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!?

AFAIU toy dogs are quite attractive to aggressive dogs, we which sadly are to be found everywhere. Vet bills for the victims are 000's. My JRT had blocked bowel - twice and a tumour in his throat (twice). MRIs are £1,000 +.
My xbreed needed an MRI last year, limp related.
Toy breeds do tend to suffer congenital problems so do he aware of that. And the minimum cover you should look for is £7,000 per illness/treatment as if they are going to be ill, they will be ill big time.

Oops, typos! Lump related that should read.

It really irritates me when people say you shouldn't have a pet if you won't pay for insurance. If you have the money available to pay for vets fees, it's up to you if you want to gamble on paying thousands on insurance and possibly never needing it or gamble on not having insurance and possibly needing to spends thousands more than insurance would have cost. One day maybe I'll need to pay thousands more than insurance would have cost but it's a gamble I'm happy to take. It's also a gamble that has previously paid off well (as I said earlier for 4ponies over a period of 9yrs it would have cost me over £10,000 to insure (plus more for excesses), yet I had bills totalling less than £1,000 in the same period and most of that was for the pony with the pre-existing long term condition that wouldn't have been covered by insurance.) It's a gamble I'm happy with and I will pay whatever my boys (2 dogs) need, so long as I believe the chances of positive outcome outweigh the the risks and trauma of treatment - regardless of cost.

Also IME it's not that vets necessarily offer more expensive treatments if you are insured, it's more that the charge less for various parts - For example my one pony did need lifelong medication, I paid considerably less for the same medication (Inc dose), than another woman who's pony was newly diagnosed, so covered by insurance. I tended to be charged a bit less for x-rays, blood tests and the like. I was also charged as though the 2nd call out in a couple of days was the same pony (not two separate ponies, a mere two days a part), as second call out on same animal is less than call out for different animal. So it was little price differences that made a significant difference to overall bill and not the treatments.

I have had one suspicious encounter with vets when my dog was insured, I did have a vet falsely claim my healthy dog needed a £400 operation and tried to guilt me into booking immediately - maybe that immoral vet would have said the same if I wasn't insured but I'll never know and won't go near that vet again (shame because they are on the same site as the out of hours service and animal hospital referral centre)

• it's more that they charge less for various parts if you are not insured

Even if you decide against insurance for vets bills please consider third party insurance for your dog as you will be deemed liable if he for instance harms someone or causes an accident and those bills can be huge.

“there are things I won't ethically do that some with insurance will but it's not about the cost - and that's what I was saying,“

I quoted you because I agree with that.

The bit after was separately going... but how can people just rule out treating certain conditions before they know what the treatment for it is?

I would put the money aside each month in a dedicated account and see how you go, I've never insured my dogs, had them for nearly 30 years now. We have had one awful time with a spaniel that slipped a disc, that worked out at about £3,000. He's been fine ever since and is now quite an old boy at nearly 13 and still bouncing about. If it had been my decision I wouldn't have put him through the treatment, but my husband was adamant we did and I have to say now that he was right to do so. It depends on how you are, personally I would say goodbye if one of mine had cancer rather than subject them to £££ of treatment that might or might not work, but everyone is different.

The point I'm trying to make is that if I had religiously saved, every month, the premiums I would have paid to insure my dogs over the years, I would have had a lot of money sitting in an account by now, and been able to cover all vets bills in that time. Some breeds of dogs are genetically predisposed to have problems now due to years of being bred in a certain way. I prefer to have cross breeds now, they seem to have less of these problems.

I stopped my dog's insurance when she got to about 11 and the premium was really high (I think it was £148 per month) - this was a considered decision - at her abdominal operation the year before the premium went up to this sum, she had so nearly given up trying to live (because of shock of operation & postop pain) and was so old that I knew I would never let her undergo another op - if it came to it, I would put her to sleep. She also walked only slowly and not very far any more (because of a medical condition) that I didn't expect her to break any limbs/get run over. Also, I knew I could fund her medicines myself. Otherwise, I would always try to have insurance for my dog . Current dog is insured (even the parrot has pet insurance).
Yours may be a low risk family but I knew someone whose bull terrier fell off her bed and broke his leg (compound fracture), so you can't assume you can avoid accidents.

Yecartmannew we don't live in a particularly expensive area - it just happens that almost all of the dogs fits happen outside office hours and those are the costs for the emergency vet. They ask for £200 to be paid before they will even do the initial consultation.

The one and only time he has had a seizure at a more normal hour, he spent the afternoon and overnight with the regular vet and it cost a little over £150 if I recall correctly, for the same treatment.

He isn't insured, so it's not down to the vets inflating the bill. It's just how much it costs unfortunately.