Pet Insurance and the ever increasing costs

Vanquish-Storm said:
Hope it all goes well, that’s actually a cheap bet bill considering what’s gone on there!
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Should have updated earlier. Ember is now basically fully recovered :)

She's been a lot more "indoorsy", goes out into the garden to stretch her legs, does her business, sits on the fence for a couple of minutes and then comes straight back in. Maybe just because the weather has been a bit miserable recently, but previously she used to be outside for pretty much the whole day, and only come in in the evening.
 
Haggisman said:
Should have updated earlier. Ember is now basically fully recovered :)

She's been a lot more "indoorsy", goes out into the garden to stretch her legs, does her business, sits on the fence for a couple of minutes and then comes straight back in. Maybe just because the weather has been a bit miserable recently, but previously she used to be outside for pretty much the whole day, and only come in in the evening.
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Excellent news! Our cats are spending a little more time in due to the weather so I could be that like you say.
 
I really hate that it was ever became popular. It has massively increased the cost of going to the vet. I am not too sure it's good, either. Owners seem to commit to very expensive procedures that are somewhat questionable. I remember a cat of mine that fell ill. £1000 later the cat was on £40pcm medication for the remaining two years of her life. But she was never the same, and eventually died from the same thing, that just got worse and worse. When she died, I seriously asked - did I just do that for the cat or for me? I am afraid that answer was for me. I should have let her go right at the start.
I think for injuries, it's a different matter, but for serious illnesses, you really do have to consider that they don't have an obsession about living forever like we seem to.
 
Vanquish-Storm said:
It’s that time of year…. £102 a month for 2 cats. Great!
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That seems ridiculous, we're paying just over half that for 3 cats and a dog.

Are they pedigree/very old/have ongoing illness? Otherwise you need to shop around!

Good timing for the update though, our renewal is due next month and I think it's going to sting after our £3k claim last year :(

Ember is definitely not the same as she was before, a lot more cuddly and clingy, still isn't going out much, and she's very grumpy with the other animals
 
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Vanquish-Storm said:
It’s that time of year…. £102 a month for 2 cats. Great!
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Not a chance I'd be paying that.

I have my cat insured she is 2 and I'll probably cancel it after this year.

I figure with cats the biggest risk is getting hit by a car, and generally that happens when they are young or old.

Like @SpellowHouse 's post above, for illnesses what really are you achieving, other than costing a ton of money.

If you are minted and that money is pocket change then fine, by all means.
 
I dont have insurance for the cat that lives with us, she ocassionally needs to go to the vet for reasons that are her own fault; mostly getting in to fights but that's generally like a course of antibiotics and some stitches and one of those stupid collars. That's like a £100 here or there. When she gets old and develops health problems we'll euthanise her.
 
Haggisman said:
That seems ridiculous, we're paying just over half that for 3 cats and a dog.

Are they pedigree/very old/have ongoing illness? Otherwise you need to shop around!

Good timing for the update though, our renewal is due next month and I think it's going to sting after our £3k claim last year :(

Ember is definitely not the same as she was before, a lot more cuddly and clingy, still isn't going out much, and she's very grumpy with the other animals
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Nothing special about them, Moggies from Cats Protection. They are senior though but even so, we have seen the cost go from £20 a month for both of them to over £100 a month over several years from a company that doesnt rise prices with claims........ they must just rise them anyway. No on going illness but 1 of them has bionic back legs from being a kitten.

BUDFORCE said:
Not a chance I'd be paying that.

I have my cat insured she is 2 and I'll probably cancel it after this year.

I figure with cats the biggest risk is getting hit by a car, and generally that happens when they are young or old.

Like @SpellowHouse 's post above, for illnesses what really are you achieving, other than costing a ton of money.

If you are minted and that money is pocket change then fine, by all means.
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I am not minted unfortunately and will need to shop around.
 
Vanquish-Storm said:
Nothing special about them, Moggies from Cats Protection. They are senior though but even so, we have seen the cost go from £20 a month for both of them to over £100 a month over several years from a company that doesnt rise prices with claims........ they must just rise them anyway. No on going illness but 1 of them has bionic back legs from being a kitten.
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Petplan? They have always been ridiculous for us. They seem to pitch themselves as some superior insurer that all the vets love (I assume due to some brown envelopes changing hands in exchange for pushing them), and - like you say - shout loudly about no price increases for claims, but that seems to be a bit misleading; "we won't raise your premium by 50% because you made a claim (we'll raise it by 50% regardless!)".

My impression is they're just another generic insurance company with a more-aggressive-than-most marketing strategy!

We've been with Tesco for the last few years, they're not quite the cheapest, but very competitive given the level of cover and they had no issues paying out directly to our vet when we needed to claim. One of my colleagues is also with them and again and no issues claiming for regular medication for his dog.

I'll post back with what they're quoting on our renewal, but at this point I'd have no hesitation in recommending them.

The only thing to consider with older cats is a lot of insurers have a mandatory excess of ~20% (on top of the normal excess). Not sure if Petplan have that too?
 
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Eugh... £102 - about a 70% increase.

What's even more annoying is that I've tried all the comparison sites and I can't seem to get a comparable level of cover with anyone else for much less, that's with a £120 excess (+20% on the older 2).

Time to start figuring out if it's actually worth having for the older ones - looking at increasing the excess to drop the price, but then if we have a decent sized claim we'd end up paying a huge chunk of it anyway :/
 
Decision time for us - £102 is not justifiable. Both cats are what you would class as "old" being over 8 but we had a cat that lived to be over 20 before so I cant in my head say we wont insure them because they are old.

Been shopping around to see if what the best options are mathematically.

Pay less for my house car and life insurance all together.
 
I managed to get ours down to £80 total by bumping up the cats' excess from £120 to £200 (we wouldn't bother claiming if it's around that anyway, and it would be a minor increase in the case of a big claim), and taking out a completely new policy for the dog.

Over £100 for just 2 cats does seem ridiculous, all 3 of ours combined are ~£50, with 2 of them now over 8
 
Haggisman said:
I managed to get ours down to £80 total by bumping up the cats' excess from £120 to £200 (we wouldn't bother claiming if it's around that anyway, and it would be a minor increase in the case of a big claim), and taking out a completely new policy for the dog.

Over £100 for just 2 cats does seem ridiculous, all 3 of ours combined are ~£50, with 2 of them now over 8
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Who is that with for the cats if you don’t mind me asking?
 
Petplan renewal through today for our lab, they want to up it to £90/month. Better cover from Sainsburys available for £39/month, I'm changing - can't justify an increase for no reason!
 
Foghorn Leghorn said:
That's the only reason I have pet insurance, I don't want to find myself having to make that call :(

Barney's 12 now and his insurance is £110pm
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Revisiting this 16 months on, we've cancelled Barney's insurance, don't worry, he's still with us :D

Now he's 13 his insurance is £145pm, petplan £4k cover, of which we have to pay the first £125 +20% of each claim. We've made the decision to put that money aside each month instead.
 
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