Pet insurance advice

rsvmark

Hi all
to all the dog owners, we are shortly gaining a small bundle of fluff called Maisie (but she might be a Millie) as our newest family member and we are very excited. She is about 2 weeks old now and we get to meet her this weekend.

We want to do the right thing so will be getting her a health plan for injections, worms, check ups etc with our local vet. Then we want to take out insurance.

Would dog owners care to share their advice about insurance. I think we want to get a life cover policy which I think we need to renew each year with the same insurer. Is that the standard approach or do you get to shop around each year? What level of cover should we aim for?

i think we want to be on the look out for cover that rolls on into following years if she develops a condition but other than that, we have no experience so would welcome any advice.

tia

Emp_Fab

I stopped insuring mine after virtually every claim I submitted was rejected because of "pre-existing condition" clauses, smallprint exclusions, and the fact that the majority of vets bills were below the excess.  You may want to consider self insuring as they call it, which is basically putting x amount of pounds per month away and if a bill comes in you can pay it from that or if no bills come in you haven't wasted the money.

There is obviously a gamble here in that your x pounds per month may not accumulate enough of a pot to pay a huge vet's bill in the worst case scenario but you will have to weigh that up yourself.

NelsonP

Petplan. Life cover. Done.

Jimbro66

Emp_Fab said:

I stopped insuring mine after virtually every claim I submitted was rejected because of "pre-existing condition" clauses, small print exclusions, and the fact that the majority of vets bills were below the excess.  You may want to consider self insuring as they call it, which is basically putting x amount of pounds per month away and if a bill comes in you can pay it from that or if no bills come in you haven't wasted the money.

There is obviously a gamble here in that your x pounds per month may not accumulate enough of a pot to pay a huge vet's bill in the worst case scenario but you will have to weigh that up yourself.

That was exactly our experience and we took the same course of action as Emp. We put £50pm into a savings account from when our two dogs were about 3 years old having previously paid insurance premiums. That was eight years ago and during that time both have needed treatment of varying degrees and the savings have covered it easily. There's still probably enough in the pot to cover our surviving dog in her last years (she's nearly 12).

spark240

Got 2 cats ...never had insurance...never had any cause to use it ...maybe just lucky ...

Snags

If you can afford to cover potentially huge Bill's (many thousands,  generally bigger Bill's the bigger the dog) if it all goes sideways, don't worry. 

If you can't,  don't ponce about,  go with someone like PetPlan. They're not cheap,  but they pay out, and they don't cut you off after the first 12 months of a long term issue.

EricTheWeary

Whenever I’ve looked at pet insurance it’s seemed terrible value for money and they wouldn’t insure Sir Smellalot now anyway as he is old and lumpy. However, if I was getting a puppy I’d look again. But read the small print, lot of exclusions. 

RiftAmps

NelsonP said:

Petplan. Life cover. Done.

This +1.

oaf

I wouldn't bother for the reasons others have given. Premiums get expensive as they get older (for obvious reasons). If you don't have the cash on hand then put something away each month. We've had large pedigree dogs for 20 years and come out ahead from not insuring (which is what you'd expect or nobody would offer the insurance!) We have an Old English Sheepdog pedigree puppy arriving in the new year and will not take out insurance for him either. That said we can comfortably cover treatment costs and I recognise not everyone can; but I think you'd most likely (and it's a modest gamble either way) see better value in just saving £x/month if necessary.

ArchtopDave

If you are going to get insurance, then get a Covered for Life policy. I took out a Petplan one for the Savannah I acquired in February. It has paid off because he had a bizarre accident a couple of months ago, where he climbed on to my daughter’s open car door, slipped, and managed to shut the door trapping one of his front paws. Ultimately there was no serious injury, but an emergency out of hours Vet consultation, followed by emergency X-rays under sedation, cost £650. Petplan, to their credit, paid out on my policy remarkably quickly.

Kittyfrisk

Never had a 'pedigree' animal, never would & never will.
I have major issues with inbreeding & bad breeding & that's just among the so called bloody breeders...

As for insurance, get cover for life early (PetPlan or whoever) if you can, suck up all the premiums & unfairness, unless you can just pull £2,000 out of a hat at a moments notice & then keep repeating it.
Or, put reasonable money aside on a routine basis & do not dip into it.
Your choices, pets can't make their own.

The only absolute bottom line is that it isn't acceptable to let a furry family member suffer for lack of money.

NelsonP

My dog is 18 months old. This summer she inhaled a grass seed whilst running through a field. This led to a course of antibiotics, 2 surgeries, and a CT scan. Total cost £5k.

I was out walking her the other day and bumped into another dog walker. She spotted my dog's scar and asked what had happenned. Turns out her dog had exactly the same thing, but it got infected, needed skin grafts etc. Total cost £12k.

Obviously these are unlucky scenarios but the old rule on insurance applies, i.e. can you afford it if the worst happenned? If not, insure.

lapua65

NelsonP said:

Petplan. Life cover. Done.

I originally used PP but with three dogs the monthly was well over £100. We did use it, the eldest lab had a terrible infection in his mouth. Months of visits to the vets, but mention PP and the vet never mentioned bills after that. Being a very astute man I decided to use a comparison site and managed to find the same level of cover for a third of the cost. 3 years later younger lab has a huge growth under his skin on his chest. No problem we are covered. When we told the vet who we were insured with they mentioned that there would have to be an admin fee as they had had issues in the past with our insurer. It was only £20 but I was a bit miffed. Anyway, 6 months later the vet calls to tell us that the insurer was convinced that the issue was related to a previous condition and were refusing to pay. After weeks of messing about I ended up paying the vet the £1000 for the bill. Stopped paying the insurer and went back to PP

Pet Plan are expensive on the face of it, but they are excellent. I now have the three dogs insured with Pet Plan but I know that they are covered. 
Not being insured is a nightmare 3rd party insurance in the current climate is a must. The £1000 bill I had was for 3 hrs stay with less than 20 minutes of actual vet work. As soon as you go for any biopsy or scans, the prices soar.

digitalscream

You're doing the right thing - think of it as an investment in their later life care, because dogs get really expensive as they get older. Also, life cover is absolutely essential, otherwise only the first year of treatment is covered in the case of medication that's needed for life.

However, also put money aside for vet bills where an insurance claim isn't worth it.

When choosing an insurer, the best option is to talk to your vet, essentially to find out who they'll deal with directly (thus avoiding most of the pain of sorting it out yourself). Your vet won't be allowed to recommend an insurer - in fact, they won't even answer the question. However, they will tell you who they personally insure their pets with - and you can be 99% sure it's the one they deal with directly.

Iamnobody

As you’d probably imagine it starts reasonably cheap with a small excess.

Then maybe a few small claims later and over the years your dog is 10 and suddenly it’s over £100 month with a £100 + excess and you question if it’s worth it.

At that point we just switched to a basic cover elsewhere..

As stated by others, if you haven’t got four figure sums going spare it’s sensible to insure dogs.

Anyone remember the old zero excess policies? Ours was with M&S but they soon changed their cover to include an excess.

Next time we get a dog I’ll probably start with a two grand float and put £50 a month into an account rather than buy insurance.

Whilst you have to treat the animal correctly and do all the right tests - anyone else notice their vet’s eyes light up when they ask if you have insurance and you say yes?

ToneControl

we pay £30 a month for one dog now.
She had a knee ligament injury on her back leg likely caused by a small deformity plus wear and tear, cost around £2k to fix, on the insurance. The other leg started to show symptoms, and we found that some policies (bizarrely) do not cover symmetrical defects, i.e. the same injury on the other back leg, or exclude cover for 2 years.
Fortunately, her other leg seems to have recovered, and it's been 2 years now

theflyisback

Get insurance.  Look for lifetime cover plan with a reputable company.

I have a Boston Terrier pup which required £3800 of scans and treatment for meningoencephalitis which will shorten his life.  He is thankfully living a pretty good life at the moment on a course of steriods but he will relapse at some point and require £100-£400 per month of medicines in the future.

An insurance premium of £22.50 per month has me covered for £6500 for the total duration of this illness incident.

Had we not had it we would have had to get him put down or die a slow unhappy, blind life at home.   As my wife and I can't have children our dog is our world and a decision like that is a devastating one to make. 

And in any case getting a dog put down and disposed of is still a hefty cost which you would loathe to fork out in midst of bad news. 





     

rsvmark

Thanks all. Yes, we are going down the insure route I think. I have a quote for £250/year. £70 excess and £7000 of vet bills cover with unlimited treatment costs per condition. 4.8/5 reviews on feefo so it looks good. Does this compare well in your experience?

theflyisback

That sounds a good deal indeed @rsvmark

TheOtherDennis

rsvmark said:

Thanks all. Yes, we are going down the insure route I think. I have a quote for £250/year. £70 excess and £7000 of vet bills cover with unlimited treatment costs per condition. 4.8/5 reviews on feefo so it looks good. Does this compare well in your experience?

That sounds in the right ball park, but as so many others have said, beware the "pre-existing conditions" get out.

Lots of people on here recommending PetPlan, but I had the same problem with them. My dog was a rescue from the Dogs Trust, and she came with one month free PetPlan. I extended it and was paying £16 a month, but within a few weeks, my dog started dripping urine, which eventually came in big puddles. Monthly meds for it meant calling PetPlan to see if they'd cover it. Their first response was no, pre-existing condition, but I successfully managed to argue that they'd been happy to insure it for free, why were they getting arsey now I was paying for it?

They then paid up, every year, but the premiums and excess began to rise. Then a few years ago, we found she had arthritis, too, and they paid for that. But for some reason known only to the dog, her incontinence dripping stopped when she started taking the arthritis meds.

However, by the time I gave up on it all a couple of years back, the premiums and excess far outstripped the cost of the meds, so I stopped paying in. Then a few months ago, she developed what turned out to be terminal cancer. Whether they'd have paid up for that, I don't know, but overall it cost us about four hundred quid.

During the first 9 years it was worth paying for, but by the time we stopped paying, the premiums were £36 a month and the excess £150, so we'd have had to have had bills over £500 a year to have justified the insurance.

Then again, there's this thread - 

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/169078/an-appeal-for-help-after-a-dog-attack-warning-a-bit-graphic#latest

Scotty55

Paid £700 a year for our old lab to John Lewis. She was very arthritic and on various treatments. JL stumped up for all claims without quibble.

She was rushed into the vet hospital in Glasgow one Friday night as she’d a ruptured ulcer as a result of the years of pain medication. The total bill a week later was £8k - again, covered by JL less the excess.