I am currently paying £28 per month to insure my dog and two cats, this will soon go up to about £42 when I hopefully get my new pup later in the year.  Im not sure whether to keep up with the insurance or put that money into a separate bank account, if I start now by the time I get the pup it will pay for his jabs ;)

Im in two minds about doing it because if something were to happen - like one of the cats getting run over, then this could cost thousands of pounds but the only illnesses that do occur I dont claim for because they usually cost under the excess.  If I didnt have insurance (I would still do 3rd party for the dogs) and something did go wrong and I didnt have enough money in the pet account I could always lay my hands on the money by means of a loan from the parents or credit card.  I just dont know what to do for the best, there are so many exclusions on insurance it doesnt seem worth it.

What do others think ?

Not sure what you mean by exclusions ? :) Any insurance is a gamble and if you can cover a large amount, with your number of animals, it may be worth self-insuring. I currently pay £40 per month for two dogs (I'm only 25 miles from London, so vets' bills are pricey here :(. If I had any more animals I probably wouldn't bother - there is a point at which it is just too expensive. The problem with animal insurance against say, electrical appliance insurance, is that it can be open ended (almost). If my cooker packs up, the most it is going to cost me is a new cooker. If my dog develops a life-long condition (particularly at a youngish age), then the total bill could be huge - several thousands a year. You just don't know when or if something is going to hit you. At least with insurance you know the maximum that you are likely to have to pay - without insurance you don't. Tara has had problems with her paw this year. It should have been a relatively, cheap, minor thing. It developed into something much bigger and is still ongoing and likely to cost a lot more before it's better - it could go on for a long time yet.

Sometimes you just need to toss a coin to decide :)

Daisy

exclusions such as dental treatment, you can guarantee the only problems my animals will have is what is excluded :rolleyes:

The insurance will only pay out £6000 per illness over however long so I suppose if Fagan say had diabetes then the insurance would pay out for £6000 worth of treatment, then it would be up to me.  It really is a gamble isnt it :(

If you have lifelong insurance it would pay that amount out (or whatever - each company is different) each year. There is far more included than excluded :D

How I wish that we could predict the future - but if we could do that then we wouldn't need insurance would we ? :D :D

Daisy

I am going through the same dilemma at the moment - heres mine:

£40 a month for the dogs
£100 a month for the horses

Thats a total of about £1600 a year for insurance.

In 2 years the only claim I have had is for a £400 punctured sole for one of the horses that I had to pay the first £100 out of anyway!

I pay £46 a month for 3 dogs and this year alone I am very glad that I have insurance cover.  All three have needed treatment and one has two on going for life conditions that will cost quite a bit over the year.

Sue

You can do a straightforward calculation.  If you pay £40 a month, at the end of 1 year you will have £480. Frankly that much wouldnt cover most operations. If your pet gets ill before the year is up, could you pay? What if the bills exceeded your savings? In recent years I have had to claim far more from my insurance than I have paid in premiums......I am sooooooo glad I chose to pay premiums

At the moment my insurance has paid off but I still wouldn't be without it. While some say put money aside in a savings account but some of us don't have that luxury (especially when am strapped for cash big time so any savings would've been raided by now and at least an insurance policy pays out more than savings do if needed--one pup cost nearly 3000 from the age of 5 months so insurance was much needed at the time especially as it occurred around Christmas time). Of course I have a policy for life insurance for 2 cats/2 cockers.

Its really a judgement call re insurance. With me I know there's no spare cash available even on credit cards so the insurance route is the best for me even though if I don't claim the money's gone so I have to take that gamble.

Only my opinion, but I think insurance is worth it.  I'm lucky in that I can either do most treatment myself or get it free, but my old cat is having complementary therapy which has run into thousands, so I have come out on top there.

Of course, the majority of people who insure their animals will pay out more than they claim, otherwise the insurance companies wouldn't bother, but I would strongly recommend it, especially for breeds prone to health problems or for people who live in areas with high vet's fees.

Putting the money aside into a separate account is a great idea, but sadly I know that I wouldn't have the self-restraint to keep it there - after a year I'd spend it on a holiday!  I do my insurance by direct debit, then I don't really notice it coming out.

Incidentally, dental problems can sometimes be claimed on insurance.  Routine dentals are almost always excluded, but if there is a broken tooth, an abscess, stomatitis, gingivitis, etc, then it's worth putting in a claim as some companies will pay out for these.

I have decided to keep my insurance, after reading some of the health problems on there which people have had with their dogs I think it would be daft to get rid of it :)

For me I never want to be in the situation of having to make that economic decision nor am I willing to put myself in that position.  I have two cats and two dogs, both insured at about £50 per month.  A previous cat wasnt insured and got ran over deliberately.  Broken hips, ripped deuodenum (?) etc etc.  Cost me approximately £500 ten years ago and I had to pay it off month by month as I just didnt have the money.  I never want to do that again and have had insurance since that date. 

Claire

<<Cost me approximately £500 ten years ago >>

Yet with the average insurance of around (over now!) £100 per year you have paid £1000 since that time! Insurance companies are in business to make money not to do dog owners favours and as such, over the longer term you are going to pay far more than you will ever get back. I by far prefer a dedicated bank account.

Regards, John

Whilst I agree that that can work for some people, it does have it's drawbacks :) What happens for the person whose puppy/young dog develops something early on in life - they wouldn't have saved enough. Friends of mine had to have both knees 'done' (don't know the exact nature of the op) on their Golden Retriever. They just would not have been able to afford either of the ops (they have three school age children to support ) without their insurance and when the insurance company threatened not to pay for the second op, they, truthfully, had to tell the insurance company that without the op they would have to have the dog put to sleep - so bad was her condition.

Daisy

I cancelled my pet insurances and set up a standing order with my vet,  Also a standing order to vets pays for everything including vacs worming etc. Sometimes I am in credit, sometimes not, but everything is covered and no excess to pay. Megans medication for Myastinia Gravis cost me around £400 per year, she was diagnosed at 18 months and lived till she was 9 (prognosis was 3 years) if I had been paying insurance for her and my other dogs my insurance bill would have been £720 per year. My vets bill at the moment is in excess of £700.00 mainly due to Emma's Pyometra and mum having her pups, vets home visits and scans etc. but insurance does not cover this anyway, so why pay double. One of my dogs has arthritis, but the vets treatment and medication is cheaper than the cost of her insurance. At some point in the future she may have to have an operation but by paying the vets fees by standing order I know that at some point the finances will be there to cover this. This was a personal choice and I would not say that everyone should do this but it is an option.

I have 3 CKCS and pay £29.97 per month in insurance. Nomatter what I would never cancel my policy just incase. I would rather lose £360 per year in insurance payments that face a massive vet bill of hundreds or thousands if any of my dogs require treatment.