is a cul de sac so the chances of them getting run over are low.

Our dog had a cyst in his spine a few years ago which cost $10,000 (were in Canada) for diagnosis plus the operation to see what it was/take it out. I had vaguely thought about insurance for him, having never had it for our cats but although it might have made us feel slightly less anxious at the time I see on investigation that most plans here have fairly small top limits ($5k) and expensive monthly premiums. I think we'd probably be about even by now.

With our cats the biggest bill was I think less than 500 pounds (when we were still in the UK) after one of them got run over, including the op to repair his jaw and boarding. One of our other cats had what was probably a tumour. The vet said we could get an MRI, but as the treatment (steroids) would be the same regardless there wasn't much point.

I have to admit I wouldn't take/fund 'heroic' action for any of our cats in quite the same way as we did for the dog. Possibly because they were all adopted as adults whereas ddog was a puppy when we got him.

We had a very poorly cat and pet plan paid out. Given the issues my intents had over the years I wouldn't risk it.

£17k covered by insurance for a grass seed stuck under my dog's spine. Currently at about £12k not insured (pre-existing condition) for problems with legs. And she's being x-ray-ed now :-(. Insurance has also paid out £600 for a thorn in the eye and a few thousand for a heart condition. Get the best insurance possible. The risk is too much. I am struggling if x-ray says she needs another op on leg it'll be another £4k at least.

I was with Pet Plan for my horse. It got to the stage where there were so many exclusions due to various injuries that I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it. Then I phoned to say I might be making a claim for a certain condition- turned out it was something else and they excluded that condition anyway ! I now put money aside each month. Third party liability with British Horse Society membership

Same with the dog - £3000 for an op on his leg was the most but I put money aside for him too and have third party through Dog's Trust

£85, for routine stuff.

However, he's only young and hasn't been mine for long, so nothing major has gone wrong YET!

Dog £3.6k for knee surgery and associated care.

With 2 previous claims for gastric issue around £400 each we have claimed around £2k more than the premiums we've paid out.