Not taking out pet insurance...

[HolaWeenie]

We collect our dog in 2 days, I've spent quite a lot of time looking at insurance policies. It seems a total swizz!

Ideally we would like a lifetime policy with around £2-3k per illness, no annual policy limit and around £100 -200 excess. That looks to be available for around £15-20 per month, which will increase each year. As I understand it with lifetime policies you're unable to shop around like car insurance as it's based on you renewing, so by the time dog is 6yrs old we could be paying quite a lot more each month.

We have low risk lives, fairly sensible kids for their ages and I'm at home all the time. I plan to train the dog well. He's a toy breed so will be on lead most of the time. So whilst you can't foresee accidents, I think we're quite low risk.

We'd cover vaccinations and neutering and small things, just like we do with our house and car insurance, we don't claim for small things. So the insurance would be for big things that run into the thousands. The policy will then be capped at £2/3k anyway, so we will be exposed for amounts above that.

We do have credit available to us if something should happen, so my question is are we nuts to consider not taking out insurance!?

£3,800 so far this year in vets bills after his knee starting popped out. We have lifetime but only £4K a year so fingers crossed he keeps well until renewal in August! Wish we’d taken the £7k policy after seeing how the bills quickly mount up.

Really, tab. It's an animal. It doesn't understand what is happening. I actually think it's pretty selfish to put an animal through invasive treatment because the owner will feel sad if it dies. I fully appreciate others feel differently, which is why I would never tell someone NOT to get insurance if they want to. But I don't.

My beloved rescue pug developed a serious neurological disease aged 4. The five day stay in a specialist veterinary hospital, including MRI and spinal tap cost £5k. By the end of her life a year later her vets bills were totalling almost £10k.

Vet bills mount up. Quickly. Get insurance.

100% behind you Bosswitch

But I am known as the alpha bitch in my household

This a difficult one. All my dogs at present are insured and are quite young, so except for accidents I don't expect to have to claim for disease. My youngest dog had 4 retained baby teeth when she was 7 months old, I took her to the vet's and they advised removing them, at a cost of over a thousand pounds!!!!! Rang the insurers for the OK, not covered for dental work except after an accident, my first ever claim was turned down. To check I took her to my old vets, where I used to live, a great practice who do lots of large animal work as well as well as small animals. The vet had a look, laughed when I told him about the first vet fees and said bring her back in 2 months and I bet they will have come out. They have, her teeth are perfectly straight. Was the first vet jumping the gun and not giving the dog time to sort herself out? Was it because she was insured and money was not a problem? Who knows, all I know is that she is fine now and did not have to undergo surgery. My first 2 dogs were never insured, one didn't cost a penny until she became ill and died, the second had a nasty accident when quite young, but died peacefully at a ripe old age, not costing me anything more. Working it out they both cost me what it would have cost to insure them all of their lives. I am seriously thinking of giving up the insurance as well.

Completely agree BosWitch. We don't have insurance for our three dogs. We could potentially pay a serious vet bill if needed but I would not put any of them through distressing treatment to prolong life when actually the right thing to do would be to let them go.

Dogs trust £25 a year covers you for public liability.

“ I actually think it's pretty selfish to put an animal through invasive treatment because the owner will feel sad if it dies.”

So you wouldn’t want to find out if it actually was invasive? That’s what I was going really at.

Chemo protocols for animals aren’t the same as for humans they range from fairly invasive to a tablet once a fortnight depending on the cancer and exact stage diagnosed.

My dog is almost 6 years old and her insurance has doubled in the 6 years we've had her. I haven't made a single claim on it, and it makes me cross its gone up so much. DH and I have been discussing whether to cancel her insurance and put that money into an account for her just in case. Its something we probably should have done when she was a pup. You can get accident insurance from Animal Friends or Dogs Trust I believe, so you have cover if your dog causes an accident.

DB has a 9 month of shihtzu which has cost him over £3000 in the last 5 months. His other dog has never needed any treatment.

You just don't know. I've had insurance for 8 years but very affordable vet so never claimed. Neighbour claims all the time. But my insurance covers travel too so if she takes sick we can cancel hold etc on her policy. I'd say it's money well spent

It depends if you have lots of spare cash that you wouldn't miss if it were gone.

My dog racked up a £2,600 bill within 3 days recently. I was grateful that the insurance paid out in full.

To me, insurance is a must.

If you can afford to pay put a lump sum for £2k + vet bill at any time and you put money away for any future incidences the dog may have, then you don't need insurance. If you can't do the above, you need insurance.

Well it's entirely up to you but you mentioned you will save the premium instead.

My puppy had a big illness in his first year and we still don't have a diagnosis as he finally got better after 3 weeks with vet treatment and hospitalisation for severe D&V which was over £2000. With odd accidents we claimed £2500 in the first year. Your saving £20 per month isn't going to be much to put towards something like that is it.

Let's say you do cover an illness and scrape the money together, what happens if the dog runs into something in the house or jumps of the sofa and injures itself or has another illness fairly soon after. Where are you going to scrape the money together then? My policy has a yearly limit so we reset again each year.

What about third party insurance? Without it you leave yourself open to any claims.

Quite frankly you have no idea how 'lucky' you will be in terms of your dog contracting illnesses. Vet fees mount up quickly. Accidents can easily happen in the home. What about if another dog attacks yours but you don't get the owners details? You will still have to pay the vet fees.

If you have insurance you know you can claim and have that as a back up. Without insurance you are gambling on your dogs health for many years. It is much harder to change your mind and get insurance later because everything you have consulted your vet on will be deemed as a pre existing illness and most policies exclude them.

I have animal friends insurance for my 3 Ragdolls, just over £5 each life cover, got a quote for the dog last week only £5 again for basic life cover, but not a lot more to cover a higher payout if neccessary,
I would always cover a dog as they are more likely i think to get more injuries or accidents
I have used one policy to claim already and they paid out with no problem
Excess for the cats is £69, not insured the dog yet as at the moment is covered by PDSA which runs out in April, will then insure the dog

I really would insure, we have a 3 month old puppy who's only been insured for 3 weeks. She's developed cherry eye and needs surgery - thankfully covered. She's only been out of the house / garden a handful of times!

Our older dog was attacked by another dog in our garden. Claimed for emergency surgery then too.

Point being you can be as careful / 'low risk' as you like, shit happens.

@BossWitch, @Kattymanners and @TheGoodEnoughWife - clearly there are times when the only humane thing to do is to have a pet put to sleep, because any treatment is going to cause suffering and isn’t going to result in a meaningful quality of life for the animal -but I would be very surprised indeed if there were more than a small fraction of vets who put profit above the welfare of the animal.

And what about all the times when the treatment results in an animal having a long, healthy and happy life that would be denied to them by your rather heartless approach? The operations that our dog had have taken her from being a dog who couldn’t even go for a short walk, because of the pain her knees were causing, who couldn’t live the life she loved (lots of walks and runs and going swimming) to being a dog who could do all of those things, pain free and who hopefully has more years of happiness ahead of her.

We think that it was worth it - not because we would have been unhappy to lose her - that would be very selfish - but because it has given her back her quality of life.

In my opinion, the only consideration should be the animal’s quality of life. Insurance takes money out of the equation, because you don’t have to calculate whether the treatment is worth the financial cost, only whether it is worth it for the animal.

Without insurance, an owner could end up having to have a pet put to sleep, when the treatment could have given the pet a long and happy life - I think an animal’s life is not something to be thrown away callously, because you can’t afford to get them treated.

We have 2 horses and have 3rd party only. It depends how you feel about your animals. I wouldn't hesitate to put them down if they were suffering whereas I know people who have spent thousands on invasive surgery and stuff, even though this may not have been best for the animal.

SDGT the thing is there are lots of people (and their vets) who subject animals to treatments that I think aren't truly in the best interests of the animal. But different people draw the ethical line in different places - it's subjective, so there are no hard rules to follow.

I don't insure my dogs anymore - it rose to £46 pm on a 1yr old healthy dog from good lines with fully health tested parents. That's £550 per year on a young healthy dog, if it kept rising at the rate it had on first renewal, it would literally end up thousands a year! My newest pup had his free insurance from the KC and then he wasn't insured either.

HOWEVER , I am fortunate that my parents would step in and help me, if something happened and I felt dog should be given a chance, via expensive treatment - so my decision won't have to be based on money, just the dog and the risks and trauma Vs likely benefits and chance of the positive outcome. I do think that aspect is important and if you can't base decisions on the just the animal / would need to consider cost, then you should insure.

It is also worth noting that most vets do not charge the same fees if you are uninsured - they don't make it obvious but do shave money off the bill. When I had ponies (who incidentally, all 4 of them cost less than 1,000 in vet bills over a 9yr period but would have cost over well over 10,000 to insure for that time) the vet bills were markedly lower than previously when I had had just two ponies and they were insured. Other owners found the same and my current dog vet appears to be the same.

Basically it comes down to can you afford to take the risk?

We have had various pets over the years, our dogs have been rescue dogs.
For 3rd part insurance, which IMO is ESSENTIAL as you do not know what your dog might do from bite somebody to run in front of a car, we joined The Dogs Trust @ £25/year. For horses, BHS Gold membership or British Riding Club or Pony Club membership covers 3rd party.
If you tell your vet you do not have insurance, it is surprising how much cheaper treatment can be, with perhaps little difference in outcome, where scans and xrays are replaced with a good old fashioned look at the animal.
If further treatment is needed, then the amount we've saved over 10 years is worth it, but anything congenital or unlikely to respond well to treatment or that the treatment would distress the animal then I'd PTS - we had a pony really disliked being stabled so I'd never have kept him on box rest.
We only insure 1 horse for vets fees, and that's purely because she is very well bred and now potentially worth a small fortune compared with the amount we paid for her, given that we saw a horse my daughter beat in a national final advertised for sale for many times the price we paid for ours - we got her cheaply and daughter has brought her on, & we'd struggle to replace her.

I would say insure if you don't have any savings. If you have savings to cover your pet then forget insurance. Hope all is well.

Vets bills can easily mount up.
I know of a spaniel that ran onto a stick - it actually punctured the oesophagus and Rab right to her armpit and came back out so owner didn't realise how bad it was initially.

One accident cost £12,000 in vets fees. Luckily the dog was insured.

My girl is six and we've yet to use her insurance but I wouldn't risk being without it as I know I couldn't afford thousands should an emergency arise.

“there are lots of people (and their vets) who subject animals to treatments that I think aren't truly in the best interests of the animal.“

I can’t watch super vet for that very reason...

But ruling out treatment before knowing what the treatment would actually be seems kind of on the harsh side.

The thing is getting to the point where you decide that you don't want to treat can cost a lot. My dog had severe D&V but still cost over £2k and all the tests came back negative but you wouldn't leave a dog severely vomiting and pooing and not eating for three weeks, neither would you make a decision to PTS unless you knew the cause.

Knowing all the nights at the vets, X-rays, ultrasound, blood and poo tests and drugs was covered meant I didn't have to worry about that on top of worrying about my poor dog.

Get insurance- it covers a couple of million in public liability as well just in case your tit breed bites someone. Unless you have that to spare as well of course!!!

Toy not tit...