Need to get cat insurance for my 12 year old Moggy. She's up-to-date with vaccines, microchipped, neutered etc. Did a quote with Petplan who have quoted around the £15 mark per month for their budget plan - expensive but about average. However, the excess is £65 plus 20% of the vets fees!!!! How ridiculous!

Still looking around for a good policy but if anyone knows of a good company for older pets then please let me know!

I've just been quoted £51 for basic insurance for 3 dogs - with stupid excesses as well.

They keep going on about getting a discount if I add another pet...I might just pop out and get another cat to get best value for money! Insurance companies really annoy me!!!

Terrible isn't it! I got a quote from them - £30 a month for my ONE dog, with £100 excess plus 20% of fees! He's around 8 years old and a small-medium cross breed. I got loads of other quotes too, including one from Morethan, who won't leave me alone! They keep ringing me :roll:

Pet insurance is worthless, you would be better putting some money away each month for if anything does happen, there are so many clauses/exclusions in pet insurance.

I've been looking at a few more and the best one I've found so far is Tesco because it doesn't look as though they're gonna want to charge a % of vets fees. However, they only pay up to £2500 and that's within 12 months then ur on ur own so if it's an ongoing problem then ur stuffed! They also don't cover dental problems, nor do they cover special diet food which I believe can be necessary with many older cats with kidney problems. I've worked out we'll be paying £200-£250 per year for 'cover' which as Ducky1 says, isn't really cover once you've looked at all the clauses etc! I think I might give it a miss and put some pennies aside instead! Always a gamble but at least I'm not getting ripped off by some insurance company in the mean time!

Direct Line aren't the cheapest, but they do provide really good cover!

The thing is that the reason that they charge the excess for older animals is that as animals get older the chances that they need more and more expensive ongoing treatment increases, but you have to remember that they are a business and there's nothing forcing you to take out the cover.

I paid in to a policy for Merlin for the whole of her life and didn't make a claim on it until she was about 12, despite finding out afterwards that I could have claimed for her prescription food for her whole life.

However, when she was about 12 she developed a serious heart problem. Had I not had insurance I'd have had no choice but to have her put to sleep to prevent her suffering because the initial tests came to approaching £1000 and after that she had interim tests costing about £400 every 3 months, medication amounting to £55 a month and regular appointments with a cardiologist, as well as her prescription diet.

The premiums I paid for the first 12 years of her life would have just about paid for her initial tests, but in the following 3 years her testing and diagnosis cost another £2000+ and her medication cost almost another £2000 and I simply couldn't have found that money myself, so only having to find 20% of that was a very very good deal for me and for Merlin.

If you're disciplined enough to put money in a bank account and leave it there for vet costs then you may be able to come out on top of the costs, but that assumes that you aren't going to have any major vet expenses before you've built up a decent fund, which is a very good argument for the insurance.

I know someone who doesn't have any household contents insurance. 20 years ago he decided that he would start up a savings scheme into which he paid the same amount as he would pay insurance for, and he's been lucky and not been burgled or lost everything in a house fire and consequently now has over £20k in a bank account just from that saving.

Personally I'm not sure that I'd like to take the risk of not insuring my house contents and risking losing everything with no way of affording to replace any of them- that's my choice and I accept the bad with the good on it.

I have cover for my young dog but with my older 2 i just could not afford it Tilly was 14 when we got her and Albert 8. We had some very expensive vets bills before they both died but we could not help our situation.

I have gone with NFU for Tildy and i have got the highest cover i can get for her as she is an idiot and if any dog is going to hurt themselves then she will hehe

....there's nothing forcing you to take out the cover.

Well, if there are pre-existing conditions and you want to carry on insuring you are a bit stuck. for example my dog had a benign tumour removed 5 years ago with no re-occurrence. but the vet said this would now be a pre-existing condition including all tumours.

Sophie (my Dane) is insured with Petplan. I insured her when she was about 1 year old when the end of her tail was accidentally trapped in the door and it cost £194 at the vets. I have really had my moneys worth - when she was spayed she then went slightly incontinent - so needed a bottle of Propalin per month (which worked out about the same as the monthly premium to buy).

More recently, she was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy and is on £350 of medication per month. I pay 20% - which is around £70 per month. Petplan introduces this when your pet gets over a certain age (Sophie is 9 in Sept) - but I still believe they are the best insurers - this includes settling claims.

You do have to be honest with yourself aswell... pet insurance isn't some sort of safety net for every little thing that could go wrong. Ie. the pet looks a bit down so you go for a check-up/get a set of blood tests done.

It's for when your pets looks down, you go for a check-up, then get blood tests done, these then come back showing up a serious illness and the animal needs lots of very expensive treatment for the rest of their life.

Or alternatively your pet has one massive accident that would cost a fortune without insurance.

I'd always get pet insurance so long as I'd read the fine print and was happy that what I'm paying for covers what I expect it to cover.