Is pet insurance a worthwhile investment?

We are famously a nation of animal lovers, so I suppose it’s not too surprising that one in two British households owning some form of pet. There are an estimated £20 million pets in the UK, so pet-related industries are not a bad area to be involved in. (This number, by the way, doesn’t include horses; there are around a million of those, too). And, as one of the nation’s pet-owners, I suppose I do my fair share of contributing to the pet industry.

But there’s one area in particular I’ve been thinking about recently: the area of pet insurance. I recently acquired a puppy, but the question was, should I insure her or not? I do also (for reasons which even I am not sure I entirely understand) own three horses ­– none of which are insured. Why not? Well, my theory in the past has always been that I’d rather set aside a certain amount of money per month into a ‘vet piggybank’ rather than give it to an insurance company.