I dont think the point of the thread is whether to insure or not, but for those who arent insured.

If my dogs need treatment they get it done. Thats it. Just spent £320 at the vet on friday as well as christmas and all the rest of it. Means i cant give the same sort of presents as i would normally and no christmas night out or treats for me but the people who care about me say having the dogs well and healthy is like a present in itself and they dont care about presents if it means they are ok.

The dogs will always come first and they will always get what they need despite my low income and not qualifying for PDSA.

I have done fund raising events for vets fees. And borrowed (for uninsurable dogs).
You find a way.

Slightly off topic but....

To me insurance these days is a joke anyway. My sisters dog has just been seriously ill with pancreatitus and she was told even though she was insured they wouldn't except payment from the insurance company she would have to pay upfront herself and then claim the money back from the insurance company herself at a later date. She was also told the same by the animal hospital he was later moved to. His treatment came to over £2,000 in total which she had to find herself to pay despite having insurance and was lucky someone could lend her the money or she'd have been really stuck.

A friend of mine also changed vets for exactly the same reason, the vets make you pay up front and claim the insurance back yourself afterwards.

Its like having car insurance and you writing off your car to be told buy yourself a new car and we'll re-emburse you at a later date, if you had the money to buy a new car to start with you wouldn't need the insurance!

Im lucky in that I have a vet who doesnt demand payment on the spot, he is truly a good man and knows he will get paid. Little bills like 25 quid for antibiotics and anti-inflammatory injections, that i needed for puppy last week are ok, but when I was faced with a 200 pound bill when Inca had Pyo, he said just to pay him a bit each week, but then a good friend stepped up and lent me the money anyway, I always had money put aside for bills in the UK, but since Im not working here yet, money can be tight, plus Irish pet insurance is way higher than in the UK.

This is what happened to me 5 years ago - could I have found a way in time? Not without more debt.

Vinnie (8 year old GSD) had two surgeries on a slipped disc. He was insured with Petplan. Covered for £4K per year, per condition. The MRI scans, operations and aftercare came to £10,000 in 6 months. I put the other £6k on my credit card.

He needed another operation costing £4k (with no guaranteed outcome) - I just couldn't afford it.

I had to put him to sleep. I feel guilty and sick every day still. It was heart breaking.
So in answer to the original question....that's what I had to do when I couldn't afford the vet

I had a very well paid job but a huge mortgage on my own. I would never have got any help from anywhere. I sold the house in the end to pay off the credit card.

I pay a fortune to insure Stone with the top insurance I could find - I never want to be in that position again .

dont have mine insured.

In the past with big vets bills i was lucky that the vets let me pay them other a few months, now i suppose we would stick it on the credit card if they were a couple of K or
so.
I dont actually believe in letting a dog suffer ongoing medical treatment i think sometimes insured dogs are let go on too long in some cases, because the insurance will pay.

My biggest bill was when nellie pulled her leg off in a river & ruptered her lateral ligament, which then needed to be pinned & wired. That was around 10years ago & i was lucky that , that vet billed me at end of each month, so the cost was spread & they were happy for me to takle a few months to pay it off (not sure my current vets would-cant even get out of reception without paying!)

I have all of my 5 insured. I just don't want to risk not having the money to care for them. I also want to know that if they need to be PTS it's because it's the best thing for them and not because I can't afford it.
When Holly was ill, I was so pleased I'd had insurance. If I hadn't I wouldn't have been able to have her referred to a specialist hospital. At least she died with us knowing that we'd done everything possibe to save her. It would have cost us £3000 but luckily she was insured.
If you can put enough money aside to cover unforeseen bills then that's great, but I don't have enough money to cover the amount that it would cost if I didn't have insurance. Basically in order to cover 5 dogs properly, it would cost me more to put money aside than to pay their premiums.

When Callan broke his leg I had sent off the free puppy insurance the previous week. He was not covered by it.

Our own vet was very good and was happy to wait for payment until he was fully recovered.

The thing where insurance would have been no good was the specialist he was sent to. He had to be paid 50% on dropping Callan off and the remainder on collecting him the next day.

I really do not see the point in having insurance if you have to have the means to pay upfront in the first place. It would have been awful if I had paid out thousands insuring my dogs over the years and then not been able to have Callan treated by the best vet because of having to wait for an insurance claim.

That's true Abbie...I moved vets becuase my vet didn't take direct payments. My new vet does thank goodness, as does the Liverpool Small Animal Hospital which is our nearest specialist hospital. It's a godsend. But many vets don't .

I have been with my vets for many years ,and if I have had anything big they have always let me pay off the bill a bit at a time, I have always paid it off as soon as possible they said they will always treat my dogs, if anything went wrong while I still owed them money. they are very good but they know I will always pay them as soon as I can. but it does make me think I wish they was a charity that would help in genuine cases of emergency when people work often they have more bills taxes and everything and sometimes with an expensive bill they struggle and when your pet means everything to you it is frightening if there was some way of helping that person and then let them pay it back over a time