Vet bills. Where would you draw the line?

[AsSureAsTheSunlight]

This is all purely hypothetical; the news about the cost of vet treatments has made me wonder where I would say no to treatment.

I have a 4.5 year old small-medium breed dog. I love the bones of her and she is my companion. She is insured under a lifetime policy up to £7000.

The insurance premiums for her are around £45 per month. I’ve seen in an article today in which a small breed surgery cost £10,000. That would be an additional £3000 for me to pay. I do not have that kind of money to top up treatment.

Hypothetically, in this situation I would need to PTS due to cost.

However, I see others paying £5000, £10,000 or more to top up treatments; this seems insane to me.

I wondered where others would stop?

Our insurance covers 15k per year of treatment on a lifetime policy. Whether I'd pay more or not depends on the condition and his age at the time of treatment.

You could always ring the insurance company and try and increase your level of cover?

It would depend on the dog's age for me, as well as income/available money. My dog is getting older. I pay for his acupuncture and meds for his arthritis, and he's had two leg injuries requiring surgery (about £800 each time) the past couple of years, but I wouldn't be paying £10,000 now he is elderly. Would I have when he was younger? Perhaps not, but I would have paid £5000 top up.

My three all have £15K per year (as with a PP).

Depending on what the issue was and if the operation/treatment was curative (i.e. not prolonging the inevitable) I'd fork out an extra £10K+ if needed (highly unlikely realistically). My dogs mean everything to me, and as long as any treatment didn't just mask pain and didn't effect their quality of life, I would go for it.

But ultimately, it's about their quality of life. It doesn't matter how much I can pay if the end result is pain/suffering.

My insurance covers £12k of treatment per year.

I upped it at my last renewal after my doggo busted her cruciate ligament last year (£6.5k all in - X-rays, operation, physio and hydrotherapy) and it scared me how close we got to the limit. And I'm paranoid she’ll do the other one

Anything above that amount would be a pretty major operation/treatment I think so we’d really have to consider stuff like recovery/quality of life/chances of success versus delaying the inevitable etc before putting her through something like that.

Those with cover for £12-£15,000, what are your monthly premiums if you’re happy to share?

I did not know I could ask my insurer to increase cover. I thought a policy was fixed once you take it out.

I have one dog who has 16k insurance, she's £120 per month, then one who has 4k and she's about £20 per month.

I pay just under £130 for the three of mine (10 year old cocker, 6 year old Dalmatian and 18 month old Golden). I have one of those 'multi-dog discounts.'

Up until a few months ago it was way cheaper, but the cocker needed some major eye surgery and a jaw operation (she has six teeth now...) and my insurance has gone up slightly.

Interestingly though, the Golden's insurance is much higher (proportionally) that the other two.

My dogs insurance leaped after I made 1 claim last year from £48 to £75 per month. She's old so this is all going one way. TBH it depends, at her age I couldn't bear her to suffer repeated ops. So I guess that it would be PTS. Remember just because they can do something doesn't mean to say that they should. Maybe start a small savings account for an excess emergency?

Mine is £80.83 per month this year for my 5 year old dog. But we did have a £6.5k claim last year.

My vet doesn’t agree to do a direct pay claim with all insurers so I made sure to choose one that they did who were more on the expensive side.

I just asked to up the cover at my last renewal and they did.

My DDog had a couple of big claims early on, specialist joint surgery and tonsillectomy, covered by insurance - but then the premiums skyrocketed! When they reached £100pcm about 6 - 7 years ago I cancelled the policy and saved the money in ‘Ddog’s account’. So far the account is still healthy and he is nearly 11 now….

Mine isn't insured. But I have a doggy savings fund, at around 10k.
I think how far I would go depends on what we are treating, recovery and long term prognosis.

I know it sounds harsh, but I wouldn't, for example, treat my dog for cancer beyond the removal of a tumour (so questionable if even the removal would be worth it).
A complicated fracture yes, unless dog is old and has other issues.

Any age related issue that needs long term management yes, as long as its giving ddog a good lease of life.

Any genetic defects would once again depend on recovery and long term prognosis.

We have 2 dogs of almost 6 years old and 2 cats of 5 years old. We don't insure them but have pet bank account allocated as cash pot to our main account. It's got £4800 in atm. I put £100 per month in but not December. We'd pay up to £10k if any of them needed care though if they could go on to lead a good quality life.

It depends, for me, on the age of the dog, how well be would recover and what the prognosis was. He was expensive and his insurance goes up to £10k, so we would and another £5k if necessary.

I pay £57 a month and our beagle is six years old. We've never claimed.

I love my 2.5 year old dog to bits but I wouldn’t go beyond £2-3k. I have to think of the impact a significant amount would have on our family finances esp as DH and I are not too far off retirement.

Stupidly never got insurance and have just been told 4000 for my blocked cat to go under for the PU surgery. I always said I wouldn't pay more than 2k but when the vet tells you it's that or euthanasia it's a very difficult decision

My smallish non-pedigree is 11. I've made the decision to stop insuring her as it's goes up so much every year and she could live another 10 years and she wouldn't tolerate much treatment tbh.

Still have public liability insurance for her though £25 per year

My dog is no longer insured. We made the decision based on the fact he's 15 and realistically probably wouldn't make it through a big operation or something like chemo at his age. We'll pay for any treatment he needs from savings providing it's for pain relief and comfort, we'd only consider putting him to sleep when we're told it's prolonging the inevitable or he's in pain. Other than that, I'd pay whatever it cost.

My 6 yo small dog is insured via PDSA for £7k lifetime cover and the premium just went up to £35 pcm (we’ve never claimed).
I asked before renewal if we could up the cover and they said we’d have to take out a new policy, meaning that anything we’d seen the vet for since taking out the insurance wouldn’t be covered.
I was quite shocked - he could survive another 10 years by which time £7k won’t cover much. I might call them back now others have said it should be possible.
Although we’ve never claimed, I took him to the vet last year as he was walking awkwardly and obviously in pain. She prescribed anti inflammatories and pain killers plus cage rest and after a week or so he was fine. I worry that this could count as a pre-existing condition and affect any future claim for back or leg related conditions/injuries.

If our dogs were ok with the treatment and our trusted vet felt it was worth continuing, then we would. Obviously it would depend on age and chance of having a good quality of life afterwards.

We used to have insurance up to £7.5k on two of our then very young dogs. Both got very ill within 6 months of each other, very unexpectedly and with different conditions. We used up the £7.5k each and paid another £6k on top between them.

One sadly died but the other got better and is now 5. We have increased insurance to £12k but we’d pay any amount if it was in our dogs best interest.

Yeah this. ^ It does depend on the age of the dog - or cat. If they are in the late winter years of their life then I would never pay 5 figures for a vet bill. I would PTS. If they were say 6 or so years old or less, I would still worry about paying so much, as I would wonder what the pet would need next. If they needed such expensive treatment, at say, only around the age of 5 to 6, there is no guarantee that they won't need something else next year/the year after, as they are clearly a sickly pet.

A pet only middle aged or younger should not need a 5 figure sum spending on them for vet fees. So even if they were only 5-6ish years old I would possibly let them go, because as I said, there's no guarantee you aren't going to be forking out another 5 figure sum next year. I would either surrender the pet - or opt for PTS.

As I said on another post, when I was much younger - pre 21st century, we always had pets. My parents (in the 1970s and 1980s) always had one or two dogs. I never EVER recall them getting a vet bill they couldn't afford to pay. My dad was an average earner, and my mum was a stay at home mum. We had very little and never had more than a few hundred £££ in savings. Yet we always managed to keep dogs and pay any vet bills. That's because they were very affordable/reasonable.

When did vet bills start to become 4-6 months wages? Sometimes even more.(That's what they are for many!) If this had been the case 30+ years ago, no WAY would my dad have paid that. He literally couldn't have. We would have had no money for rent and bills and food! It's an absolute con honestly. There are some outrageous bills from many vets now. To the point of being farcical. Pet owning is going to become for the financially very-well-off only soon.

I wouldn’t stop treatment based on cost, I’d take out credit cards, loans or whatever if needed if something cost more than they’re insured for.

Thats not to say I’d treat anything or go to any lengths to keep a pet alive, I’d have them PTS if I didn’t think something was worth doing in terms of their quality of life, but not because of the cost.

I’ve never had insurance for my dogs. Like others on the thread I pay into a seperate dog account out of which all vet costs have come. After roughly thirty+ years it now stands at £28,000 . I have five dogs currently though used to be more when I was showing.

Im with napo and pay 32 a month for 15k lifetime cover. Shop around at renewal and increase your cover 7k is nothing really now

i got insurance because of the threat of being sued raised by posters on mn
it is a very basic insurance
in fact i changed insurance when she was 10 as the previous company wanted to put up the premiums, more fool me. she is now not covered for the current issue. so i am saving for treatment.