Is pet insurance really worth it?

[RaspberryBeret1999]

I have two cats, insured since I have had them. I pay approx £90 per month for their insurance, plus I have pet health plan with my vet at £44 per month, so £1600pa in total. I’m actually shocked now I’ve worked this out!

I am in the process of putting in a claim for dental work for my older cat for £700. Looking through my documents, I’ve noticed as he’s over 10 years old, I have an excess of £115 plus 20% of the bill, so I’ll be lucky if I get back £500.

It’s really not worth it, is it?

I am thinking of not renewing and just putting away some money each month, just in case.

After 10, no, it's not. Put the money in an ear marked pot for vet bills.
Pre 10 it absolutely is.

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I’m just now realising this. I didn’t know they put a hefty percentage on your excess. That’ll learn me to just blindly renew!

It was with my cats. I paid way less in than insurance ended up paying out for them. I wouldn’t be without it. The stress of a huge vet bill will awful.

Our family dog developed a really rare cancer in her older years. She went to a vet hospital and the fees were over £15k. My parents didn’t have pet insurance so it was payable. She was part of the family so it was no question that they would find the money. I think they had to pay it off over a number of years.
It is never worth it until you need it. Trouble is you will never know if you need it.

It’s hard to know whether it’s worth it or not until something happens. My cat had to have a leg amputated when she was hit by a car. The insurance covered £2000 of it. I’d only just take out the policy and paid one months premium so it was the best £5 I’d ever spent! Based on this I’d never be without one again.

sorry to hear about your family dog. 😢

the policy is insured for the first £4000 per year, so anything above that is up to us to settle.

Is it worth shopping around? I’m with petplan at the moment.

Our last lovely girl got intestinal lymphoma aged ten, and we racked up over £3k of bills in the space of a week to find that out. I’m so glad we were insured, despite the story having a sad ending. I had a policy in place for our boy before he’d even come through the door, which covers up to £10k. (Annoyingly doesn’t cover dental though and we paid about £700 for him to have two canines extracted in the summer!)

That seems ludicrously expensive. Both my cats are over 10, one has had multiple operations, and ours is half that.

Yes. I've just been looking and some of the quotes are double the cost of the others.

Mine is £16 a month and he's an old boy.

The answer depends on how much you are prepared to spend on a pet.

I prefer to put money aside in a savings account.

Shop around we have 20k of cover for just over £20 per month with agria pet with about £95 excess and 10% of the remainder to pay although my cat is younger. We also get a voucher for up to £100 to claim for a consultation/vaccines.

One of our cats got hit by a car when she was 1 and nearly lost a leg and her tail. Luckily she's made a full recovery but it racked up a bill of nearly £7000 - all covered by insurance. I'll be forever grateful that we went for the option that we thought was a little excessive!

It is for me
Finlay who sadly died aged 3 had nearly £15000 of vet bills due to accidents and illness
New kitty Fergus has platinum level cover from hours after we adopted him
Hoping never to need it!

Pet insurance comes down to risk appetite.
We have never had pet insurance (it didn't exist when we first had cats). We've had a few expensive bills but overall in forty years of cat ownership we are still quids in. We also do have savings to cover most eventualities.
I do however have three issues with the insurance model for pets.
Firstly, the availability of insurance has meant that many vets now see treatment as a cash cow and sometimes recommend completely unnecessary investigations or treatments. At one point Basil developed a limp and a locum vet at our practice suggested it could be bone cancer and said he needed just under £1000 of tests to confirm. I went to a different practice for a second opinion who said there was absolutely no reason to suspect bone cancer and put him on anti-inflamatories for a couple of weeks for about £40 which sorted his limp completely.
Secondly, vet prices have gone up well above inflation but they don't care because 'insurance'.
Thirdly, and most importantly, some vets recommend expensive treatment which is not to the benefit of the animal but just panders to the owners. Just because you can treat something doesn't always mean you should. As an example fitting three bionic limbs to a tortoise (that died 2 months later) really was a fucking stupid decision even though the vet involved was cleared of malpractice over it.
Sometimes it's time to let go of a pet - unfortunately the promise of more insurance cash means some vets may confuse the greater good for the pet with the greater good of their private equity owner's bank balance.
Fundamentally the availability of large amounts of insurance cash has created a conflict of interest for vets. Many behave in a completely ethical manner. Some don't.

My cat is 15, I've had him since he was 2 yrs old. I've always paid insurance for him. At 15 it went to £35pm, but I'd never once needed to make a claim until this year. In the past year he's needed 2 scans and other tests for vomiting and blood in his urine, each claim has reached around the £2k mark, of which I've paid 20% excess. I'd have been stuffed if I'd needed to pay the whole lot myself, as i doubt I'd have had the ability to save a fund for him over the 13 years he's been with me. I would have dipped into it. He has IBD which we're managing with diet. Ths tests confirmed that he's not diabetic and no signs of cancer, and that peace of mind is worth it. I'm glad I kept up with the insurance, even though it might be sky high at renewal time.

Cat tax below.

This advice makes no sense. Your vets bills are far more likely to exceed your premiums with an older cat. We pay in far less than we get back at this point.

OP, my cat developed arthritis when he was 11. He needs monthly injections and daily tablets. He has a very happy life outside of this. Our premiums, excess and 20% co-pay due to his age still add up to less than PetPlan pays out for us each year for this.

I also remember the time years ago another cat attacked our cat and he needed emergency treatment, our usual vet had no capacity and we had to go to a different vet that charged some ridiculous extra fees because we weren’t already registered there. I remember calling PetPlan asking if they would cover it all (minus the lower excess we had at the time) and they were so kind and reassuring and covered all of it no problem.

If you have PetPlan Covered for Life then you would be completely insane to change insurer as they won’t cover anything pre-existing whereas PetPlan will keep covering each condition for as long as needed.

No. I’m a first time cat owner and I’m livid at Petplan. Got may cat at 9yrs old and it was like £20 a month, they’ve upped it significantly each year and now it’s £65 a month - despite the fact I have NEVER used it. I feel like they tricked me as now she’s too old for me to go elsewhere. Don’t get with Petplan whatever you do.

Cat arthritis jabs are just a money making endeavour that lowers the cat’s standard of life if they don’t enjoy being hoiked to a vet in a carrier to be jabbed with a sharp implement once a month. Pretty traumatic for them.

I wasn’t actually looking for opinions. My cat doesn’t mind going to the vet as he loves everyone, including the vet. He has an incredibly happy life the rest of the time. This was nasty and uncalled for.

And your vetinary qualifications are..?

Who do you have that insurance with as my 14yr old cat’s plan is £65 a month with Petplan. Every year they hike it without fail. I’ve never claimed

Eh? Nasty? It’s pretty well known that they’re a scam for those with insurance. It’s not a revelation!