Do you have insurance for your cat?

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I have a 3 year old grey moggy. She was a valentines present from my DH and the bugger prefers him anyway

She's an indoor cat, who's spends most of her days running up and down our hallway aka pulling the wallpaper off playing with my DDs toys and sunbathing in the centre of our bed.

She's microchipped and wears a collar with her name and the landline number on so hopefully we'd get her back if she did escape/go missing.

I am currently setting aside £5 a week (sometimes a bit more if I can) in a bank account in case she needs vets treatment, but I'm wondering if it might be better to get insurance.

Imo I would purely as you don't know if your cat will develop a condition meaning on going treatment or have a nasty accident. vet bills aren't cheap, I have it purely for piece of mind. It's about £9 month so not a major expensive nothing compared to a Hugh vet bill anyhow

I would get some. My mother recently got her new indoor cat insured, it's only £7 a month.

I've had cats for the last 10 years, never had insurance. Total vet bills for that time - £200. So personally I think your £5 a month plan will be likely to leave you quids in. Disclaimer though... If any of my cats developed an expensive life limiting illness I would have them put down. If you don't think you could do that, then insurance may be a better peace-of-mind option.

Accidents to cats can happen in the home as well as outside. Someone is a bit careless with a chicken bone - punctured gut. Someone trips over the cat - broken bones. And a horrific story I was told, someone didn't look when sitting up from a recliner chair and crushed the cat's ribs .

There's non life limiting illnesses that they can get too that still need regular vet treatment. DSiL's indoor-only Burmese developed a glandular problem that wasn't serious but still needed regular injections from the vet. They get kidney conditions that are easily treatable but do need that treatment.

And of course if (gods forbid) they do escape for any reason, an indoor cat really isn't equipped to look after itself the same way as many other cats. Cars, other cats (including ones with FIV), poisons etc.

TL:DR - yes I will be insuring my indoor cats!

I insured both my indoor cats for 10 years but then the premiums went up to a level we just couldn't afford :( So I put £40 per month into savings now. And keep my fingers crossed!

YES you need insurance. Diabetes or any number of things can still happen and be cripplingly expensive.

I wouldn't be without insurance now. We've had Harry for just over 8 years - first 8 years vet bills = £150, last 5 months vet bills = £2,700...

I would always recommend insurance anyway. I think I only pay a fiver a month with John Lewis. I've seen far too many crowd fund begging things on my friends list because their animal needs expensive things done to save their life and they can't afford it which means their animal has to suffer in the meantime.

I don't have insurance for my current cat but will consider it for future pets.

She's an inside cat but has suspected lymphoma. I decided not to pay for an expensive biopsy but that was more because it wouldn't have really changed the treatment plan. She had a steroid tablet everyday and a chemotherapy tablet (leukaran) three times a week. Not cheap but it will hopefully give her a few more years of quality life.

Insurance will be far less than your £5+ per week saving. Easily under £10 a month for good cover.

Something to think about. My mum had a cat she'd had for 16 years paid £14 a month in insurance, indoor cat who was yearly injections for the main feline diseases and never used the insurance because the one time she needed it at the end of the cats life when she was put down the excess was £50 and it only cost £55 to have her put down. She was 16 at the time.

My mums now cancelled her insurance policy for her other cat and does similar to me.

It's a debate me and DH have been having. We plan to keep cat up-to-date with injections but obviously injuries could occur. Surely £20 a month in an account covers that though?

DH wants insurance for peace of mind, so that's why I asked here.

Insurance will be far less than your £5+ per week saving. Easily under £10 a month for good cover.

I think that can depend on where you live, age of the cat etc. Harry is 11 and I pay £22 a month for him.

I've worked out that over the 8 years we've had him we've paid around £2000 in insurance fees (worked out at £20 a month) and Petplan has paid out just over £2000. Putting the money aside would have worked in our situation as we haven't had any notable vet fees, but if someone was unlucky and had to go more often it wouldn't work.

£20 a month is only £240 a year. That would be swallowed up in a flash if cat needed treatment. And long term illnesses can run into thousands.

I feel this way about contents and buildings insurance. I have paid for both for 20 years and have never claimed once. But I still pay.

Pink yes you are probably right re premiums.

It all depends on the cat I think, we have 4 and the quotes are around £120 a month (3 bengals, one elderly and a moggy) When we got our eldest boy he was in renal decline so has dietary food that the insurance wouldn't cover anyway.
For us getting hold of a couple of grand short notice is possible, when we weigh up that V the cost of insuring we have chosen not to.

Go back 5 years when I had a dog and I couldn't afford not to insure her, she had 2 operations for eating her bed that came to about £3k in the space of 8 weeks, I would not have been able to afford it, at the time the vets wanted me to pay and claim the money back which I also couldn't afford to do, luckily I found a vets willing to operate with me providing proof of insurance so its worth checking with your vets also if they can do this

I pay £14 a month for a higher level of insurance.
The cat I owned before her was also insured, but at a few months old was diagnosed with horrendous neurological issues. We burned through our £3500 insurance budget in no time and were a few thousand out of pocket after that. In the end the best thing was to have her put to sleep, and it broke my heart.

We have never had Insurance for our cat. He's an out door cat and has been to the vet a handful of times for minor stuff, cat fights etc.

We could've spent £3150 on insurance over his 13yrs. We have spent nowhere near that,. A couple of hundred max, at the vets.
he is an extremely healthy cat😺

We are lucky that dh earns enough that an unexpected huge vet bill won't be a problem, nor long term illness.

Pls get lifelong insurance. Age related problems can be managed but are expensive and pre existing conditions aren't generally covered. The younger the better to get them insured. I hope you never need it . I'm an indoor cat owner.

Don't forget healthy cats can have accidents! Harry was always healthy until, unbeknown to us, he had a dental infection which weakened his jaw. He then broke his jaw although we've no idea how he managed it, he came home with it broken. We're presuming he fell off the fence (I've seen it nearly happen on more times than I care to remember!).

Could anyone help me understand insurance fees?

I've been quoted £4.83 for Toots. Brilliant.
They then add things like death by accident £500. Boarding fees £500

Does that mean the insurance company pays out £500 if she was killed by accident and covers boarding fees up to £500?

Yes, we have. Unfortunately we switched when our cat was 12 so couldn't start a lifetime policy. (Cancelled the previous one as despite being lifetime max payout was rubbish and premium shot up).
Six months after switching we had to claim and we went over the max payout as we needed to go to a referral vets. Our cat now has diabetes and Petplan are paying out.
I would recommend going for a lifetime cover and still put some bit of money aside to cover any policy excesses or anything not covered. Read the small print carefully as some insurers are a nightmare and don't just look on comparison sites as not all insurers are on there. I only wish we'd gone with the Petplan lifetime from the start but you live and learn!

I haven't taken out insurance for Seniorboy - age and circumstances - but I think it's down, really, to could you afford to suddenly have to cough up a large amount of money? ( And veterinary bills can be huge these days given that there's no NHS for pets.) I've never claimed on house or contents insurance either but I still pay them - insurance is about what might happen, not really whether you are likely to come out ahead.

Still, I seem to recall vet comments on this board about the many indoor accidents that present at practices. (And other conditions can occur whether the cat is indoor or goes outside.)

If I had a younger cat, these days I'd insure them - on a whole of life basis if I could find a policy that did that.

I can see where people are coming from re insurance and injuries especially. I do think my mum was lucky that her 16 year old cat was healthy until 2 days before she was put to sleep, other than that she'd had stitches for a cut to the head which wasn't covered as it cost less than the excess.

And that seems to be what I can't picture. Ever spending more than the excess as my mum never had to. I can get hold of a few grand if necessary, as I also have savings for a deposit for a house going on alongside the saving for the cat so could raid that if necessary.

Lifetime cover is definitely the way to go. I pay just under £40 p/m for my 2, one's a pedigree, so brings the price up a bit. It's with Petplan, and they will cover a condition from year to year. I've just realised that's almost double that I pay for my house & contents insurance! Then again, if we were in a burning building, I wouldn't leave without my boys.

I should imagine insurance is much cheaper for an indoor cat. Be careful when wearing high heels though, especially if you have an "under your feet all the time cat".

*oh, and it seems like a good idea to put money away for vet treatment instead of insurance, but I can imagine it would be tempting to use those funds for say, an emergency with a broken boiler/car etc.