Do I need cat insurance?

[giddybiddy]

Hi, we've just adopted a 2 year old rescue cat. Very sweet and in good health. I was wondering if it was necessary to insure her... having had a quick look it seems the excesses are all quite high unless the premium is ridiculous. Having said that I have heard that vet's bills can get really high if anything goes wrong. Any advice, and if I should insure, which companies pay out on the claims..? Thanks so much.

It isn't essential but something to bear in mind, considering vets bills can be thousands of pounds.

We've just had a contingency fund for ours. Needed when rescue puss went to sleep in a car engine...

It really depends. Do you have around £4000 in savings which you could use in a worst case scenario? If you do then it's fine to gamble on not having insurance. You might be lucky and your cat has no major accidents or illnesses and you end up paying less in vet bills over the cat's lifetime than the premiums would have been.

However RTAs, if your cat survives, can easily cost thousands to treat. As can many illnesses. If you don't have access to that sort of money then I think you really have to have insurance.

I can't advise on particular companies. I'll see if I can find a thread that dealt with this.

Threat about insurance companies: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_litter_tray/2099148-Insurance

Is she to be an outside-going cat?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_litter_tray/2084300-Cat-insurance

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_litter_tray/2181305-Who-do-you-insure-your-cat-with

A couple more threads.

Ours is insured. The excess is £50 and 10% of the cost of the claim, with More Than. Worth it for the peace of mind. As cats get elderly, premiums go up a lot, and at that stage it may be worth just putting aside money in a separate account instead.

We had an uninsured indoor cat. 'What could happen?' we said. Well, she could get a mystery illness which required a lot of emergency treatment. We couldn't afford to pay for specialist tests, so it took longer than needed to diagnose her, during which time she suffered, and we spent about £2000 on basic 'keeping her alive' care. We'd said we wouldn't do that - that if we had to make the choice we'd have her pts, but of course, when you're looking at your cat, and the vet thinks there might be a chance of saving her....it's amazing how fast you get out the credit card.

She had cancer and she died. We'd actually probably have spent less if we'd gone to a specialist to begin with, and obviously had we been insured it wouldn't even have been a question. And she'd have suffered less.

So yes. Insure - or, do as we do, put what you'd spend on insurance in a cat trust fund, and be prepared to get out the credit card if you have to.

For an outdoor cat I would insure in a heartbeat though. Much more likely that something will happen, and happen expensively.

I insure both my cats with Argos pet insurance, it is £11 a month for both of them, £100 excess which I feel is reasonable.

Worth it as I haven't got ££££ if one of them were to become ill or injured.

I balked a bit at the cost too when we got our cat but took out insurance. Thank goodness I did as she got hit by a car and I think we would have had to have her pts if she wasn't insured, as there's no way we could have afforded the vet bills. Now when my premium is due I'm happy to pay it.

Unless you have spare cash sitting around from day 1 then insurance is a fairly basic essential.

I have a 5 year old rescue, started paying premiums with Petplan (£8 pm for a Ragdoll) and a month after I collected her she was diagnosed with ringworm. No quibble from Petplan at all, they just paid out promptly for the medicine, tests and vets appts less the excess (£65). Can't rate them highly enough

Having just had my boy at the vet on many occasions over the last month, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you invest in it.

I only pay £9 a month with a £50 excess (found on price comparison site) and it has been invaluable. My cat has a very treatable issue which could have been fatal without the tests - tests I would not have been able to afford without it.

I haven't had Seniorboy insured but that was just age and circumstances. If I had another, younger cat, even an indoor one, I'd do it like a shot - but I'd be very careful to get a whole of life policy and to read the small print pretty carefully.

Absolutely. We had a 4 year old indoor only cat who developed a hacking cough one weekend, cue trip to emergency vet, oxygen tent, x Ray, sensation, pain killers and finally she had to be PTS AFTER 3 days,Bill was over 3k. Thankfully all covered by argos platinum insurance which I paid £9 per month to.

Cozie makes a good point - you need lifetime cover.. If you're going to do it, get the best they offer!

We use Animal Friends, less than £4 each a month for 2, 5 year old moggies.

I quibbled over insurance when we got them (parents never had insurance for our old family cat)
2 weeks after getting them I tooksome out. Less than 2 weeks later one kitten broke her leg inexplicably. Shut them in kitchen at night, both fine, came down in the morning and she was limping.

The following X-rays, surgery and care came to more than £2000. We would have had to put down our 2 month old kitten if I'd not taken out that insurance.

So if you've got plenty of money in case something goes wrong you don't need it. But I would recommend getting some!

We have it for our cats and it has definitely been worth it, we've had to claim quite a few times! One cat keeps getting bullied and has developed a few abscesses and also has a skin condition which didn't develop until he was older (this flares up every now and again making his paws bleed and requires treatment).

I seem to recall Lone mentioning that her practice sees a fair number of indoor cats with injuries - think getting your leg trapped down the back of a radiator and having to free it for example.

Even older cats can have daft moments though. I remember Seniorboy getting himself on top of the bedroom door when he was about 15. (How, I've no idea.) If I hadn't been around to get him down - or if he'd overshot and landed awkwardly on the floor - he could easily have had a bad leg or two.

All really useful, thank you! I guess the answer is yes! She comes with 4 weeks free petplan from the Cats Protection where we got her from so I guess they will send me a quote to keep the insurance up and we can take from there.