HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Richard Carter — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:55:44 GMT

Agria seems to be a fairly good insurance as well - lifetime policy but don't think the limit is per condition, rather per year, pick your level of cover - emergency vs everything etc - think they underwrite the kennel club insurance. No idea of the monthly costs cf petplan

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Anthony Dennison — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 09:22:44 GMT

Interesting to read this, as I've just got the new puppy insured.

We've gone for £7k cover with PetPlan - our thought process was that if he did need ortho surgery we could use £4k up quite quickly but we'd be really unlucky to need over £7k.

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Stephen Courtney — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 23:00:11 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]

[quote user="Stephen Courtney"]though I have become aware that 7k/year is not necessarily enough these days....[/quote]

Tangent of: RE: Staff members with insured pets

I've never seen a small animal bill come close to £7k. Out of interest what was that for?

As I vet I've never seen the need to insure an animal as we can fix 99.9% of problems and even if we referred for a specific thing we can do all the aftercare etc ourselves. Could even go along and count it as CPD.

[/quote]

A colleagues dog went to a specialist and had surgery to remove a phaechromocytoma - from the hard side.

12K

Septic peritonitis / DIC case on intensive care - most practices can't do this properly - > 5k

And God knows what Dr Noel's stuff costs - if you want the fancy stuff you have to be able to fund it.

My last dog cost 1300 for 4 days intensive treatment for acute on chronic renal disease.

Its not hard to spend 7k on an old and cherished pet certainly in the south

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Kate Richardson — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 16:00:06 GMT

Prices are not significantly more in the corporate owned practice i now work in compared to the independent I worked in prior.

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Anthony Todd — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 11:26:50 GMT

[quote user="James Dunne"]How much is too much….hmmm.[/quote] and etc.

Added, of course, is the additional layer of profit needed by "investors" in corporates, in addition to the profits in my day just of the vet who was also the investor, owner, shareholder and manager.

To say nothing of the bean-counters within the corporates who decree that one vet equals x ancillary staff and one vet should turn over £y.......

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Thomas Johnson — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 10:33:35 GMT

[quote user="robloxley"]

[quote user="Robin Grimmer"]I wonder what the average bill for one of Noel Fitzpatrick's cases is...[/quote]

now, that would spoil the magic of the supervet on the telly

[/quote]

I suspect that's more to do with how the TV company edit it. My experience with referring to Fitzpatrick's is that their charges seem similar to other referral centres, and they are very up front about costs, they will ask us to pass on an estimate of costs to the client, and they ask for half the estimate to be paid when the animal is admitted.

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Rob Loxley — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 09:55:05 GMT

[quote user="Robin Grimmer"]I wonder what the average bill for one of Noel Fitzpatrick's cases is...[/quote]

now, that would spoil the magic of the supervet on the telly

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

James Dunne — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 09:07:37 GMT

How much is too much….hmmm. I think the UK is just following the USA and I think the rest of us elsewhere in Europe will follow the UK. I interviewed a USA-based specialist recently who gave me the low-down on their bills. By the way, the vast majority of their clients are NOT insured - they just take loans out if they're stuck. Her largest bill so far was $35k and routinely clients go out with bills of $6-12k for what we are often treating routinely in Ireland for €800-1500… and our practice is regarded as 'expensive'. Veterinary costs are spiralling out of control and it is ultimately the customers who will pay for this. We used to be able to provide a very profitable service without charging crazy fees. A number of things militate against this: 1. staff costs —> as Anthony Todd indicated, many staff [newer vets particularly] do not have the vocational regard for their profession as their predecessors did, maybe rightfully so, but that does not change the fact that it costs more. Increasing staffing levels to account for relatively small amounts of extra work after hours vastly increases costs. 2. Bureaucracy - there is a lot of ass-covering involved in our job nowadays and having to deal with relatively minor staff or data protection issues as a small/medium enterprise is incredibly time-consuming and eats away at clinical [billable] time. 3. The advent of advanced imaging in larger practices, which is incredibly useful in many cases, drives costs upwards. We seem to be unable to provide these modalities in a relatively affordable manner. Sure, our patients often need GA for MRI/CT scans, but the reality of how many patients can be put through the scanner versus the costs of paying for it/servicing comes to bear. 4. Veterinary Inflation - was always high anyway and is not gone away. 5. Increasing veterinary practice numbers [2000 practices in the year 2000, 5000 practices in 2016] and a declining percentage pet ownership mean the slices in the pie are getting smaller all the time - those slices incur a larger relative fee as a result. Put it all together and you can see how, for example, a relatively straightforward case like an uncomplicated intestinal foreign body goes out for thousands instead of hundreds. I thought that the UK pet insurance market was going to overheat a long time ago, but actually it looks like the sky is the limit the way things are going.

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Laurence Webb — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 20:53:09 GMT

We have a French Bulldog patient that was referred for BOAS surgery and also has a hiatus hernia that may/may not require surgery. It is currently at a referral centre with a disc prolapse, all within 6mths. It also eats Apoquel tablets like Smarties due to its raging atopy

I wouldn't be surprised if that lot tops £7000 in a year

Of course you could just not buy a brachycephalic in the first place

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Robin Grimmer — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 18:34:18 GMT

I wonder that the average bill for one of Noel Fitzpatrick's cases is...

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Jenny Harris — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 18:06:45 GMT

One of our nurses cats racked up a 12000 bill at referral. referred for pleural effusion, after a lot of investigating turned out to have idiopathic chylothorax and it had a pleuralport thingy placed. I was sure it was going to be FIP based on our diagnostics but given the big insurance bill decided to send it off just to see if anything could be done. the cat was 2yo and made a full recovery, was insured for full amount so i Think was worth doing. Did make me think about my cats only being insured for £4000 though, which I thought was plenty....

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Rob Loxley — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 17:11:21 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]Yea, I don't think I'd do any of those things to a dog of mine.................[/quote]

But all reasonable, non-'crazy' things that a pet owner might want for their pet, hence Stephen's suggestion that "7k/year is not necessarily enough"?

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Michael Woodhouse — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 14:09:58 GMT

Yea, I don't think I'd do any of those things to a dog of mine.................

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Rob Loxley — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 14:02:53 GMT

Major spinal surgey, ICU ventilation for tetanus case, bilateral THR (I'd be surprised if many people would do for under £7k? last I sent off was £5-6k unilateral), bilateral TPLO (out local independent ortho specialists charge £3-3600 for a large breed unilateral TPLO). And these are standard cases we have had, not your Supervet-type extreme cases.

RE: HOW MUCH? (insurance limits)

Dinu Catilina — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 13:53:56 GMT

[quote user="Michael Woodhouse"]I've never seen a small animal bill come close to £7k[/quote]

I've seen. 12k for lumbo-sacral stenosis after two surgeries. 11.5 k for an esophageal foreign body that went wrong. Both cases with justified costs in my opinion. But I also saw a 5k bill for CCL tear after a TTA and stifle MRI to look for meniscal tears