Hello everyone. I was wondering if any of you have pet insurance? Is so, why did you decide to get it? How many animals do you have insured? Have you used it yet?
If you do not have it, have you considered getting it? If you have decided against it, why?
Alot of people have pet insurance. I don't know alot about it.
I don't use it because I get a 10% discount from my Vet for everything & also get free phone advice etc....
But I have 2 Pygmy Goats, 1 Pot Belly Rescue, 5 dogs & 10 cats & yes I do have a clean house as we are retired & I spend my time with my furkids & playing on ebay.
Check with your Vet to see if they take insurance or check online.
I don't have pet insurance but we have four cats and a parrot and my new employer offers it as a benefit at a discount rate. I am going to check it out and I would love to hear from posters who do have the insurance and have used it!
weathervane7: Thanks about the handle. It started as my 3 cats in 2000 when I bought the domain, and when I started to sell things for cats on eBay I naturally changed to that name too. :)
Everyone: Well, I was just trying to see opinions on it. We currently have 6 cats and 4 have full insurance. I was always against it, deciding that if I just put my premium amounts due in a high yield account, it would pay more in the end, assuming average vet bills and no string of horrid bad sick cat luck. I always said I would pay anything to save my cats, and in 2002 I was first put to the test. One of the original CoolCyberCats could no longer eat and was diagnosed with lymphosarcoma. We cut out a section of his duodemum that had the stricture that was preventing him from passing food and as soon as he recovered from the invasive surgery we started chemo. Close to 2 years and just shy of $18,000 later we lost ^Itchy^. Then less than 18 days later we lost ^Electra^ to advanced renal failure (she had it for a couple of years). Still I believed that pet insurance was just not worth it. Really it would not even have paid most of ^Itchy’s^ surgery and chemo costs over the 2 years. Then in 2005 the initial CoolCyberCat became ill. 3 weeks and about $5,000 later I had to rush him to the University of Washington Pullman veterinary hospital (9 hour drive) where he died in my arms the next day after his heard basically exploded from hypotropic cardiomyopothy augmented by 3 weeks of treatment of his initial issue that got him sick. I was just devastated and while I stood in the hallway in tears from my last few minutes with my best friend ^Hamlet^, I picked up my cell phone and called a pet insurance company and initiated coverage on 4 of our 6 remaining cats. They declined coverage on Calliope because she was in early renal failure (and now is very advanced and not expected to live more than a few weeks to a month or so) and Leo because he was an abused cat who has some brain damage and epilepsy (and not has megacolon which we are trying to deal with). Between 2002 and 2006 I had spend close to $30,000 on my cats illnesses and I decided to give the insurance a go. Has it paid out? No, not really. I managed to use it on 2 visits to date, since most of the problems are Leo and Calliope for now. Will I keep it? Yes. I do still believe that unless you are under some horrible dark cloud, the average cat owner would make out better if they took the premium amount each month and packed it into a Money Market. There will be the occasional case where I am wrong of course. So why am I keeping it? I have 3 years invested in it on 4 cats. One of them, Andromeda, has hip dysplasia and because of a mishap when she was a kitten (and still a stray) her femoral head was broken, but did heal, just fell in and really screwed up her leg. She now has 1 femur 50% shorter than the other and takes some meds to help with the joint and some pain. She will one day require action taken, and after taking her to see a specialist and having several consults with a manufacturer who now makes micro hip replacements and another specialist, we know we will be going the route of a hip replacement on her. Something that has only been done 6 times so far in a cat. I am counting on the insurance to help cover some of it now, though if they won’t it won’t stop me from helping her this way. It is the best way to help her because of the femoral damage that exists now.
So I would likely tell people to look it over carefully before you get it. If you get a policy that covers annual exams and shots, price it. See what you pay for the annual exam and shots and you will find you pay more into the policy. After all the insurance company is in business to make money, not pay you more than you pay them each year. Also remember that they are counting on the odds that you will never require a maximum payout. Some people will still get it, and that is fine. Others won’t and that is fine too. Just make sure you price shop and read the fine print before you pick one. I believe you now have 3 major insurers in the USA now to choose from. Each has some points over the others in different areas.
I now wish we would have had insurance for our Viszla that has Valley Fever as we've spent 1000's on her over a 2 year period & that's with free office visits, letting us shop for the cheapest medications, blood tests/titers with out paying for an extra office visit etc..
With my cat's I ve been pretty lucky as my Vet has taught me alot that I didn't know before I met him .
I also go alot on instict which serves me well so far, I even rescued my Pot Belly from my Vet's office because the breeder was going to have her euthanised,which I couldn't stand, so now I have a piggy Eclipse who comes & goes as she pleases & gets along with the cats & dogs alike as she does'nt know any better. I've had her since she was 7 weeks old & I just potty trained her like my pups & fed her yogurt, pig chow & fresh veggies etc till she was weaned . Then she was spayed at 12 weeks.
I have so many diets here it's not funny, pig chow, goat food, cat food & dog food.LOL!
The Cats love her:)
I would look into the insurance but I get really good deals from my Vet as he is one of a kind, but I HIGHLY do reccomend others look into because Vets like mine are extremely rare & hard to find.
It's nice to see that others care for their animals so well.
weathervane7, Yeah, I constantly joke with our vet that he owes me a the naming of one of the rooms for ^Itchy^ with all I have spent there.
Sounds like you have a lot more foods than we do, but I feel like I have become a food expert woith our cats. Since ^Itchy^ we have had 2 or more cats on special diets. I now know only too well prescription Science Diets K/D, C/D, C/Ds, R/D, W/D, I/D, A/D (dry and canned), Royal Canian’s Kidney prescription diets for renal failure, low cal high protein and low cal high fiber. Not to mention a slew of food found in stores and making some of my own. Actually I really wish I never had to learn all that. It would be nice to not have one of our cats die from something horrible for once, but I guess the trade off for rescuing cats who are in bad need, badly abused or ill to begin with is the cause, but I would not stop those rescues since the vast majority of those kinds of cats are put to sleep by owners and kill-shelters. :( Glad you care for your animals well too!
I've considered the pet insurance, too, for my cats. Does anyone have any idea how much it costs? And who are the 3 best carriers that one of you mentioned. Thanks so much, Gina
Hopefully this post won't be deleted by eBay for listing insurers... At the time (Sept 2005) I picked VPI. I believe I pay about $19 per cat per month (2 of our cats could not be insured for age, in renal failure and seizures). Some companies to look into: http://www.petsbest.com/ http://www.petinsurance.com/ (the one I use) http://www.petcareinsurance.com/ http://aspcapetinsurance.com/ http://www.embracepetinsurance.com/
And there are others now. More popup each week. Even come credit unions have it now. You should contact each of these (and others you find) and price your cat(s) out. Some will even offer a group rate if you insure more than one. ALso like people, the older the pet the more it costs per month. Plans vary widely too. Price a few plans and look at your past and see what is best for how you spend your money with the vets.
Wow. That must have been heartbreaking for you. I had a little tabby a while back when I was 10 or 11 and she got cancer. Normally a very shy cat, she started coming around and curling up in our laps because I think she know she wasn't going to make it. It was really hard because the tumors were so bad you could feel them through her skin and they were protruding a little and the vet said there was really nothing we could do for her.
A few months later we got another kitten who turned out as she got older had cancer too. So I definitely know where you're coming from. But I admire you for saving the cats anyways. It takes a strong heart to do that.
And You definitely enlightened me a a bunch about pet insurance. Before I moved out, I was talking with my dad about getting it for Zeph and Tokiyo. I also just adopted a new addition to the family, a himalayan flame point, and as with both my other two, I want the best for her as well. I didn't really know there are so many to choose from.
I have insurance for my little one. I have the ASPCA Premium plan which is their best plan. I got it because I'm not very good at saving large sums of money and if anything ever happened to my kitty I wouldn't have any other way of paying for it. It has a $100 annual deductable then it pays 100% of all benifits up to $5,000 per incedent/ $13,000 per annum. It takes care of hospitalization, doctors, medications, operations, transportation, dentestry, flee prevention, and a whole bunch of other things all for only $54.80 a month.
What I wish I could find is life insurance for my kitty. Living in the city, I can't just go out in my back yard and dig a hole in the ground when he dies and bury him. I don't even have a back yard. I have to either have him cremated or find a pet cemetary to take him. And if the later, then he has to be embalmed, put in a casket, etc. All of that is just as expensive for a pet as it is for an human. I know, I lost both my cat and my mother just two months apart from each other and I only had insurance on my mother. I had to have him cremated because I didn't have the $5,000 for the cemetary plot for him nor the $7500 for the casket and embalming. As it was I still spent $500 for the handling of the body and $800 for the cremation and the plain wood box his ashes are sealed in. Hope this helps.
Hi, fellow cat lover hear,i have 12 cats and 6 kittens,most of my babies are manxes and have been rescued one of them just had 6 babies that i need to find homes for,she was recently rescued from a breeder that had her cats living in deplorable conditions so i got her and her 6 babies.I have thought several times about getting pet ins,4 of our cats have skin allergies,the vet is not sure what is causing it but they have sores and on them so they are having to take steroid pills,then one of our cats Monty has Feline bladder disease and he is constantly getting urinary obstructions,we have already spent thousands on him and he is only 2 yrs old,we still owe $400 to the vets.right now Monty has to get iv fluids sub q under the skin every other day because he is trying to obstruct again,if he obstructs he is not able to urinate and the bladder and kidneys swell up and he has to be rushed in to surgery and have a catheter put in to unobstruct him or he could die within hrs,he is such a loving boy and everybody at the vet hospital loves him,though last time he was there he was exposed to a cat with a respitory infection and he brought it home,next thing i know half my cats are sneezing! But anyways i am totally disabled,i have Lupus,Rheumatoid arthritis,fybromialgia,kidney disease.diabeties,chron's disease,degeneritive disk disease of the spine,a herniated disk,pinched nerve,neuropothy,sclerodoma.I know i am a big mess and only 35,i have to use a cain,and wheelchair to get around,so my husband is the only one working and with the vet bills getting higher we have thought about vet ins on more than one occassion,we certainly can't afford all of them to be insured,but maybe the ones with the health problems? it just depends on how much it will cost.I love all my cats having them with me and helping them has helped me take my mind off the constant chronic pain i suffer.My cats names are-Monty, he is a black domestic short hair,Mookie, he is a colorpoint shorthair,Bo,b he is a big black Bombay,Beanie he is a Russian blue mix,Tyco, he is a tuxedo manx,Moonie, he is a grey tabby manx,Possum,she is a colorpoint shorthair,Fooz Butt,she is a grey tortie manx,Poofer,she is a brown tabby manx and mama to 6 baby manxes,itsy bitsy,she is a black manx and a tiny girl,Scrunchkin she is a grey tortie 4 month old manx,Pica she is a white with brown tabby spots domestic shorthair.And that is everybody we also have a 17 yr old minnie pin she is blind in one eye and only has 3 good legs,she was rescued 5 yrs ago one of her legs was so badly broken it never healed right so she can't use it,we're suprised she is still with us,but she is still hanging on,her name is Penny,and we had a Pomeranian her name was Keyona,but we had to have her put to sleep 2 months ago she was 10 trs old,she had liver cancer and renal failure.So that is all our babies if you know some decent price pet ins,let me know.
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