Pet insurance

[The Family Cyclist]

Can anyone help with a ball park figure for a greyhound. We are looking to rehome one and just want to know roughly what the insurance will cost.  Likely to be around 3 years old when we get it

[andytheflyer]

Our young lab was quoted at £45/month.

We declined.  For now.

[T42]

Our Labradors started out at around 50€/head/month. They're 10 now and that's risen to 60€ - 80€/month - the one's on permanent thyroxin, which would cost us around 350€ every three months or so otherwise.  The other just had a urinary problem: meds cost 116€, whereof insurance covered 92€.

[Mrs Pingu]

Some food for thought in this old thread here
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=75747.0

[Davef]

About £40 a month. Hopefully you will never make a claim. Bills can get very high very quickly if surgery is required.


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[Regulator]

My vet recommended getting a PetPlan ‘whole life’ policy for Jack (a Jack Russell, now 9 years old) with a £4K annual limit (plus £1k ancillaries) and £150 excess.  It costs about £420 p/a (£35 p/m).  I’ve been paying it for 8 years and in that time we’ve had about £9k paid out for three lots of major surgery. So in my book it’s been a good deal.

And PetPlan are very easy to deal with. 

[ian]

Cats seem much the same (I think our two, now getting towards their senior years) are somewhere north of £60 a month for the pair – I think there's a discount for insuring them both and long-term custom (they're with M&S branded whatever, never had an issue with payout, I think there's a £50 excess). I'd self-insure, but the lady of the house has a divergent opinion and likes to insure everything. If you don't have the money immediately to hand to meet a vet's bill you really need it, bills are never small and can snowball quickly. Chronic conditions, especially in their senior years, are very expensive and it's too late to insure once they've shown up.

[MikeFromLFE]

Cats seem much the same (I think our two, now getting towards their senior years) are somewhere north of £60 a month for the pair – I think there's a discount for insuring them both and long-term custom (they're with M&S branded whatever, never had an issue with payout, I think there's a £50 excess). I'd self-insure, but the lady of the house has a divergent opinion and likes to insure everything. If you don't have the money immediately to hand to meet a vet's bill you really need it, bills are never small and can snowball quickly. Chronic conditions, especially in their senior years, are very expensive and it's too late to insure once they've shown up.

Same in our house with our cat.
He was a 'difficult to home' rescue cat due to alleged hip problems (that have never caused any issues at all) but as he had been fully looked over by the rescue place it wasn't a problem to insure him with Animal Freinds - I think we pay about £30 a month. What they didn't find before we had him was his allergy to fish & fish products - yes, really! We have a cat that's allergic to fish! His sojourn sedated and on a drip when we/they discovered that has more than paid for the insurance premiums.
 Animal Friends are very easy to deal with, and now the vet does all the paperwork electronically, we just supply the policy details.

[Redlight]

My vet recommended getting a PetPlan ‘whole life’ policy for Jack (a Jack Russell, now 9 years old) with a £4K annual limit (plus £1k ancillaries) and £150 excess.  It costs about £420 p/a (£35 p/m).  I’ve been paying it for 8 years and in that time we’ve had about £9k paid out for three lots of major surgery. So in my book it’s been a good deal.

And PetPlan are very easy to deal with.

Interesting. We've had our two cats for about 6 years now and their Pet Plan insurance has just come up for renewal. Fortunately, I've never had to make a claim but I'm aware of how quickly vets' bills can mount up so I'd never considering not having cover.

However, I've been shocked at the amount by which the premium has risen, by just under 20% to over £1200.  Have vets' bills risen that much recently?  Could they be assuming that now the cats are older they are more likely to get sick and hiked the premium accordingly?  Or are they just taking advantage of the fact that I'm an existing customer?

[ian]

Premiums climb quickly with age, especially post-7 years, the actuaries having done the math I presume on chronic conditions.

It's similar for dogs, but even in the early 80s, the average age for domestic cats to die was 7-8 years. Thirty years later it's 15 years. A combination of neutering being routine, more indoor animals, and expectation of better veterinary care. I'm pretty sure when my grandparent's cat got sick, they didn't rush it off to the vet like ours. Certainly, they wouldn't have spent a fortune on chronic conditions.

[Redlight]

I'm pretty sure when my grandparent's cat got sick, they didn't rush it off to the vet like ours. Certainly, they wouldn't have spent a fortune on chronic conditions.

Indeed. As someone said, at that price it would be cheaper to get a new cat