best dog insurance? Is £1000 vet bills enough cover?

[WTFwasthat]

so confused and want to onsure asap as free month with Petplan has expired

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

No, my friend's dog needs a 5k op. look for something with more and lifetime cover. I found a thread on Moneysavingexpert when I was looking that helped.

[HarlettHoHoHoScara]

£1k is not enough.

A broken leg could cost twice that to repair. And if your dog needed tests such as an MRI scan, you could wipe out your insurance limit in one bill.

Our insurance limit is £7k per year. We have racked up some serious vet bills but have never exceeded this.

You also need to ensure that it's a 'for life' cover and not per condition. Some policies limit you to, say, £3k per condition. If your dig develops something like diabetes needing lifelong treatment, you will only be able to claim a maximum of £3k for it. With some conditions, you could easily claim that in the first year meaning you would have to fund the rest of the bills yourself for the rest of the dog's lifetime. And you can't switch insurance companies once you reach your limit as a new policy won't usually cover any condition that's previously been claimed for or was diagnosed before the policy began.

[vodkaandcoke]

We had a heart condition with our dog and it added up to about £4500 in the end so no I would say it needs to be more.

[tazzle22]

another that says maybe not enough for a lot of common things

one my dogs has twice needed highish claims .. last year for pancreatitis and this year for an op to fix torn cruciate ligaments and follow up physio (almost £4k by the time that will be finished). A previous dog had diabetes, lots of stays in vet over the 14 months

depends really though on what you can afford........... £1,000 might be enough for monor complaints and anything else might be case of pts.... no matter how much our limits are we might all face such a decision if we cant afford treatment.

[SpanielFace]

I'm a vet. In our area, swallowing a foreign object (sock, bone etc) and needing surgery to remove it could easily cost £1000 or more. A fracture could be anything from £600 up to £6000 plus, depending how complicated. Chronic illness such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis etc are really common, and can cost even more over the years. These are not conditions where most people would chose to put the dog to sleep.

The level of treatment available for pets has become massively more sophisticated over the last 10 years, especially in specialist referral centres, but it comes with a big price tag.

I would be looking for a policy with a much higher level of cover, and also one with lifetime cover that will continue to cover for the same condition for the dog's life (rather than excluding it after the first year). There are some terrible policies out there so do be careful!

[WTFwasthat]

i will ring and see if ican amend it. thankyou

[Kaida]

AXA has good insurance IME. We've claimed over £1k several times with one of my dogs, so I would definitely go with a better policy.