Does anyone else pay pet insurance?

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Does anyone else pay pet insurance?
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marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Sun May 07, 06 8:01 am Post subject:

I've got my cat insured with Sainsbury's which is about £82 a year. Worth it for peace of mind. I couldn't afford a big bill and would hate to have to have her put down is she got run over or fox-mauled (an acquaintance was charged over £800 for emergency treatment for a cat that had been attacked by a fox).

It's a feature of the times we live in though - when I was a child most people wouldn't have thought twice about having an injured cat put down (or even just wringing it's neck themself "to put it out of it's misery"). It was just part of life's hard cheese, get over it, get another. Small animal veterinary was a luxury - now it's expected, affordable and we are able to be (and expected to be) more tenderhearted.

Unfortunately the availability of relatively cheap services also leads to ludicrous expenditure and prolonging of suffering animals lives, because we can't deal with loss and death. No easy answers.

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Sun May 07, 06 7:48 pm Post subject:

hedgewitch wrote:

I've never had it before, but when we got a saluki x greyhound and saw him run, we thought we'd better get some cover

not the "oh my god he is about to step into a hole and break a leg" type of thing?

i think sight hounds see where they want to get to but don't take into account the obstacles in between..........

so what if the laundry pole is in the way?

who cares if he takes his turning circle a bit tight....

all that matters is the finishing line if you are a greyhound

i'm there hedgewitch, i'm there..............

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Sun May 07, 06 8:30 pm Post subject:
or the fences your owner has erected to keep you out of the flowerbeds.... (they're not even greyhounds!) only thing which keeps the buggers out is the watering system, cos it makes a hissing noise, and occasionally squirts them, and as its banned this year, I do not anticipate many vegetables! Harumph!

hedgewitch

Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Posts: 5834
Location: Daft wench GHQ

Posted: Sun May 07, 06 9:28 pm Post subject:

Nanny wrote:

hedgewitch wrote:

I've never had it before, but when we got a saluki x greyhound and saw him run, we thought we'd better get some cover

To be fair, he's a very clever runner... but they do make you see the world on a different scale... took then both on a new walk this morning. There's a river of a reasonable size, which I'd assumed would be an obsticle (hadn't really thought about, just registered it subliminally), and the saluki x was over it in 2 bounds

It was a safe place.... but I had to re-assess my landscape pretty quickly

Fortunately, he has good recall....

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Mon May 08, 06 7:28 pm Post subject:

Quote:

It was a safe place.... but I had to re-assess my landscape pretty quickly

Fortunately, he has good recall....

to be fair merlin is nobody's fool, he is actually very bright and to watch him and lucy work a field together as a team is something...

the one thing though that neither of them will cross is nettles

the only boundary in our garden on the ditch side is 2 rows of thin wire but they won't go through it because the other side is covered in nettles....if his toy goes in the nettles he won't go after it, just stands and barks at it till somebody gets it out for him

plant you boundary with nettles and your dog will never leave the garden

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon May 08, 06 8:20 pm Post subject:

Somehow, I can see that going very worng in the veg patch, although I guess we won't be short of nettle soup!

Don't think it would work with collies though - having spent the evening brushing them (we do this about twice a year, and I often do it at nesting time, so the birds are warm!) they are so furry, a few nettles aren't going to get a look in. guess greyhounds don't have quite the same defences though!

hedgewitch

Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Posts: 5834
Location: Daft wench GHQ

Posted: Mon May 08, 06 8:29 pm Post subject:

Quote:

plant you boundary with nettles and your dog will never leave the garden

Maybe this works best with the smooth-haired long dogs? It would definately work with both mine, but my old border terrier was never deterred by nettles... but then he was never deterred by anything

glenwine

Joined: 09 Jul 2005
Posts: 37

Posted: Tue May 09, 06 7:58 am Post subject:

My 13year old dog is half Yorkshire terrier and half something else, and we call him a scouser because he came from Liverpool. This breed like all other mixtures shows great hybrid vigour and has therefore been very fit and well. We have the annual vets bill for a check-up and there have been one or 2 accidents along the way (eg stick stuck in throat/ broken glass in foot), but nothing horrendously expensive- unlike my sister who keeps King Charles Cavaliers- lovely but terribly inbred and liable to all sorts of problems ( she definitely has insurance and needs it). We have never insured him and probably would not now he is getting older. Although we love him dearly we would be prepared to let nature take its course if something cropped up that was not reasonable to pay for or would have him put down humanely. He is certainly not getting cosmetic surgery for the non malignant wart on his back! Likewise i dont insure the dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, oven etc as separate items because a few years ago I realised that the total sum of insuring them all for one year was the replacement cost of one item, and surely not more than one will pack up on me per year! (Have i just tempted fate by writing all this, Oh Dear!)

fenwoman

Joined: 12 Dec 2005
Posts: 509
Location: Tydd St giles

Posted: Thu May 11, 06 8:51 pm Post subject: Re: Does anyone else pay pet insurance?

Mary-Jane wrote:

I was checking over our direct debits recently and realised with some horror that we're currently paying just over £40 per month in pet insurance for our 4 cats and 1 dog. Given that they're mainly on the young side (dog is barely out of puppyhood, 2 of the cats are around 18 months old and the other two are about 5-ish) I wondered whether anyone else thought that a) this was an awful lot of money to be paying; and/or b) thought we should/n't really bother; and/or c) had any other ideas.

Our pet insurance provider is Pet Plan who seem to be acknowledged to be about the best around. Our house and smallholding is insured with NFU Mutual, but they don't 'do' pets - only livestock.

Any thoughts or advice on this lovely sunny Friday?

Since you have to pay the first £50 or so of every vet visit and you cannot claim for innoculations, spaying and if the bill is less than £50, I would not bother. Put the £40 a month into a savings account to be used if and when any of them needs a vet visit. Unless the dog breed happens to be one with health problems like German shepherds and the like.
I have a lot of dogs and cats and don't have insurance. Even if I only had one or two, I would still not bother because I think it is a rip off and insurance is the cause of vet bills going sky high. If they know an unwell dog is insured, they start getting blood tests, exploratory surgery and the like. I heard recently of a Weimaraner having £1500 of veterinary treatment including skin biopsy allergy testing, blood tests. JKnow what was wrong with it?...........................It had a flea allergy!

I have a dog with a flea allergy. When I took her to the vet initially, the vet said "it looks like a flea allergy. Here is some frontline, use this and she'll be fine. If she's still scratching in a week, come back and we'll investigate further.But then, she wasn't insured.

Gervase

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 8655

Posted: Thu May 11, 06 9:03 pm Post subject: Re: Does anyone else pay pet insurance?

fenwoman wrote:

Put the £40 a month into a savings account to be used if and when any of them needs a vet visit.

What a bloody sensible idea!

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Fri May 12, 06 7:40 pm Post subject:

sorry chaps should have qualified what i said...

with our greyhounds, the nettle things work because their skin and fur are so thin, almost like moleskin so they don't much care for nettles, it definitely wouldn't work with longer hair......

whilst i also am a believer that nature should take it's course, if the animal needs stitches or teeth out or has been hit by a car or something, i like to think that i can get the job sorted without having to think about whether i can afford it or not....

and as i say, to date i have not had any problems with the insurance company paying out......

fenwoman

Joined: 12 Dec 2005
Posts: 509
Location: Tydd St giles

Posted: Fri May 12, 06 8:59 pm Post subject:

A lot of vets won't start treatment until you have paid them and you then have to claim the money back off the insurance. Which is all good and well, but if I take out insurance because I cannot afofrd big vet bills, how am I supposed to pay the vet bill to get treatment in the first place?
This happened some years ago when I had a brainstorm and had a dog insured. I had to find £300 which I didn't have. I had to borrow it in the end and pay my friend back when they paid up. But if my friend hadn't got a spare £300 what then?
Insurance companies scare people into buying insurance. Ask yourself honestly, have you in all your years keeping animals, had a massive bill? I have only once in 30 odd years of keeping a lot of animals. I currently have 12 cats 9 dog, 6 ferrets. I get lots of little bills up to £100 but the combined bills would not come anmywhere near what my monthly insurance fees would cost for them all.

sunnyside

Joined: 23 Oct 2005
Posts: 96

Posted: Sat May 13, 06 7:32 am Post subject:

lot to be said for insuring animals for first 2 years. thats when horrible heriditery problems like bad hips etc tend to reveal themselves and thats when they are prone to accidents through being over brave.
glad my dog was insured when I had her as a pup. her spay surgery left her incontinent. the opperations needed to fix her cost over £3000.
I do however think vets bills have gone up dramatically since pet insurance became more common.
none of my animals are insured now as the dog is uninsurable-too much wrong with her! and the cats well-I know whats wrong with the cats and barring accidents they are managable costs. plus sadly with cats if they have an accident it tends to be either very minor and affordable or fatal.

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Sat May 13, 06 8:55 am Post subject:
Fancy having to pay a vet for operations out sort out their cock up

poppyandpals

Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 10
Location: Kent

Posted: Sat May 13, 06 2:53 pm Post subject:

Well having had to pay £250 on xrays and £200+ on Hydrotherapy in one month im incredibly happy that we pay £30 for insurance on our dogs.
Mine are young active dogs and accidents happen, and even unexpected occurances like my 5yr old who is having treatment for hip problems

The fact is its all very well to put savings away every month (which is what we used to do) but if your dog causes an accident or bites someone you could end up paying an awful lot of money - more than a couple of £1000.

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