Advice please: pet insurance for an 11 yr old cat - Thanks all, now sorted

[IlonaM]

Hi all cat parents,

I have recently adopted an 11 year old healthy rescue from Celia Hammond. I am looking to insure him, but would be very grateful for any advice and experiences re insuring an 11 year old/senior cat. Currently he is covered by a month-long policy from PetPlan, bt they do not do lifelong cover for his age, only covering a new illness for a year. I was hoping for a lifelong cover if possible.

Many thanks,

Ilona

[elloriac]

First off, apologies, I cannot help with recommending an insurance company.

What we did instead, was to put the amount of money that we would have paid for a policy per month into a bank account, just for that purpose. Made sure we did it every month, no excuses. Not allowed to use the money for anything else.

If you can find a company that will provide lifelong cover for an 11 year old cat, it will be quite expensive, and in our experience, whenever there is a problem, it's difficult to get them to pay out anyway. Luckily we didn't have any major expenses with our rescued 13 year old cat (from Celia's), and now that she has passed, the money is still sitting there in case our 'new' cat needs it. (We continue to put money in every month.)

[IlonaM]

Thanks elloriac for your advice. I recently lost a much-loved 21 year old who I adopted when she was 18 and too old to insure. She turned out to have several then unknown, preexisting conditions which were very expensive to treat and so this time I was hoping to set up insurance cover. I won't tell you how much it has cost over the last three years, it would make your eyes water!

I will think about your suggestion as an alternative when I'm looking at the insurance possibilities.

[Smiley_blue_1234]

Apologies I can't advise precisely either (I am with LV for my 9.5 year old cat at the moment and got this insurance 3 years ago).

Just wanted to say thank you both for adopting old cats! They generally are at rescue centres following the death of their owners and deserve much love! They are generally not people's first choice, so again, thank you!

[Jules-and-Boo]

We use Bought By Many.They have been brilliant,maybe look online and get a quote.

You can decide if you want to insure or save. If the cat is going to be a house cat there's probably less risk

[IlonaM]

Thanks Jules and Smiley-blue.

[katanita]

I used Animal Friends. I seem to remember that they did lifelong cover, but not for pre-existing conditions, and for senior cats there was a higher excess but it still saved me hundreds, if not thousands of pounds when my cats got sick.

They always paid out without fuss.

[IlonaM]

THanks katanita, very helpful to know.