I always advise people to have insurance, I might just be unfortunate with my cats, but I do have a knack of finding cats with expensive illnesses, and before I knew about insurance, I had an incredibly high credit card!! Sainsbury's paid around £500 for PEbbles in the first year of her insurance, I would have had to put away £40-£50 just for that, and then you have boosters, flea and worm treatment on top of that (and I did have 2 cats at the time), and Tigers limp started about 6 weeks after she was insured, i didn't even have her insured for a year and they paid out nearly £1000 (I think, the specialist dealt directly with them, but think it was around £800, plus what I spent at my own vet, which was way over £200), I couldnt have saved that money up - or if I could, I would have been screwed if Molly had become ill as well.