As I've just paid £140!! for my poor cat's cystitis treatment, and I have no insurance...

...which company's the best to insure cats with? I don't want to pay loads, only to have them refuse to pay out if my moggies get sick.

Thanks

My cats are insured with Tescos and have been since they were 8 weeks old. I pay around £7 per month for the pair of them. Recently one of my boys was poorly and had to undergo several blood tests and have injections - I had to pay £50 excess but Tesco's paid the remaining £185 with no problem

Remember that any insurance company will ask for details of anything you have previously claimed for when you apply for insurance and will generally exclude anything you have previously claimed.
You will often also have to give your consent for them to check with your vet about past history and vaccines etc if you make a claim.

I also have Tesco insurance for 2 cats & 2 dogs ~ about £40 a month for all 4 which I thought was pretty good value & they have paid out promptly for treatment for one of the dogs. But this is only annual insurance & I suspect that when the policy next comes up for renewal, Barney's hip problems will be excluded.

A friend of mine has M&S insurance (for life) for one of her dogs. The first year the premium was only about £11 per month but in the last 2 years has gone up to £58 per month!! She has made several claims for treatment to her dog's leg & they have not only paid the vet fees & medication, but her petrol costs for visiting a specialist vet. Even so, the increase in the premiums has been huge. If she now changes insurance company, they won't insure any problems with her dog's leg so M&S have effectively got her over a barrel. Be warned & read the small print.

I think the same can be said of any insurance company though where someone has claimed for a pet. You have to weigh up the value of the claims alongside any premium increases - I know someone who has received the full £7K with M&S - and you can rest safely knowing that even with premium rises, they will never recoup that sum, which is what you'd have had to pay without insurance cover. Plus of course with most premiums. you get the third party liability coverage and help in the event your dog is lost or stolen.

I use More Than for four of mine, costs me just over £50 a month - and I have one with M&S. I know people who've claimed with both companies and not had any problems.

We've have our cat Penny insured with Tesco since she was a kitten, so when she was hit by a car and spent a week in the animal hospital with an operation for her broken leg it came to £475 pounds of which we just paid the excess of £50, it's well worth getting pet insurance.

Pet Plan is the best no doubt. Easy to claim (via the vet processing claims) and quick repayment of outlay. My cat has just had an MRI scan and other tests plus ordinary x-rays. Total cost £1900. No questions asked. I paid on my credit card and Pet Plan forwarded a cheque a week later.

Healthy Pets Insurance, offers ongoing condition medical cover for very, very reasonable rates. Not many companies offer ongoing medical treatment just cover upto a year or upto a certain amount per condition.

This type of cover is essential especially if your pet gets something like diabetes which will last its whole life.

Be aware that no insurance company will cover you for existing conditions

I have one with Pet Plan and that's just under £10 a month and one with Argos which is just over £6. I switched the one to Pet Plan when Argos raised the monthly cost and I got a few months free with them, If Argos raise the cost in October when it's up I'll move the other one to Pet Plan. In the 3 and 2 years I've had the insurance for both cats I've luckily never had to claim. The only thing I've taken them to the vets for is Boosters and an eye infection that was under the excess anyway.

I have M&S for life ins, It has gone up £4 from last year, (£15+ to £19+) prices do vary on age of animal.

I have pet insurance for two of my cats, I use Pet Protect and they have been very prompt at paying all claims in the past. However the excess is about £80. I can't use the cheaper companies as they don't accept pedigrees (two of mine are Burmese).

Any insurance company will exclude existing illnesses, so you would not be able to claim for further treatment for cystitis. Also, when your pet gets older the premiums will jump immensely - I cancelled the policies for my two older cats when they were ten years old as the premiums were ridiculous.

Since there is often fairly high excess charges to pay as well as the ever increasing insurance costs, and generally dogs aren't often 'seriously' ill unless there is an underlying problem or maybe an accident, do you not think it's as well to put away a similar amount to what insurance would cost each month, say £15/£20, into a separate savings account /piggy bank and if you need treatment.

Hopefully there will be sufficient cash available without dipping into any other money when it comes to needing treatment, tablets etc, as long as it's not something major. Putting away £5 each week would be £260 at the end of one year and if possible maybe a few more pounds could be added to top it up to £300.

Or in the case of Wilhemina's friend who pays £58 each month, which seems a lot, especially if an excess has to be paid in the case of a claim.... £50 a month put away is £600 a year and in a bank would pick up a bit of interest in time if claims aren't made for a while!

I though exactly that when I had been paying the insurance for a year - I was on the verge of cancelling it and just putting the money into a savings account. I was glad I didn't though, because one of my cats then had two accidents within two months (one on his first birthday), he had to have a lengthy operation and other treatment, the cost of the vet fees just for one of those accidents was £1500 (and that was ten years ago so the cost now would be much more). Pet Protect paid up without a murmur, and for several subsequent illnesses. I never minded paying the premiums for him after that.

With older cats it's different - the cost of the premium may be prohibitive.