An Post offering pet cover... whatoptionshouldItake?
QI see An Post has a new deal on pet insurance. Is it worth taking out? If so, which plan? We have a cocker spaniel (seven years old).
AThere are three options for An Post’s pet cover. I wouldn’t go with the cheapest one. As the name suggests, this option covers vet fees for accidents only and not for farmore-likely illnesses. The Standard policy is nearly €100 dearer but at least it covers illnesses – and that may be important for a dog that’s 56 in human years and may soon face age-related health issues. The average life span of a cocker is 12 years, which is not that long for a small dog. And the breed is prone to eye, skin, kidney and heart disorders, among many others.
With the cheapest option you also cannot get insured after the dog is eight – which is when cover may prove useful. But the standard policy will cover older dogs as long as you start the cover before they are eight – a bit like the age-related penalties in human health insurance. The Premier policy will too – but its benefits don’t seem to justify the extra expense (see table).
The argument for taking out insurance is that our pets are treated more like humans all the time, and who would deny a much-loved family member a life-saving operation? With this cover, you can even treat them to ‘complementary’ medicine such as hydrotherapy, dentistry and acupuncture. But as dogs also age seven times faster than humans, their health deteriorates alarmingly when they get old. So that onerous but life-saving operation may provide only temporary respite and could even prolong suffering. It’s a tough call.
Pet insurance could certainly make it easier to decide but the cost of pet operations are not so onerous that they couldn’t be paid for in an emergency. Even serious surgery costs hundreds, not thousands, of euros. Also remember that as well as the premium, there is also a €100 excess and you must pay 15% of treatment costs when a dog is over eight. Common diseases such as distemper are excluded unless specifically vaccinated against. So too are claims arising from a pet being overweight. Theft, a growing problem, is not covered unless it includes violent or forced entry to an enclosed area. Also, your pet needs an annual health check or claims could be invalidated. This is worth doing anyway (although most humans don’t!) but the cost of around €40 should be taken into account.
Buying insurance is like making a bet. Financially, the chances are you will lose because the insurer, like the bookie, takes a sizeable cut to pay for administration, marketing costs and profit. You might be better off in the long run effectively insuring yourself by putting a few hundred euro a year into an emergency fund for your pets. Even the equivalent of one year’s premium would cover most procedures and after a few years you’d have a four-figure sum, if all goes well.
AWhat’s the position with selling Vodafone and Verizon shares? I still have them since the Eircom collapse.
QYou missed the deadline to sell your Verizon shares for free. There’s also a deal to sell Vodafone shares for free up until May 24. You should have received details already.