Should I get pet insurance for my kittens

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I'm just wondering if I should get pet insurance or just pay the vet when I need to?

Growing up with cats my parents never had pet insurance- we just took them to the vets when we needed to.

I'm just wondering what people tend to do nowadays?

You definitely need insurance & you need it as soon as possible otherwise anything they develop won't be covered. Our cat was insured as a kitten & developed a heart murmur at 6 months. His tablets cost £80 for 6 weeks and he has now been on them for nearly 15 years. This would not have been covered if we'd taken the insurance out after he developed the problem.
Vet bills are incredibly expensive (general anaesthetic £200+) - we think healthcare doesn't cost much because of the NHS but it costs a lot.
My parents never has insurance either, I guess it wasn't such a thing then & there were fewer procedures/drugs available.

I would say yes. Our cats developed health issues and we've had approx 3k of vets bills covered.

Are they going to be outside cats? Do you have a lot of spare income?

One of ours (adult rescue) came back injured at midnight after we’d had her less than 6 months - £2K in emergency vet fees.

I do have it but it's not a high level. It's more for emergency use. If they have minor ailments I pay as it's not worth the excess.

If they developed a serious long term condition then I'd find the money.
I find with pet insurance if you start claiming they just charge huge premiums so I'd rather a cheap cover for broken limbs or an op that's more of a one off.

But yes I'd definitely have some level of cover. Kittens are generally pretty cheap. Mine are 7 and I pay approx £14 a month for both.

I would. Mine had cat flu and £900 later she was okay but I insured both of them after that, it was less than £5 a month for both of mine.

I have never had cat insurance in 22 years. In that time I've had 7 cats. I've saved thousands of pounds. We pay when needed.

Totally depends on your financial situation I think. What if you had a sudden bill that was several thousand? Or cat needed a hundred pounds a month of meds?

Yes.

We stopped when our cat was very old because the costs were so high and they'd always link any issue to his previous health condition and not pay out.

I’ve had several cats over many years. Some are accident-prone and some aren’t. I would get insurance for the first year, then reassess their proclivities.

I would. My cat was hit by a car when he was less than a year old. He survived thank goodness but the bill was eye watering, several thousand pounds. I've since upgraded his cover!

We have had around 10 cats come and go over the last twenty years and we haven't insured any. Mostly rescue cats. Barring 2, none needed the vets at all during their lives (except for the last journey). The 2 that did need treatment were two kittens we got told were female but were actually male. They did cost a fair bit over the years. All the other cats were female and none were allowed out at night.

Well my DCat is ill right now and we are up to around £1800 in fees.
Luckily we have insurance.

Oh ok thanks for all the replies.

My vets do this plan for £15.99 per month per cat

	Annual vaccinations
	Year-round flea, worm & tick treatment
	Flystrike prevention (for rabbits)
	Six-month health check
	Microchipping or £10 voucher
	20% off neutering

Do you think that seems ok, or should I do one of the big brands pet insurance?

It's hard to know what I need to do compared to what is extras I might never need

That isn’t the same thing as pet insurance, that is just paying for your annual vaccinations and flea meds etc per month. It may be that you can get the individual components cheaper but if you would get them all anyway it’s usually a fairly good deal. However, your car wouldn’t be covered for any accidents or other health conditions - that’s what you get the insurance for.

Car = cat!

You’ll want general insurance, not the vet plan. That’s only for routine check ups, and is just a payment plan.

My cat developed several health problems about 6 months after I decided to cancel the insurance. It’s cost me thousands and she can’t be insured now!

This would be a health care plan, something you have as well as insurance not instead of it. That plan won't pay out thousands if one of the kittens breaks a leg, swallowed something, gets hit by a car or develops an illness.
They absolutely need annual vaccinations, neutering and microchipping but it's up to you whether you use a health plan to spread the cost of just pay upfront.
I paid upfront and did the Vacc4Life scheme with Vets4Pets (one off fee of £99, never pay for the vaccinations again, works out very well for me).
I also insure both cats and the dog (the dogs insurer has paid almost £9,000 for his treatment in the last year...).

My cat is 15 we had insurance until she was about 5 and it kept going up even though we hadn't claimed. We decided not to continue and we've only taken her to the vets twice once to be spayed and once when she had a urine infection.

I've got insurance for Haribo even though I have a healthy bank balance through years of saving. I'd hate for that to be wiped out in vet fees even though I love him I'd rather pay a small monthly amount. His insurance is cheaper than my car and house insurance.

Never insured any of our cats and I haven't regretted it (although we have had a couple of bills of doom in the last few years 🙀). We're still significantly better off overall.

Re vet plans - again I don't bother, we only flea treat in the summer and the mogs don't need a 6 monthly MOT, yearly is fine.

I don't think vet plans are worth it, but pet insurance definitely is. My 2 yr old moggie has just been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and heart failure after collapsing 2 weeks ago. The vet bill is already at around £1500 due to oxygen treatment and a heart scan and medication. Fortunately he has 'superior' insurance that costs nearly £9 per month, well worth it as we've only paid £99 so far and can claim up to £2000 annually. So please consider it if you can.

I’ve been lucky and never needed it. My mother on the other hand has spent thousands on her cats health.

Sodding was ill last summer - vomiting, lethargic, loss of appetite, drooling excessively. He went downhill over a bank holiday weekend. Out of hours vet, 2 nights’ hospitalisation for investigation and IV fluids, meds and follow-up post discharge came to around £750. Yes, vet insurance seems expensive but a single bout of something trivial like the above in a year easily offsets the cost. Ongoing treatment for a chronic condition could wipe you out. Vet treatment has got a lot more expensive since insurers entered the pet market. It’s not like when we were growing up.

We are now up to 6k-7k for our DCat, and counting.

I suspect that say 40 years ago the options for examinations and treatment were less, so more cats would have been pts before running up bills.