Eye watering pet insurance quote!

[LadyinCement]

Just had renewal for pet insurance: 4-year-old golden retriever. He's in very good health, just a few incidents regarding eating things he shouldn't.

Pet insurance quote from PetPlan has arrived and it's £600!!!!!!!!! Six hundred pounds. I don't know what to do. That is a horrendous amount of money, and I know some people put aside the payment in case of a medical situation, but dog is the love of my life and if anything befell him I'd be zooming to Supervet demanding the best treatment so pet insurance is necessary.

I got other quotes last year, but when I delved deeper they all had exclusions for things I'd had investigated for dog when he was a puppy (I was an inexperienced fusspot). They're not even things you have previously claimed for, it's anything that's on a dog's medical record. Eg dog had an impacted tick I had removed and other insurers excluded all claims relating to tick infections or diseases suspected to be tick-born.

Any advice or at least sympathy?

[ofudginghell]

Go through a comparison website and really read through them with an eagle eye.
Takes time but worth it.
Took me days to find a policy for my five years old rescue greyhound that covered life time and reoccurring treatments if needed.
More than were the best and got a quote and policy much much cheaper than a lot of the others with an excess of £75.
I found per plan to be over the top extortionate.

[DeleteOrDecay]

I don't have a dog but do have a cat and found the quote from PetPlan to be expensive even for what you get with them.

We are with Animal Friends now, they were half the price although you get a little less I find its better value overall, If that makes sense. But it took a while of trawling through confused.com to find a policy which worked for us. These insurance companies can be sneaky.

[BiteyShark]

I must admit when I got my insurance for my puppy I comitted myself to suck up the premium increases as it's a life policy and already he would have lots of exclusions if I moved to another company. It does kind of suck with the pre existing conditions clauses

[LadyinCement]

My vet practice does not recognise Animal Friends. Says that they have had too many claims turned down for spurious reasons. Sorry to alarm you, DeleteOrDecay!

I'll have a look at MoreThan. I too was prepared to take the insurance premium on the chin when it was £450 or so, but £600 is making me sweat.

[Whitney168]

Pet Plan always expensive and not quite the good reputation they had years ago, although still fairly dependable.

Animal Friends a very poor reputation, although have never used them myself.

I usually dot between Direct Line, More Than, John Lewis each year as my dogs have no pre-existing conditions to worry about. I always get a reduced premium, even if I'm actually starting a new policy with exactly the same company. Oh, and always go through Topcashback, there are often substantial incentives, even if you have to wait a good while for them.

Only DL that I have had substantial claims with and (touch wood!) never had any issue with them. Don't forget DL not on comparison sites.

Those who say just put the premiums in a savings account clearly don't live in the area I do, where even a minor injury can cost around £1,000 and anything extensive could very quickly run in to the £000s. I am not a 'do everything just because you can' type, but don't ever want to make decisions on my dogs' treatment for money rather than the dog's welfare.

[furlinedsheepskinjacket]

wait til they get older and have health issues that invariably come with age.my lab was costing us over 80 per month for his last few years.
:(

[reallybadidea]

Tbh for £600 a year I think I'd be tempted to put the money into a separate account and self-insure. 'Which' magazine says this is a reasonable option in their review of insurance policies iirc.

[MadisonAvenue]

We're paying around £360 a year with Petplan for our 5 year old mongrel. The premium leapt up by around £100 last renewal.

We've only claimed twice, for injuries, during his lifetime and he's undergoing treatment now for an infected paw pad (which stems from yet another injury) and we're reaching the £200 mark and that's just for a couple of consultations, two courses of antibiotics and a pack of antibac wipes. Next week's consultation will add to the amount and I'm not sure whether to claim or not in case it pushes the premium even higher than the normal renewal amount would be when the time comes next year.

I'd be wary of self insuring by saving the premium in an account though as some injuries and illnesses can produce eye-wateringly high bills running into thousands can't they. There's a thread on here about someone with an uninsured dog which has got into a neighbour's garden and injured an uninsured pet rabbit and the cost of treatment for the rabbit, which the dog owner has been asked to pay by the rabbit owner, is almost £1300 iirc.

[ExConstance]

We always had the "dog before the dog before" insured and in all the 16 years he lived we only had one claim, which did not cost as much as the excess on his policy. Our last two dogs have been adopted from rescue at 8 years plus and have been too expensive to insure. Dog 1 developed leukaemia and it cost us lots to have him diagnosed and an eye watering amount for fairly limited treatment.
Dog 2 is relatively healthy but just blood and urine tests and an ultrasound cost us over £300 a few weeks back, fortunately he has now made a good recovery from whatever it was they could not find wrong with him at the time. If we got a puppy (unlikely) I'd insure until he was about 13, but beyond that probably not.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

The problem is that, even if you put aside the £600, a really big vet bill could wipe that out instantly. Our dog needed three knee surgeries and an admission for a gastric ulcer caused by her pain medication, and the total bill, over the course of a year, was over £10,000!

Luckily she was insured, and PetPlan paid up without a murmur - but we fully expected her premiums would shoot up when we came to renew - but they didn't.

It might be worth contacting PetPlan, and seeing if you can negotiate the premium down, by agreeing to a bigger excess - that is what dh was planning to do.

[LadyinCement]

UPDATE: I just haggled 10% off from Petplan and more cover!

[BLUEsNewSpringWatch]

Well done OP.

One point to note: Pet Plan premiums do not increase with claims on your individual dog. They are based on likely costs incurred for each breed by age.

Also bear in mind with pet insurance policies - any illness / injury your dog has had, whether claimed for or not, will then be excluded by other insurers, effectively trapping you. Many of those that start off cheap grow exponentially as the dog ages. Petplan is known for being more expensive for a younger dog but to end up being cheaper than others in the long run.

[CornflakeHomunculus]

One thing to bear in mind with certain insurers underwritten by the RSA Group is that now have a "preferred referral network" which means you may have to pay an extra £200 (on top of the normal excess) if you want to see a specialist who isn't on their list.

This guide if worth reading if you're insured with an RSA insurer, particular More Than, Tesco and Argos.

[DeleteOrDecay]

My vet practice does not recognise Animal Friends. Says that they have had too many claims turned down for spurious reasons. Sorry to alarm you, DeleteOrDecay!

Argh, did not know these things about Animal Friends! I'll contact my vet, I think I'm still in the cooling off period as I only took the policy out last week.

Glad you managed to negotiate a better deal!

[BiteyShark]

That's the problem with insurance. You only know whether you got a good deal when you have to claim.

OP glad you got a better deal from them.