After a conversation on Rat Care U.K., I thought it would be interesting to see whether it would have been more beneficial for me to have bought pet insurance for a year than to do what I normally do (just save into a separate bank account specifically for rat vet bills).
I got a quote from an insurance company that covers small animals. They only allow you to get a quote for 3 animals at a time, so I did 3 of my 11 girls and said they had no known medical issues.
One of the major concerns is that when selecting your pet type, they have dumbo, fancy and brown as separate varieties. They also have black rats listed. On top of that they seem to decide the insurance cost by how much the animal costs, and the lowest you can select is £10 each, which doesn’t consider rats you’ve bred yourself or rescues.
So after lots more questions and more personal info than I would have liked to have given, their cheapest policy for three of my rats with no health issues and at the lowest price bought for them was £33.06/month. Now if I scale that up as if I were to cover my 11 rats, I’d be paying £121.22/month to cover my rats. Unfortunately, there is a £65 excess meaning they’d only pay for anything over £65 per vet visit.
Most vet visits for rats usually require a consultation fee plus any medication. Costs will vary at each practice and depending where you live, but at my vets a consultation is £14 and medication is anywhere from £7-£20. No where near the minimum excess charge, which means none of those vet trips would be covered.
So I worked out how much I spent on vet trips total in 2018, and then worked out how much I would have paid if I had that insurance coverage, assuming that the insurance would pay for everything I claimed for (including out of hours fees and lab analysis costs), but only for those trips that cost £65 or more, and the insurance only covers ABOVE £65, so you still have to pay the first £65.
Without insurance my total vet bills for the year came to £1296
With insurance: £2425.64 (£1454.64 monthly insurance payments+ £971 vet bills that didn’t reach excess)
So I already knew insurance wasn’t worth it, but it’s amazing to actually see the difference in cost; over £1000 more per year with insurance than without.
Azuline Rattery 