‘I LOVE MY CATS BUT WON’T WASTE MY MONEY INSURING THEM’

It started with a photograph of a brown puddle on my beautiful new tumbled limestone hallway tiles. “I think it’s either vomit or urine”, texted the worried neighbour, who was cat sitting. “It’s vomit, they do it every now and then – nothing to worry about,” I replied.

But once we returned from holiday it became apparent that something wasn’t right with our seven-year-old black cat, Jelly. Jelly’s dazzling green eyes had lost their shine and he looked sad. He was now throwing up every day, sometimes in front of us.

Instead of meowing for biscuits as usual, he took to laying on his own in a dark corner. One day I found his brother, Norris, a large dominant male who usually runs rings around Jelly, tenderly licking his forehead as if to say “feel better soon”.

When Jelly didn’t perk up after a few days I took him to the vet, who found he had lost a significant amount of weight. This was potentially a cause for concern, the very nice vet explained. Blood tests were done there and then, an anti-nausea injection administered, as well as an anti-itch treatment for a sore patch on his leg. This all came to £240. Did I have pet insurance, I was asked? No, I said, I’d be funding the treatment.

When we adopted Jelly and Norris from the RSPCA in 2019, we considered insuring them but decided against it. Instead, we vowed that should one of them need medical treatment, we’d use our savings to pay for it, and hope it didn’t get too expensive. Was I about to regret this decision?

Vet bills are notoriously expensive and now the competition watchdog is carrying out a review into the £2bn sector amid concerns of inflating prices.

At the appointment it was suggested that Jelly could have an ultrasound scan of his stomach at a cost of£300. I asked what this would be checking for, and the reply was: “Oh, you know – just lumps and bumps and things”. Right then, I thought to myself, this is just a “nice” way of him saying cancer. On hearing we didn’t have insurance, the vet said the scan wasn’t essential at this stage, and suggested waiting to see what the bloods showed before booking one. I agreed and took poor Jelly home.

The thought of little Jelly potentially having a lifelimiting disease was so upsetting, but that night me and my husband agreed that we didn’t believe in oncological treatments for animals. Although chemotherapy and surgery can prolong sick cats’ lives by a few months, we felt it might inflict extra pain on Jelly.

Our thinking on this is not financially motivated. No part of me regrets not insuring Jelly, quotes for which range from £11 to £78 a month. As a Consumer Champion I’ve seen how pet insurers so often wriggle out of paying and rely on huge lists of exclusions to reduce payouts. Had we insured Jelly under a mid-range policy costing, say £30 a month over the past five years, we’d have spent £1,800 on pet insurance by now, which makes the £240 we just forked out look like small fry.

And the good news is that since his visit to the vet, Jelly’s blood tests came back normal and he has perked up and stopped vomiting. Perhaps he simply ate something bad, or maybe there is still an underlying issue? Whatever the case, I do know this: I love my cats and I am prepared to pay whatever it takes to keep them comfortable. What I won’t do is prolong their lives regardless of quality, to keep them alive for my own sense of comfort – and at great expense. We can never cling onto pets forever. Their naturally short lifespans mark beautiful, but finite chapters in our lives.

Accepting this, and treating them as humanely as we can at every stage of their lives – and deaths – is the greatest act of love we can show them. This can rarely be done without financial means as, of course, vet bills are becoming increasingly (and in some cases devastatingly) expensive. But if you feel similarly, then putting money into a separate savings account, where it can gain interest, may be more sensible than buying a pet insurance policy you might not make the most of.

‘The naturally short lifespan of our pets mark beautiful – but finite chapters in our lives’