I cant decide whether to renew my cats insurance or not, would like opinions

[ditavonteesed]

My cats dont live here anymore, they moved in next door and after several years of trying to get them to come home we gave up and gave them to the nieghbour, she didnt really want them (although she didnt really show them that) and we do want them. So the renewal for their insurance has dropped through the door today and I know the neighbour doesnt have a lot of money, but I am still mad that she stole my cats and think she should have thought of that first, however if anything happened to them I am sure she couldnt afford it. What would you do? my neighbour is otherwise very nice just a bit cat nicky.

Hmmm. That's a tricky one. The obvious thing would be to get your cats back and then the insurance question is answered by itself. Do you have any clue why they wanted to go next door? A neighbours cat has moved in with me, even though I did nothing to enourage him and really, really don't need any more cats, but the reason is that he is obviously the sort of cat that likes to be able to come and go as he likes, and I have a cat flap and my neighbours don't, so he decided that my house was more convenient. I offered to pay for my neighbours to have a cat flap put in but they weren't interested so now I'm stuck with him, and his medical care I imagine.

Do you have any idea why they've decided they're better off next door?

She feeds them, her cat flap is always open and she doesnt have kids and dogs so its more peaceful, and she fusses them constantly and puts fresh food down every hour (I know I look after her cat when she is away)
We have cat flaps, the cats got the best of everything and have all of upstairs to do as they please so they can get away from it all, we arent getting them back it has been about 5 years of problems and we share access across our garden and the bad feeling was getting out of hand, they are fine and they are well looked after and they obviously want to be there.

Well that's a shame and it's obviously nothing you've done wrong. And you really shouldn't blame your neighbour either. Admittedly she could have tried harder to discourage them, but still it was really the cats that made the choice. I think you need to try to forget about the bad feeling and have a conversation with her about the insurance and ask her what would happen if they faced huge vet bills. Of course if she's on benefits then the PDSA would be an option. Or maybe she would be willing to go halves on the cost of the insurance if she can't afford it all herself.

Really only you can make the decision in the end though. You need to decide how you would feel if there was no insurance and she couldn't afford their care, and if paying the premiums is worth it for you to avoid this situation happening. There is no right answer.

I know its really hard, the boy cat is a ragdoll and one of the reasons we gave them to her was that we were never getting to brush him and she wasnt doing it becasue he wasnt her cat, I hated the thought of my cat being neglected so it seemed to work best.