I recently read a piece of advice to pet owners that really annoyed me, basically the author suggested that pet insurance was a waste of money and pet owners would be better off putting the money in a savings account to cover any unexpected vets bills. The argument went along the lines that over the average 10 year lifespan of a dog, the owner was statistically unlikely to recover the ?2200 in estimated premiums.

No way you, you don't say what a genius! Pet insurance is just like any other insurance, its money you pay for piece of mind, just incase something goes wrong. Most of us have household insurance, or contents insurance, so we know that we will have enough money to cover costs, in the statistically unlikely event of the worst happening. There is no way I would expect to claim all of the ?40,000s or so I expect to pay in premiums on my home and its contents during my lifetime. I accept that in return for knowing should I be unlucky enough to have a flood or be burgled I will be able to replace damaged or stolen items; in return the insurance company is allowed to make a profit.

Let's say I applied the advice to my home insurance and rather that taking out a policy I put the money away in a savings account. If I was lucky and the next 10 years were uneventful in say ten years I would have a tidy nest egg, which would cover most but not all eventualities. However if I was unfortunate and after only a few months my bathroom flooded, (as recently happened), I would not have saved enough to cover the cost of repairs or damaged possessions.

The same principle is true with Pet Insurance, if I chose to put the money away in a bank account I could be lucky and never need to touch the money until my pet dies. On the other hand I believe that with my luck, after only a few weeks my dog or cat are more likely to contract an illness, that is only treatable by the most expensive drugs known to the veterinary world. In this hypothetical case, by this time I would have saved just enough money to say ?Hello? to the vet.

I guess that a good way to make a decision about pet insurance is to decide what type of pet owner you are. I think for the sake of argument we should create two broad categories of Pet Owners.

The first type we can call the ?I'll do anything for my Pet, whatever the cost Clan?.

The second we'll name ?I do whatever is reasonable, but if the cost's start mounting it's just a Dog or Cat people?.

I don't intend to pass comment on the rights or wrongs of either attitude, both types of people would consider themselves responsible pet owners and who am I to disagree.

But I do suggest that you might want to decide which of the two descriptions most closely describes you, before making a decision whether or not to take out pet insurance.

If you think that you are closer to former than the latter, then I would strongly advice you to take out Pet Insurance.

If you feel your attitude is closer to the latter, then hey live a little Insurance is for wimps!