Pet Insurance.

[Philip Hall]

 

I know this is nothing to do with Irish Setters but it is a bit of an eye opener.

Last week my sisters young cat was found in the hedge, no were near a road but totally paralysed.

The local vets have all banded together to form one huge practice with a brand new animal hospital and this is were the cat was taken.

All fine and dandy but almost the first question was, is you animal insured? YES.

Now started a series of blood tests and an MRI scan was requested..  The out come is that the poor cat has degeneration of the discs in her back, something that is sometimes seen in much older cats.  At present she is doing very well but will never be the kitten cat she was.

The eye opener was the £1000.00 bill for the MRI, this does not include any other treatment. As my wife works in the X-ray department of the local hospital, we know that a private MRI scan works out at around £350.00 to £500.00.

Now I am not knocking vets, if anything the insurance companies should look at their own house. I suppose what I really want to say is; when you take on a new puppy or any animal please please make sure they are insured as the consequences are not worth thinking about.

 

If this is in the wrong place, I’m sorry and if the web master wants to remove it, please do. I just needed somewhere to moan for a second. Phil

                        

[silvia]

>> will now ask most of you to stand and wave a flag for the good old NHS.:-)

 

Agree :))

 

(and, yes, 12000 is scary, that's why, in the end, we keep our insurance... hopefully they now know the whole medical history so in case of further accidents/claim it should not be a problem.. hopefully:)

[Leslie]

I wish we had the option of your good old NHS here in the US, but we sadly we face the same hurdles with private insurance that your pets do in the UK.

[John Tuer]

We are in a strange position where insurance is concerned. 

 

With Eva being a vet she does a lot of the work on the boys herself including most surgery. Yet despite this we always go for the top level of insurance for each dog. we never used it, even when Eva did some quite big ops herself. Often, in my ignorance, I have wondered why we maintained it. 

 

Only this week though our Springer, George, has managed to rupture his cruciate and requires a complex orthopaedic operation. Cost with rehab £4000.  Like most here we would have had it done whether or not and found the cash somehow but it is nice to know that its there now we do need it. 

[Lois McCullough]

We have our boys insured with NFU one of the few Mutual insurers around and have nothing but praise for them. The excess is £50 and so far we have made 3 claims which has been paid by NFU direct to the Vet. Not too sure what the premium is per month as all our insurance is with NFU house, buildings, business, cars etc.  

[Delia Bryce]

Lately I have became quite an expert in vets bills........ :-) It is expensive but usually the diagnostic tests are emergencies and our pets require to have a general too as we cant explain to them that he MRI machine is noisy but please stay still......When Murphy had his operation to remove a lung lobe they had to break his chest bone, not only was he on Morphine when he woke up and a local line going into the wound they had also give him an epidural, that amazed me and I asked why they said pain relief is very important to us, Murphy would be in agony without it..... He had 6 days in a high dependancy unit with 121 nursing and under almost constant supervision....  I know we have been very fortunate lately with our excellent vet teams but the premises they have also have been great and that too comes with a cost .... Take Glasgow Small Animal Hospital, new state of the art purpose built building with extensive grounds to exercise the animal but also very importantly good parking - large car park which was a boon as when I heard Murphy was to go to Glasgow I thought oh no where will we get parked as he was in no state for even a short walk.... They have emergency drop off point at the door just like A&E ......

Everything Murphy needed he got it and quickly...... I shant bore you with the details but a year or so ago I was a regular user of the NHS, we dont always think of the costs for our own treatments but you know what that is expensive too if its unscheduled care .. I had almost a full time job keeping on top of it all - lost my notes huge delays to name but a few of the blips ......

Murphy's Experience = Gold Star

Mine = Bronze and thats only the case as I am now well ........

I know folks will have good experiences of the NHS but I am comparing what I know and so many folks I have met lately have the same experience with GSAH ........ Oh and I work for the NHS and believe they do the best job they can with what they have ...........

[Leslie]

Delia,

What a comfort to have such a good hospital and then not have to argue about the insurance for Murphy!

 

We hear a range of opinions on this side of the pond about NHS. If the person talking is is against insurance reform they are horror stories, if they are for insurance reform it is wonderful. I'm sure it is somewhere in between those two extremes, but not having people go bankrupt to keep a family member from dying or being able to retire and know you are covered would go a long way towards peace of mind.

Leslie

[Leslie]

I never thought about asking my car/house insurance if they cover pets... I'll give that a try too, they seem to be willing to cover almost any inanimate object! ;-)

[KC and the boys]

Oh dear - reading this thread I fear I'm not paying enough for Errol's cover... This is the first time I have taken out pet insurance and out of necessity I went for the cheapest online deal I could find without sacrficing "lifetime cover" (although I question whether such a thing really exists or whether "life" in insurance terms means a max of 10 years for a dog). Errol is insured through <pet-insurance.co.uk> and I only pay something like £13.50 a month...

 

Also on the topic. Does anybody here claim for every vet bill (bar regular jabs which aren't covered anyway) and if so does this jeopardise your "no claims bonus"? I'm worried that if I was to claim for lesser ailments (such as a gastro thing Errol had recently which required medical attention and meds) the premium would just go through the roof.

[Howard Glansfield]

I had my cats insured with them and did not have a good experience even though I only ever made one claim. However,pet-insurance.co.uk might be fine for you.It does seem remarkably cheap  but you will be getting a 25% discount which you won't get next year.My insurance for all three dogs is about £100 a month.

I am with Help -u- Cover and have had no problems at all with them,I find they are as good as Pet Plan and cheaper yet Sylvia was not happy with them so it really does seem to vary between different people and companies.

Life means life and the insurance does not stop when your dog reaches the age of ,usually, eight or ten but the excess increases and/or you have to pay a greater percentage of the bill yourself.Not claiming has never given me a no claim bonus and I don't think that applies with veterinary insurance,but I could be wrong.

I claim for anything that is over the excess.There is little point of having insurance if you don't! The insurance seems to increase whether you claim or not but,in Ellie's case her insurance is more expensive than Fred's now because of claims but still worth it.

[Philip Hall]

We pay about £53.00 for our two little red gems. Dudley 12 and Humphrey 5. I think we have an excess of £65.00 and direct line is our insurer. It's an old policy and does have life cover but I did notice that on newer policies i could not see the words"life cover"

I do know that the policy is loaded because of Dudley's age. We do not claim for much as nothing, as of yet, has come to more than £100 and I cannot be bothered to clain the few quid after the excess. Looking at your company the difference I noted in thier ad is that our benifit fees are a lot higher but of course I do not know what is in the small print.

[silvia]

to KC & Errol:

 

mmmm we were with pet-insurance.. and we shifted to helpucover following a huge amount of info on the bad reputation of pet-insurance,, be aware.. i think pet-insurance is E&L, try to google..

[KC and the boys]

Thanks Silvia - you are confirming my fears. I've had a dodgy feeling about them since receiving notification from E&L about an increase in the premium ony three months after signing up online. Not a huge amount, mind, so I didn't follow it up but I couldn't help thinking somehow I've been had... Will definitely google and look into changing to a different insurer.

 

Overall it sounds like £25 per month average is what I am looking at, right?