Cancel dog insurance when dog is old?

[Meezer]

We have a much loved elderly dog who has never been ill- we have spent a fortune on unused dog insurance over the years (which I don't regret). His new annual insurance cost is £650 per year plus a big excess , + we would have to pay 25% of the bill.

However, now he is 14, if anything major happened we would have him put to sleep rather than subject him to invasive treatments or suffering. We are therefore thinking of cancelling his insurance, and just putting aside that amount just in case.

What would you do?

Do you have some savings you could use if a condition that could be fixed / managed without invasive treatment showed up a day after you cancelled the insurance?

If you do have a pre existing financial buffer you'd be happy to use in such circumstances, then yes I would cancel at this point.

My dog is a bit younger than yours, but similar to you we wouldn’t subject him to invasive treatment. He is set in his ways and quite anxious - even a one night stay at the vet would be very distressing for him. We moved to basic insurance - third party and accident cover only and will self insure anything else.

Clearly we run the risk of him developing a very treatable chronic condition - but to insure him for that would be a fortune anyway so I will suck it up if i need to.

Ps since cancelling we have already had ear infection issues that have cost me around £1k, the insurance probably wouldn’t have covered all of it anyway

I have done the opposite and increased it now my boy is older.

My old boy recently died aged 17, he was insured until he was 15, then the cost increased so much I had a long hard think. He was very healthy for his age, fit and active until the end but I also knew that I wouldn't have put him through any major treatments as I didn't think it would be right for him.

I was very lucky that I could afford the vet trips and medications required to keep his last few months comfortable - including some pretty expensive arthritis drugs. However, always had in my mind that he was very elderly and unfortunately nothing would be long term so it was purely quality of life stuff.

Having done some calculations, I worked out that the vet costs in the last two years were about the same as I'd have paid on the insurance that may not have covered everything anyway.
But I was very lucky that he really wasn't unwell, "just" old and had a great vet who I trusted to give good advice.

I will be in your position later this year when my older dog's insurance will be up for renewal. Also thinking of cancelling for similar reasons.

My dog is 13 and has been very unwell this year . I knew his insurance would shoot up and it has but we are renewing it because the premium is the cost of his pills each month + about £30 it’s worth it as he will still be covered for new things that may arise . That said I doubt I’d do anything that dramatic because of his existing issues . The other alternative was cancel , buy the pills a lot cheaper online with a prescription and leave him uninsured .

Thanks for the replies, really helpful.
@junenotoffred I hadn't considered arthritis.

My dog is 16 next month …. Vets bills and meds coming in at £400+ a month and have been for 2/3 years .. he is terminally Ill but happy and still has a good quality of life for a senior dog. Pet ins only pays out for conditions for a year then classed as existing also £50 a month so have wondered the same tbh but def had my moneys worth when he was first diagnosed. He will have to be put down at some point but you may not feel like this is the option you would take a first choice if he’s old and poorly but can have another few years with good vet care and medication. I know if I cancelled mine he’d need another round of tests and I’d end up paying the yearly insurance amount in one go and kicking myself. When he was 2 I moved bank accounts and forgot to move pet ins so it was cancelled and I didn’t notice until he had an operation on his knee that cost £8k and my claim was rejected so I’m probably a bit over anxious still about the whole insurance thing.

I think it cost about £600 for DM to have her 15 year old lan pts last year. Insurance paid that.

Have you thought about a scenario where your dog is well, but needs pain meds eg: arthritis?

The excess and higher premiums means it's cheaper for me to pay for my arthritic old dog to keep going with pain meds than to use insurance. I still unsure my younger dog though.

For my old Lab's final eight years he wasn't insured and it was definitely cheaper not to.

I think at 14 there's nothing wrong with cancelling insurance - but it's worth thinking about what you'd do if your dog developed something like diabetes or arthritis - where treatment isn't very invasive and can easily prolong his/her life by several years.

When my dog was 13 I decided to cancel the insurance and self-insure. I pay the amount I was paying to the insurance company into a savings account each month. Like you, we wouldn't want to subject her to any invasive treatments. She is still with us two years later and the savings are more than covering the vet bills.

Re a similar thread - depending on your POV - cancel the insurance if you have savings to cover - friend of mine cancelled insurance for elderly dog - put the money to one side but Dogs Trust do 3rd party insurance I believe - which you should really have for a dog.

My older lab has been uninsured now for 4 years, as the premium to cover ration was ridiculous. I have a pot of money put aside for him.

He is on arthritis meds and we do physio, but I have still saved money by not insuring him, and the physio would not have been covered, as we have far exceeded the insurance limit for that. We are definitely at a point where we are focused on quality of the time we have left together, and I have had that discussion with my vet.

My 7 year old is covered and I will continue with that for as long as it makes financial sense.

• ratio not ration..

We changed to third party only for the last two years, which was about £10 a year. Just in case he caused an accident or injured someone.

RIP my little pal, we still talk of him every day three years after he died.

We kept our insurance going. Our old boy slipped a disk when he was 14.5, had spinal surgery from which he recovered well and had another couple of happy years. I'm not sure what the excess was but the surgery was about 6.5k and having the insurance meant we didn't really need to weigh up the cost at the crisis point.

Over the lifetime of him and his predecessor we undoubtedly spent more on insurance than we claimed but that's the way round you want it. DH says he minds less than for cars or houses because some other peoples dogs will have benefitted, which is one way to look at it.

I dropped my old dogs insurance down to accidental and public liability.

Most household insurance include 3rd party insurance that applies to dogs.

We cancelled insurance (we never claimed) when our dog was 14 ish as we knew we wouldn't put her through any major treatment. She lived until 17 and had a couple of ops in that time and some minor stuff and we just covered it. It wasn't horrific. We knew our vets had a payment plan option for 'regular' customers (which we were) so had that as a back up but we had funds to cover most eventualities. We have just stopped our cat's insurance (he is 12/13 ish) for the same reason. We have money aside to cover any bills for him.

Pet ins only pays out for conditions for a year then classed as existing

For future reference, this does apply to annual policies. You can, however, get lifetime policies that don't have this drawback.

We pay £90 per month for our 10 year old dog, but I claim £200 in medications each month, he's just had a GA ear flush costing £650, and he's seeing a cardiologist which will cost me £125, then the rest covered. For years he didn't need anything though.

Hi, I made this spreadsheet for my dog because I'm wrestling with the same conundrum. Thought it might be useful for anyone on here.

Our bill is now £108 a month, with coverage of £4,000. (I understand 98% of all UK vet claims are lower than £4k).

Our cover has increased by 23% like for like since last year. It increases in line with costs, inflation and also the dog's age and risk factors. I have estimated a 15% yearly increase and assumed she will live to age 15 if we're lucky to have her that long (she's 8 now).

On that basis we'll be paying nearly £18,000 for insurance over the next 8 years. That's with a £125 excess on each new claim and in common with other insurers, paying 20% of each claim after she is 10.

I then looked at a few common conditions for medium sized dogs / spaniels. Imagining she is very unlucky and gets everything on my list, that would cost £26,000. Allowing for the excess, the 20% payment and the premium, that's nearly exactly the same as what we would spend without insurance.

Obviously it's just a guess but it seems if you just put aside what you would have spent on insurance into a savings account that would work - I guess the only risk is if your pet gets lots of conditions before you have had a chance to save up for them?