Cat costing £80 a month

[Reluctantadult]

Just worked this out. Diabetic dcat is costing something in the region of £80 a month... And that's when everything is on the straight and narrow! Just sharing for a moan really. Nothing I can do about it.

This is the cost of 6 monthly check ups with monitoring (freestyle libre sensor) or fructosamine blood test), insulin, needles, disposal bin, special food.

I'm assume you have insurance on top? That's been the killer for us.

We have a 6 year old BSH with a heart murmur. She's had two scans in her life and both times her heart was fine. She costs us £58 a month to insure.
We also have an almost 2 month old Maine coon. No health problems at all, never made a claim. He costs us £45 to insure.

I'd give the insurance up but it was invaluable for another of our cats who had a broken leg that cost £3k in her first year and £12k worth of treatment for a heart condition in her final year and a half.

No we've stopped the insurance now. It wouldn't cover any of this. He's 15 now so we've decided that if he has an accident like that we wouldn't put him through an op.

Would you consider setting the insurance money aside into a saving account instead? @PleaseJustText

We debated saving the money instead of insuring but it was a real weight off our mind when we did need to claim. Our cat with the heart condition is tied into her insurers because everyone else would exclude heart issues from the policy, Our Maine Coon can still go from insurer to insurer depending on the cheapest because we haven't made any claims.

I almost stopped insuring one of my Persians, when the premium went up to £167 a month. Tesco were fab and kept it at £137, which was the previous quote. I increased the excess and reduced it to £118. Thank goodness I did, as madam had a eye ulcer and it's so far cost £1000!
Taking our grand total of claims up to £23k

It’s life with pets. They’re worth it though.

It’s tough. I freaked out when my elderly boy’s insurance went up to £136 a month at the start of the year, but he’s just gone in for radiation therapy that would have cost thousands. He’s nearly 16 and this is a lifesaving treatment though, I’m not sure what I’ll do re insurance next year as I wouldn’t put him through any operations, and this treatment should mean his thyroid will be controlled for life. I might start putting the money in a separate savings account instead.

I just want to pass on thoughts a friend had regarding pet insurance. He believed that if a pet had insurance it would encourage vets to carry out unnecessary procedures that would distress the animal and had little benefit.

From my own experience, I once took my then insured cat (sadly ORB) to an emergency vet one weekend for bad diarrhoea. The vet also discovered a heart murmur and on learning she was insured recommended she was transported to a cardiac specialist for further investigation. I declined. The heart murmur never caused any issues and she lived until she was 18 years old.

@Reluctantadult sending sympathy

I about broke even on insurance vs treatment for the diabetic cat

@Reluctantadult
It is possible to get a private prescription from your vet to buy drugs online, which we have found is considerably cheaper than getting them from the vet if that helps.

Thank you! The vets told me that yesterday. Then told me there's a £30 charge for the prescription that wipes out the saving on the insulin.

You can have repeats on the prescription - for as long as the vet would dispense it without seeing your pet again. I wouldn’t use it for insulin as it’s a fridge product and needs gentle handling. I doubt DHL etc would be able to treat it with respect.

@Reluctantadult bugger ! It saves a lot for us even with the cost of the prescription

it was just a thought as no one else I know with a pet has known about this when I've mentioned it

Ooh good tip! I recently ‘inherited’ an elderly, uninsured and uninsurable cat with health issues, hopefully this will save some money.

I used to have a diabetic cat, Ive never had insurance for any of our pets. I just paid it as part of the monthly outgoings for the household and would do again.

I nearly cancelled Harry's insurance but thankfully I didn't as his medication for heart failure and arthritis comes to around £1700 a year, average £140 a month! We have to pay £125 and 20% of each claim but it's a lot easier to cope with the smaller amounts! That's without the Ipakitine for his kidneys and the YuMove for his joints.

@MotherOfPuffling

Ours is also an 'inherited' older cat 😂
We get 6 months worth of drugs on one prescription , cat then has 6 monthly checks
saves quite a lot for us