Cat Chat Feline Forum

My partner and I went to visit cats at the local shelter today and fell absolutely in love with a gorgeous 10 year old with FIV and a wee heart murmur. Our only concern is the cost--we had planned to get pet insurance to offset any unexpected large bills, but insurance is obviously a complicated thing for an FIV+ cat. Particularly for those of you with older cats, do you find the cost to be significantly higher for FIV+ cats than for FIV-? Do you have any idea how much on average you spend per year on healthcare?

I'd really appreciate any advice you have! My partner is (probably rightly) being very practical about this, and I'm trying to figure out whether I'm a giant softie or whether this is something that will be financially feasible for us.

Hi,

It may be too late to reply to you about this, but just to suggest that you might want to look at the Cat Chat page about FIV, here: https://www.catchat.org/index.php/fiv

I would suggest shopping round for insurance quotes, as they will vary in what they cover. Some might try to charge you extra to cover an FIV positive cat. I would probably steer clear of any who try to "exclude" any conditions arising from their FIV status, as it would generally be difficult to ascertain whether FIV had a bearing on some conditions, and so they could use this as a get-out clause to withold payment for a condition that would have arisen in any cat, FIV positive or not!

Also check out this thread on the same topic: viewtopic.php?t=7341

I hope you adopted the FIV cat anyway!