Cat Insurance

MrBump

My cat died at the end of last year. She'd been with us for nearly 20 years, led a charmed life and was well looked after. 

She left a massive hole in my life that I've been reluctant to fill, despite my kids wanting another cat.

Anyhoo - I'm starting to come around to the idea.

I didn't take out pet insurance for Kook; she had half yearly vet checkups all her life, flea and worm treatment never fell behind. We were lucky with her as she was a lazy little shit, and was never one to wander.

Is it irresponsible not to insure a new cat?  I've heard horror stories of insurance being barely worth the paper it's written on. 

stickyfiddle

I don’t think not insuring is inherently irresponsible, provided you have funds to pay bills as they come up. 

We we just set aside some money every month as an equivalent to paying insurance and that helps ensure we know we can cover costs

fields5069

I think insurance is fairly good for pets in general. Certainly when one of our cats got FIP, all fees were covered, I think except for the putting to sleep. I guess we were expected to watch him suffer in agony for the sake of £50, which was a bit odd, but they paid the rest although it was in the hundreds of pounds, not thousands.

The real dilemma is what happens when they get a tumour - time to say bye-bye or pay thousands for treatment?

Blaendulais

My 16 year old became unwell for about 6 months before she died the insurance was well worth it the bills were 3k

p90fool

One of ours got hit by a car and we had to have her put back together for 500 quid. 

We've had insurance ever since and have claimed on it twice with no issues.

Also, I think these days vets cost their services based on the assumption you have insurance, I can't imagine they'd have tried to charge me £250 for an examination and four tablets otherwise. 

Cols

Essentially you’re having a bet with your insurance company that your cat is going to need expensive treatment at some point during its life.

We weighed up with all of our pets whether it was worth taking out insurance and arrived at the conclusion that it would be better to set aside money into savings every month to play for any vet bills arising.  Our dog needed several joint operations, an custom orthotic for her leg and daily expensive anti-inflammatories for half her life.  Looking at the lifetime costs, insurance would have been more expensive.

On the other hand, if she’d needed one of the complex treatments described above costing thousands of pounds insurance would’ve been cheaper.  I do wonder whether vets tend to take a more robust approach to treatment in cases where the pet is fully insured.

Kittyfrisk

I think the responses from @stickyfiddle & @fields5069 cover the only solutions.
Not having access to adequate funds will cause suffering to you, your family & your pet.

About ten years ago I had two lovely moggies (sisters) both aged 9 & was stroking them one day, when I noticed that one of them had a tiny, hard lump between her shoulder blades.
Didn't think much of it at the time but mentioned it at the next vet visit.
Cue concerns & a requirement for an MRI scan (no CAT scan gags). The MRI cost £2,000 alone! but was the only way to be sure. Turns out she had an inoperable fibrosarcoma, a nasty, tough, aggressive cancer. The insurance actually covered the scan cost & the pain relief, but eventually as fields5069 notes, not the euthanasia costs...
Not a happy time, particularly as it turns out that the vaccine given to protect them from cat flu etc. is highly suspected to cause these issues ( look up 'feline vaccine associated fibrosarcoma').

So my advice is, plan for the worst, hope for the best & enjoy your lovely pets.

Cirrus

We had one that had a bad infection. And of course, she became listless on a Saturday evening, so we had to pay for an emergency vet, who did tests, kept her overnight & transferred her to our local vet on the Monday morning. All in all it was about £1500 and the insurance covered it all. 

Same story a couple of years later when another one came in dripping blood from a massive gash in her leg.

Definitely worth it.

Snags

It's like all insurance - you insure for risks that you can't afford to take on the chin from available funds (or are legally obliged to).

We had two moggies years ago, and I explicitly said "I'm not insuring them. Minor stuff we'll cover, and by the time they're old and may need big stuff, the money we've saved will pay for it. If they get hit by cars, chances are they'll die."

So, of course, one of them got hit by a car, survived, but then had a long period of overnight stays at the vet, x-rays, surgery, investigation, trips to the Royal Veterinary College (where they check your credit card before they see the animal!), and ultimately an amputation.

There was fuck all in the toy budget that year, and the year following, I can tell you.

After that, they were both insured. Which was just as well, as the silly bugger got hit again, and survived, but with a similar drawn-out and expensive recovery process.

Do check the terms of your insurance though. Schemes like Pet Plan seem expensive, but they will just pony up without argument, and will cover long-term issues. The cheapo ones like Direct Line are fine for one-off issues, but tend not to cover long-term treatments, or a second instance of an earlier issue etc.

fields5069

Someone I know has dog insurance but obviously didn't get a good enough policy. His dog recently tore some ligaments and the bill was £4k, of which the policy covered £750.

ArchtopDave

If you're going to get another cat insured, make sure you get a "covered for life" policy. As @Snags and @fields5069 note cheaper policies are often quite limited in what they cover. My newest cat, which I bought earlier this year has a Pet Plan "covered for life" Policy, and a health policy from my vets which covers the cost of his vaccinations, flea and tick treatment, worming treatment, and twice yearly vet checks and nail trims. Whether he really needs that final item is open to doubt as he's allowed outdoors for as long as he likes now.

Electro_Ham

Just make an account solely to put a sum of money into every month that you'd use if required for the cat. £20 or so?
That's a guaranteed sum. If the cat requires it, it's there. If the cat does not require it, it's yours. 

fields5069

Cat requires £5k of treatment in the first year. You're over £4k short.

Electro_Ham

fields5069 said:

Cat requires £5k of treatment in the first year. You're over £4k short.

Is this a tiger you speak of? What cat requires £5k treatment in first year? 

fields5069

There are no rules to pets, generally. A very serious illness and/or injury requiring lengthy treatment.

It's like asking - what can go wrong with a baby in the first year?

EricTheWeary

I did have cat insurance but being paid in whiskas when someone bumped my car wasn't much help. 


I've looked at pet insurance policies in the past and they've been a bit crap, quite low pay out limits on cheaper policies so they haven't been worth having. As animals get older you tend not to be able to take out a policy on them so once you've prevaricated for a few years the decision is taken out of your hands. 
Just shop carefully really. 

Electro_Ham

fields5069 said:

There are no rules to pets, generally. A very serious illness and/or injury requiring lengthy treatment.

It's like asking - what can go wrong with a baby in the first year?

It's not really comparable. We've the NHS for babies. The op's question was asking advice on taking out cat insurance. You gave an example of something that statistically, isn't all that likely to happen. A £5k vet bill for a cat in it's first year is very, very, very unlikely.

fields5069

Yes, correct. It's very unlikely. It's a wager, essentially. Which can and does go wrong.

fields5069

And we have the NHS for babies, at the moment.

Snags

Electro_Ham said:

fields5069 said:

There are no rules to pets, generally. A very serious illness and/or injury requiring lengthy treatment.

It's like asking - what can go wrong with a baby in the first year?

It's not really comparable. We've the NHS for babies. The op's question was asking advice on taking out cat insurance. You gave an example of something that statistically, isn't all that likely to happen. A £5k vet bill for a cat in it's first year is very, very, very unlikely.

Indy was 2 when he had his first car accident.

By the time the dust settled I think we'd hit about £3.5k and that would have been around about 2002, so heaven knows what it would be these days.

He was 4 when he had his second one, by which time he was insured.

It is statistically unlikely, but it can happen. If you can afford £15 a month but you can't afford £3-£5k out of the blue (bearing in mind that it's a death of a thousand cuts - a few hundred for the immediate care, then drugs, then more investigations, then more surgery, more drugs etc. etc. so you don't know up front that it's going to get that expensive otherwise you might just scrag the bugger) then it makes sense.

With our dog I reckon we made a profit out of Pet Plan for the first two years, and broke even in the third. They're winning again at the moment, for which I'm actually grateful because it means I'm not living at the vets.

Electro_Ham

Another couple of options might be to pay up any bill in installments, or find a company that will give credit to be paid up in instalments. It'll depend on the op's circumstances though.