Cancel insurance for older dog?

[toomanychickens]

My dog is now 13.5. She's a mixed breed and is in good health - few fatty lumps and cataracts starting. Just realised the insurance is now £61 per month. We're never going to put her through an operation at her age and there's a £80 excess plus they only cover 2/3 of cost. It's not worth it is it?

I stopped for my 2 when they were about 6 and premiums went mad but I put away the money it would have been. Neither needed anything expensive and oldest was 14.5 when he was pts so I used some of it to have home visit for that. Other dog still going strong and now 14 and I probably won't eve sped the money as like you won't be doing complicated treatment at his age, he hates the vets. In my case it worked well but my youngest dog has good insurance.

I kid of agree with you but she may get arthritis where insurance would pay for some of the newer injectable treatments or hydrotherapy.

I kept my boy’s insurance going even when he was 16. I know a lot of other’s don’t, but he was on a few medications for his arthritis and other things, plus regular monitoring of another condition, which meant monthly consultation fees.

I wouldn’t have put him through any major treatment and he wasn’t allowed a general anaesthetic at that point anyway, but when I worked it all out, given that we claimed for all monthly meds and consultations (and as it was a lifetime policy there was only one excess per condition per year) we were still better off with insurance than without. I think that’s a very individual thing though, depending on the health of the dog. My boy was super healthy and barely saw a vet until he reached 14 and a half, then just seemed to develop one thing after another, each of which cost a fair bit to treat/support.

I cancelled my insurance when it became ridiculously expensive at 8, over £200 per month. I have saved money for him.
He is on Librela and has physio and I am nowhere near £250 per month , he’s 11.
Its working for me.

Ooh my vet suggested librela. How much is it costing you a month if you don’t mind me asking?

My 11 year old retriever is on librela and it is amazing! He also has acupuncture. Before starting on librela he would be really stiff about halfway between acupuncture appt, but now he's bouncy all month. We've also been able to cut down on his pardale as well which is good as he's at the age when the liver and kidneys need looming after.

I never cancelled his insurance though even though it is a scary amount, but he's also got diabetes and some GI problems. I think the librela for him costs about £55 a month and he's 39 kg.

Imo insurance is more for things like chronic conditions eg arthritis, hyperthyroidism,diabetes.
So I guess if you can afford treating those then cancel but it's worth thinking about

Just to qualify, my boy was a large mixed breed and his insurance was only just over £70 pcm at 16 years old, so probably quite a bit cheaper than some breeds.

I think if I had been paying £200 a month for his insurance we would have cancelled the policy and set the money aside monthly instead.

Mine is 13 and doesn't have any chronic conditions. I decided to self insure. I put the £250 per month I would have paid the insurance company into a savings account. Have hardly spent any of the savings so far.

Look around. I've insured my ten year old pedigree for £15 a month. It's also lifetime conditions so anything new will keep eligibility into the renewal period. Think I get £2 or 3k per condition per annum. It's not the highest cover but I'm happy with it

Would it cover you if he got say high blood pressure, diabetes, a hormone imbalance etc and he needed medicine for the rest of his life? That kind of thing can get pretty expensive very quickly!

Ours is 9 years old. Insurance currently £74/month but he had a birthday recently so it will be going up again next month. Expecting it will be £85+ soon, but they paid out £3k last year including an mri. With that and previous claims we are breaking about even so far.

I think £60 a month is excellent value for a 13 year old dog.

I wouldn't cancel as it could cover all sorts of things like arthritis medication, blood tests and checks for things like kidney disease - so nothing immediately life-threatening but it could help towards long-term medication and regular check ups.

Thanks for the replies. I suppose I'd only been thinking in terms of operations, but you're right I'll have a look at exactly what it covers in terms of medications and conditions etc..

It just says up to £2000 per year per condition. Perhaps I'll keep it going.

I often wondered why I was spending so much in my dogs insurance until they got over 10. My oldest died at 17 and the only thing the insurance covered was his cremation. His little sister though, attracted about £10,000 of vet fees in the last 2 years of her life and believe me… she never had an accident and I would have not put a dog through long term cancer or diabetes treatments, she ended up with multiple health issues for a wide variety of… randomness really, from having a double set of teeth to chewing things around the house and a very expensive pancreatitis that required a very specialised diet for years, so I am glad she was insured.

With my new dog, I considered saving the money for vet fees instead of paying insurance premiums. I quickly got off the idea as the insurance costs me far less a year than the cost of putting her under anaesthetic once even if it is just for an x-ray!

Even if you decide to cancel the health insurance, do check you have third party to cover any damage your dog might do or cause.

We cancelled when our dogs were costing us £50 each a month in insurance and we'd been three years without a claim. The excesses rose until there was no point in having it. One dog was pts a couple of years ago: she went blind and was confused and it was a no-brainer to let her go. The other has just turned 14 and is still fit and healthy. We pay for an annual check-up and for worming and anti-tick pills, but apart from that he rarely sees a vet.

He gets a bit stiff after a really long walk (10 miles or so) and we treat him with infant Calpol, which we were issued with by the vet during lockdown and which is much cheaper than Metacam etc. He's had 14 fabulous years with us. If anything major happens to spoil his quality of life I will let him go rather than put him through surgery and disability. I am currently watching a friend's elderly lurcher in pain and depressed after £5k's worth of hip and pelvic surgery after a bad fall. She is thrilled to have 'saved' him and doesn't seem to see how much pain he's in. Sometimes we can love our pets so much we put them through hell.

It depends ... Vet fees have gone up, like everything else.

Our dog was diagnosed this year with something that could potentially be cured with surgery - otherwise we would have had to have him PTS by now. He had the tests and scans and the op and is a lot happier now. Cost? About £8k I think, and that's because our primary vet shopped around for specialists! He's old enough that our insurance will only pay out 80% of the fees, but still, he now might have 1, 2 or 3 more good years.

We'll have just about got our premiums back that we've paid over his lifetime, but, if he gets something else next year, we'll be covered still (and I have had a dog who got 3 serious things in succession! Wasn't insured - very expensive time).

It's a very personal decision but I think it's important to be think things through carefully. If you haven't PTS a dog before when effective treatment was available but it was over what you could or would afford, you might find it's a lot more upsetting than you expect.
If, OTOH, you have done so before, and were Ok with how everything panned out, then it's reasonable to assume you could do it again.

This is exactly what to do, because most dogs are on a sliding scale age/health wise. I do think pet insurance is a sunken cost. What really is a vet going to do to help a 13.5 year old dog. If it is at the cost that @PatsyJStone quotes, fine. My dog is 15 and no matter what there is nothing to help him now (only love).

We never had insurance - it wasn't really a thing when ours were kittens where we live. And it was expensive. Our 10 year old recently had a cancer diagnosis - just the diagnosis must have cost €1000. His only symptom was not eating and losing a lot of weight. They did a tooth cleaning - €100, thinking that was it. Didn't work. Then an abdo ultrasound - thought his intestines were inflamed. Another €185. Special diet, meds, no better, wouldn't eat it. Half a day's hospitalisation to observe his eating. Sent home with magic food that he ate when the vet was there. He only at it a couple of times at home. Finally he had an MRI - €550, including pre-op tests. Terminal diagnosis. Special soft food and palliative painkillers. Not counting the 6-8 consultations over 5 months. Luckily we had money set aside for this but my point is just to say even if you wouldn't put him through a surgery, just diagnosis can be pretty pricey.

We cancelled ours when they were about 11, healthy but insurance was around £70 a month each. We wouldn't have put them through any long term treatment. We laid for one op (£700) a blood test (£70) and then the fees to have them PTS over the next three years (of old age, nothing we could have treated). We wouldn't have spent over £2k on treating anything after we stopped the insurance.

i cancelled our cat’s insurance once it got to £100 a month and shortly after she became unwell. A few scans, a biopsy and a few days in vet hospital cost us thousands. We didn’t want her to suffer but at the same time we needed to know that the issue really was nothing we could treat. I could never have forgiven myself if we’d let her go without being sure. The gap between healthy and happy and PTS can be very pricey if you need to know you did your best.

Growandhope
I forgot that I will pay 20% of any treatment.

I've had the same type of dog for years, I've been lucky they've not had major illnesses but things like arthritis which I've paid for their medication myself. My last dog was 15 when we had him PTS. At 13 he had a full anaesthetic and X-rays so my vet was fairly confident in that aspect that he could make it through. We didn't pay for an MRI, however he lived two years longer and didn't have what the vet suspected. I was heartbroken at the time. Due to a previous condition the insurers said was linked, they wouldnt cover it, even the vet contacted them to say it wasn't connected but they wouldn't budge.
I've not got the highest cover, I'm going off my experience with my choice. But I love my dogs and will make whatever decisions I have to and am prepared to pay for treatment if it isn't covered. But there will be a limit to that of course.
I suppose I'm taking a chance but like some others I think monthly pmts of £70 plus are too much.

@Querty123456 Sorry, just came back to the thread. It’s £57 per 4 weeks - 31kg lab.
He’s had it now for about 4 shots, and it’s made a huge difference - he has lost weight too with the ability to exercise.
It is every 4 weeks - so 13 shots a year. Wonder drug.

Ooh thanks! My dog weighs the same so hopefully the price would be similar. She has gained 3kg over the last year I think due to less running about so I’m hopeful suitable medication would help her lose that. I’m wondering if I could claim for it on her insurance?