There are certain types of insurance we don’t have much choice about – protection for our mortgages and our homes, car insurance if we drive and, if we have any sense, at least some level of cover for travelling abroad.
For nearly half of Irish people, health insurance is considered indispensable despite its expense – especially when we stop earning and are relying on a lower income in retirement.
Pet insurance, on the other hand, often gets put on the long finger.
The little puppy darting around the back garden, the healthy cat stalking garden birds – they won’t get sick or injured, will they?
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Anybody with a pet at home knows that buying the animal is just the beginning of what can seem like an endless outlay of costs.
For dogs, there’s food bills, regular grooming, toys, and routine vet visits for vaccinations. It’s a similar story for cats and other animals.
But what happens when something more serious goes wrong?
Most pet owners have at least one horror story about a hefty veterinary bill when their dog or cat injured themselves or fell ill.
The numbers can be eye-watering – €4,000 for a cruciate surgery for a dog, one of the most common orthopaedic procedures for our canine friends.
Fees can reach up to €600 for a bad tummy bug, where your pet might need bloods taken, IV fluids, medications and follow-up visits.
If an emergency happens at the weekend, the bills will be higher still. And just like everything else, the costs are only getting more expensive.
Insurance provider Agria Petinsure said routine visits to the vet are about 50 per cent more expensive than they were even a few years ago.
Having pet insurance remains, by international standards, quite unusual in Ireland.
Agria Petinsure said rates of people having cover for pets generally are about 12 to 15 per cent, and even lower for cats at just 3 to 5 per cent.
In Sweden, for example, rates of cover among people who have pets are closer to 90 per cent, while our nearest neighbours in the UK have a figure of 25 per cent.
Like almost every type of insurance, there is a dizzying variety of products available.
Most policies include vet fees for illness and injury, along with boarding fees if you are hospitalised and someone else needs to take care of your pet.
Some policies stretch further, covering holiday cancellation if a dog or cat goes missing, rewards for lost or stolen animals, theft, and third-party liability or legal costs if your pet damages property or injures someone.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission also says the latter can be covered by home insurance, so that’s worth checking.
There are three main types of pet insurance. Normally, the cheapest option is for accidents only – if, say, your pet was hit by a car.
The next step up is annual cover or time-limited cover, where an illness or injury may only be covered for a set period or up to a set amount.
Lifetime cover is also available and offers support up to an annual limit for the entire lifetime of your pet.
Lifetime cover does not mean unlimited cover, but it can be important for chronic conditions, because the annual vet-fee limit renews each year if the policy is kept in place.
As with human health insurance, though, you will have to be upfront about any pre-existing conditions your pet might have.
To get the best deal, the same rules apply as would anywhere else.
Shop around, compare prices and plans online, and most importantly, know exactly what the policy does and doesn’t cover.
Some of the biggest providers in Ireland include Agria Petinsure, Allianz, Petinsurance.ie and An Post.
A check on Switcher.ie this week showed annual fees of between €100 and €160 per year for our one-year-old rescue dog Riley, who is of (very) indeterminate breed.
For the higher tier of cover, that would include vet fees of up to €4,000, third-party liability of €250,000 and emergency boarding fees of €1,000.
A variety of other services were covered including advertising and reward costs, accidental death, holiday cancellation and “complementary treatment”.
An excess of €125 applies and costs would be higher for an older animal, or for a higher-risk pedigree dog, than our “good boy” from Dogs Trust.
Costs for an older pure-bred dog could be up to €50 per month, depending on the level of cover the owner wants.
Paying for insurance can be done monthly or yearly, with the usual possibility of discounts if you pay by the year.
Age is the biggest factor in the price of cover, and some insurers will not accept pets above a certain age, often six to eight years.
The limits can be lower again for certain breeds that are prone to known health issues or have lower life expectancies.
This can include English and French Bulldogs, Pugs, St Bernard’s, Great Danes and Bernese Mountain Dogs.
Routine treatments for vaccination, neutering, fleas, or pregnancy are not generally included, nor are third-party claims for certain restricted breeds.
Illness claims usually can’t be made for an initial period, often about two weeks, after the policy begins, and premiums are likely to increase after a claim or at renewal time.
There is a standard cooling-off period that allows you to cancel a policy within 14 days.
Late or mid-policy cancellations can, however, incur fees or even the full cost, depending on the terms and conditions of the agreement.
It’s not just dogs and cats either. Insurance is available for rabbits, horses, birds and exotic pets, though the choice of insurer may be more limited.
Most of the main operators also offer carelines so that people can seek advice, especially when ordinary vet practices are out-of-hours.
Lastly, if you’re planning to take your pet on foreign holidays with you, make sure to check terms and conditions on what cover is available.
One final option is to “self-insure” by saving a set amount of money each month and building up a rainy-day fund.
It goes without saying that this nest-egg needs time to build up and only works if the money is actually left untouched.
You can contact us at OnTheMoney@irishtimes.com with personal finance questions you would like to see us address. If you missed last week’s newsletter by Conor Pope on not letting gift vouchers go to waste, you can read it here
