Pet insurance/the vets

[Causewaygal]

We don’t insure our cats and rabbits but we put the equivalent in a savings account if possible each month. They have a sizeable bank balance for a bunch of freeloaders with fur

 

[DCICassieStuart]

I posted this on another thread, but since this is about animal insurance .....

Our cat was a stray who was hanging around our house for about a month, so when she decided that she was moving in permanently I took her to the vet to check if in case she was chipped and to make sure that everything else was okay.
I didn't change my surname when I got married so on that first visit to the vet the cat was registered as Catname Mysurname.
A few days later my husband rang up about pet insurance and the insurance company told him that they didn't discuss it with him as he and the cat didn't have the same surname!
They told him that either I would need to ring back and speak to them or else he could double barrel the cat. He said that since I wouldn't double barrel my own name, he didn't think I was going to do it to the cat

So the cat has my surname

 

[ClockworkDolly]

First of all I would like to think I’m a responsible pet owner and I do currently have pet insurance for my dog. But after spending £600 in the last 4 weeks of him and not being able to claim any of it back on his insurance I’m wondering, is pet insurance worth it? My pet insurance is currently £40 per month, life time covers 6k per illness per year, £100 excess and doesn’t cover out of hours unless life threatening. Every time I need to go to the vet it’s either just under £100 so can’t claim, or it’s like tonight and an emergency and I’ve to go to out of hours and spend £400. Am I best just putting money aside every month into a dog savings ac rather then pay for insurance or is the insurance worth it should anything big and awful happen? I have now paid £1800 in insurance since I’ve had my dog and have never been able to claim on it due to their terms and conditions! What does everyone else do?

I tried pet insurance for a year when I had my 3 dogs, but soon realised what an absolute con it was. Too much small print to read, too little in the way of pay outs and far too much red tape.

So what I did instead was put money into a Dog Account each week/month and that paid for their vet bills. The money soon mounted up and back then, gaining a little interest too.

There are too many insurance companies out there willing to take our money off of our hands for the most trivial of things.

Insurance we need - car insurance (obvs), house insurance (buildings and contents) life assurance (to leave to loved ones, if you so choose).

In my opinion, all the rest of the insurances are a complete waste of money. Take the insurance they try and con you out of on white goods. Most white goods these days don’t last for more than 5 years anyway, so you would be better off just buying a new washing machine/dishwasher, etc! Sorry have gone off on a tangent!

 

[Itsallaboutmememe]

My son proudly insured his dog-£60 a month-all singing,all dancing insurance-all fine

i was on the phone to him when he saw/I heard the dog get hit by a car

the bloody insurance had only ran out 3 days earlier and he hadn’t seen the email!

£260 to have the dog checked over-he’s fine-turns out staffs bounce-he was just dazed with about 3 cuts to his head and elbow

son got his granddad to check over the policy and it all came out in the wash that he wouldn’t have been covered due to the time/dog wasn’t on a lead/son wasn’t paying 100% to him as he was on the phone to me with one eye on the dog rather than both eyes

(they where in a quiet area,not many cars go down it-he had let the dog go for a pee,the dog had ran under a bush,ignored my son whistling to come back and ran out in front of the (thank god,slow moving) car)

my sons cancelled the whole thing and just puts the dogs ‘pocket money’ in an account just for him ‘just in case’

 

[Hello Kitty]

Never thought about putting money into an account, rather than insurance - such a good idea!

 

[Gembo]

It may not make you feel any better, but the vets wouldn't have been able to discuss it with you without the owners permission.
It worries me a little that an animal that was so poorly it died would be discharged.
I imagine there is more to this, but try not to be too upset. To have died the animal must have been pretty poorly.
Take care, try not to be so hard on yourself. x

Thank you, that does help. I don’t think he should have been discharged but was because the owner could not afford the overnight charge. My heart is broken that he died because had I known more money was needed to enable him to stay overnight I would have paid. The vet did tell me that even if he had of stayed it could have gone either way but at least he would have had a chance. I’m struggling that I didn’t make that call and really trying to work on the fact it was not my pet so not solely my responsibility but it’s been very hard for me. But thank you I really appreciate your reply x

editing to add that sorry I don’t want to derail but please please do insure and/or save as best you can for any medical bills your pet could incur. Operations can run into the thousands and it can be very difficult if the money is not there.

 

[Crazycatlady18]

My uninsured cat had an accident and cost us £1500. We panicked and took out pet insurance for them, never claimed a penny as nothing happened to them since so we cancelled it years ago and put the money we would spend on insurance into savings. They can currently do about a grands worth of damage to themselves

 

[Sickofinstacrap]

Just an update, I did the claim with animal friends last week, and god the money back today, actually so easy I just called the vets they did it through something called pawtal and we got it back today, very easy actually I can’t complain at all! I thought it would be a night mare and hours of phone calls I’m with animal friends and my little bubs is much better now thank god

 

[Sickofinstacrap]

First of all I would like to think I’m a responsible pet owner and I do currently have pet insurance for my dog. But after spending £600 in the last 4 weeks of him and not being able to claim any of it back on his insurance I’m wondering, is pet insurance worth it? My pet insurance is currently £40 per month, life time covers 6k per illness per year, £100 excess and doesn’t cover out of hours unless life threatening. Every time I need to go to the vet it’s either just under £100 so can’t claim, or it’s like tonight and an emergency and I’ve to go to out of hours and spend £400. Am I best just putting money aside every month into a dog savings ac rather then pay for insurance or is the insurance worth it should anything big and awful happen? I have now paid £1800 in insurance since I’ve had my dog and have never been able to claim on it due to their terms and conditions! What does everyone else do?

 

[judgejohndeed]

We’re with John Lewis and they’ve been fab. It is a lot (we have several animals) but already it’s saved us masses. Every time I see a Go Fund Me for a £6k dog operation or something I’m grateful we have the insurance.

 

[Kandy floss]

Never had insurance on any of our dogs, but luckily in a very fortunate position that we would as a family be able to pay upfront for any treatment for our current dog! And would without a second thought, he’s our baby

 

[Gembo]

We had pet insurance with Argos for our cat and we actually won out of that, once they started paying for her I guess they couldn’t reasonably stop and we definitely got more than we paid in. Our vet was actually shocked and on the first occasion she had become really unwell and needed an op they advised us it was unlikely the insurance would pay out but it did. I definitely feel we got very lucky but that being said I feel like most insurance is just a scam and if I got a new pet I would take out insurance again but I think I would also save some money just in case.

 

[Sickofinstacrap]

Vet Nurse here
I'm a bit confused that your insurance doesn't cover out of hours treatment, that should really be up to your vet to decide if it's an emergency.
I assume you realise that if two visits of £90 each are for the same condition you can claim for them as £180?

I didn’t know that about the 2 visits for £90 as he has a sensitive stomach and can often get bad vomiting and diarhoea even with a restricted diet! It’s prob abit too late to claim for that but atleast I know for again! But yea the small print basically says out of hours if the vet agrees the treatment was potentially life threatening then I get the claim, if not - no claim! I’ve requested the claim through the vet today anyway and chance my arm! He was super sick in my eyes last night but I’m not a vet so I don’t know what they will say to insurance company! Thanks for your help

I posted this on another thread, but since this is about animal insurance .....

Our cat was a stray who was hanging around our house for about a month, so when she decided that she was moving in permanently I took her to the vet to check if in case she was chipped and to make sure that everything else was okay.
I didn't change my surname when I got married so on that first visit to the vet the cat was registered as Catname Mysurname.
A few days later my husband rang up about pet insurance and the insurance company told him that they didn't discuss it with him as he and the cat didn't have the same surname!
They told him that either I would need to ring back and speak to them or else he could double barrel the cat. He said that since I wouldn't double barrel my own name, he didn't think I was going to do it to the cat

So the cat has my surname

Looool my dog has my boyfriends surname. When he’s in trouble I say his full name. When he hears his surname he knows it’s not good! I need to get a life

 

[judgejohndeed]

Thank you, that does help. I don’t think he should have been discharged but was because the owner could not afford the overnight charge. My heart is broken that he died because had I known more money was needed to enable him to stay overnight I would have paid. The vet did tell me that even if he had of stayed it could have gone either way but at least he would have had a chance. I’m struggling that I didn’t make that call and really trying to work on the fact it was not my pet so not solely my responsibility but it’s been very hard for me. But thank you I really appreciate your reply x

editing to add that sorry I don’t want to derail but please please do insure and/or save as best you can for any medical bills your pet could incur. Operations can run into the thousands and it can be very difficult if the money is not there.

It's hard to comment without knowing the full story (totally appreciate why you're not telling it btw) but in my experience vets are quite forthright. I'm sure that if they thought being kept overnight was fundamental to the pet's survival they would have said so. The fact that your friend (?) was able to take the pet home to me means the vet presented this as a choice to them. Whenever I've had a pet have to stay overnight there's no kind of 'you could take them home and see but we think they should stay in' it's always been very much 'they need monitoring, we need to do X Y and Z'. Like I say without the facts it's difficult but I do wonder whether the vet knew really there was not much to be done even if the pet was kept in and so maybe thought it best for the pet to die at home rather than stay overnight and lose them anyway. Please don't feel responsible though, as someone else said they wouldn't have spoken to you about a pet that isn't yours, and I really think if the overnight stay was so important the vet would have facilitated it somehow

 

[Monkeybum]

I have insurance for my 2 cats they've Tesco, think I pay about £14 a month for both.

I was considering cancelling it a few years back and decided to renew one more year then decide. A few months later one of my cats broke her leg (assumed RTA but noone saw) and needed orthopaedic surgery. Her bill came to just over £3k and thankfully tescos covered it all except the £120 excess. So I'm a big advocate

 

[Taythomlau]

We have insurance with Animal Friends - they seem to be good. Did try to get out of paying once saying it was a pre existing condition when it clearly wasnt, but ended up paying in the end and have been finr since. We've had to use them about 6 times for our 3 year old lab so we've found it useful to be insured. Its about £36 a month premium policy which includes access to 24 hour virtual vets called Joii - amazing service!!

Hope that helps!

 

[Giggling Squid]

Soooooo I’m currently sat outside the emergency vet, as our kitten decided to eat the elastic from a toy really really hoping our insurance will cover it! Video vet said get her there ASAP and now i feel sick with worry about her. She was so distressed the poor little thing

 

[Barbie2020]

@Gembo please don’t be hard on yourself. You sound like a very caring person and would have done what you could but sadly it was out of your control. Hopefully he’s at peace now he’s passed.

 

[Giggling Squid]

Soooooo I’m currently sat outside the emergency vet, as our kitten decided to eat the elastic from a toy really really hoping our insurance will cover it! Video vet said get her there ASAP and now i feel sick with worry about her. She was so distressed the poor little thing

If you haven’t, get insurance. Quick follow up visit to the vet this morning has ended up with £3,500 of investigation and surgery


Not looking forward to next year’s renewal, I am so bloody happy we have insurance. Just keeping everything crossed that they agree to pay out

 

[Saddlesoap]

First of all I would like to think I’m a responsible pet owner and I do currently have pet insurance for my dog. But after spending £600 in the last 4 weeks of him and not being able to claim any of it back on his insurance I’m wondering, is pet insurance worth it? My pet insurance is currently £40 per month, life time covers 6k per illness per year, £100 excess and doesn’t cover out of hours unless life threatening. Every time I need to go to the vet it’s either just under £100 so can’t claim, or it’s like tonight and an emergency and I’ve to go to out of hours and spend £400. Am I best just putting money aside every month into a dog savings ac rather then pay for insurance or is the insurance worth it should anything big and awful happen? I have now paid £1800 in insurance since I’ve had my dog and have never been able to claim on it due to their terms and conditions! What does everyone else do?

Vet Nurse here
I'm a bit confused that your insurance doesn't cover out of hours treatment, that should really be up to your vet to decide if it's an emergency.
I assume you realise that if two visits of £90 each are for the same condition you can claim for them as £180?