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Are you a careless and irresponsible dog owner if you don't insure your precious pooch? Or does your vet exist to further the coffers of pet insurance companies?

If an animal constitutes an asset in the areas of farming and sport, where their breeding and performance is crucial to livelihoods, then clearly a veterinary surgeon is a necessary figure which has to be paid for.

Why though, would anyone want to insure their pet? Pet insurance is a relatively new phenomenon in the UK. Before it became the norm, and in the days when a vet could be regarded as familiar a friend as the family doctor, the concept of insuring Fido would have been laughable.

Deregulation, especially in legal areas, have produced a market of necessity. The obvious insurances are building, home contents and vehicles. The latter being required by law, the former required by lender, and the middle purely at your own risk.

A dog is not a financial asset, unless it is being used to further pedigree, aids the disabled, or crucial in areas of rescue and policing.

Home contents insurance for example can be a minefield of what constitutes valuables and necessities and the cover is assessed on the total replacement in the event of disaster. But neither a human being nor animal can be encompassed in the terms and conditions. Yes, not even a budgie in a cage, or goldfish in a bowl. Not even you - who pays the premiums!

So the concept and reality of pet insurance plays, as all insurance does, on the "what if" factor. What if Fido breaks a leg? What if Fido gets a terrible disease? What if Fido gets poisoned?

Dogs are in many respects self-healing. When they are unwell, whilst they may mope and look depressed, they invariably manage to recover. That's how it's been since man adopted them as a best friend, for hundreds of years and beyond.

What didn't exist back then were insurance companies who put the fear of God into the dog's owner - that if anything unfortunate happened, where would the money come from to fix it?

So when Fido gets a tummy upset, and a visit to the vet is in order, an instant fee of thirty quid is payable, plus another equal amount for some medicine.

This would not be claimed by a sensible person on insurance because there is generally with most of these policies an excess inclusion - generally the equivalent of an annual premium. So why bother?

Well, some would bother, but remember that it will be the vet who completes most of the claim form, and the claimant is totally at his mercy as

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