Best level of pet insurance to go for?

[kjhkj]

We have had free insurance for Dpuppy for the past few weeks but I'm now looking at separate insurance. The breeder we got him from advised us to go for a lifetime policy but what level of cover is it best to go for . The options seem to be 2000 per year, 7000 per year or 15000 per year. I'm assuming 2000 isn't enough but is 15,000 excessive?

[cricketmum84]

Hmmm that's a difficult one!! I could easily say that petplan covered for life is the best policy out there.

When we set puss cats insurance up we went for the £4000 a year policy rather than the £10000 a year. And here we are with a bill for £3600 after she was poisoned, policy year doesn't renew until January and she still needs medication and regular blood tests so we will be over the £4000 limit and will need to pay some ourselves.

I would go for one level above the one you think you need if that makes sense!

[BiteyShark]

I have £4000 a year and honestly it is not enough cover as we have claimed just under £5000 and he isn't even 3 yet. It doesn't take much to be landed with a big bill. We narrowedly avoided a £5000 operation when he jumped a ditch and missed but fortunately he recovered without it. An MRI will set you back £2000-2500 alone.

I know someone who had a bill over £10,000 bill for cancer in a relatively young dog.

If I ever got another dog and had to start again I would go for the highest yearly life time cover I could afford.

[PrayingandHoping]

It depends on your own finances to a large degree!

We always go for a £4-5k lifetime policy.

[kjhkj]

The cost of the policy actually isn't dramatically different

£7000 lifetime cover with no excess is £295

£15,000 lifetime cover but an excess of £69 plus 20% of the cost is £260

I want the 15k cover but no excess for a bit higher premium but that doesn't seem to be an option!

[PrayingandHoping]

I dislike copayments.... that quickly adds up! They are standard with old dogs big annoyingly creeping in for younger dogs now too 😡

Excess.... fine. That's fixed. When I was looking last month I was shocked how many crept co payments in to a 4 yr old dog when looking at finer detail

[iloveewanthedreamsheep]

Ddog cost us £3k in one day at a referral centre. I would go high if I were you!

[BiteyShark]

Yes I would avoid the copayments as well as that makes any big bill still quite substantial.

[thisisthetime]

We had the £4000 lifetime cover and ddog only went over it one year by less than £1000 and he had a lot of health issues during his life. I would say go for the £7000 one as once he got older and we had to co-pay that was a real financial drain.

We ended up cancelling and self paying when he was 11 as half the time it wasn’t even worth it on top of the massively high premiums by that stage.

I would also say just in case you are not aware to make use of online pet pharmacies. I didn’t until my ddog’s final months and they saved us a fortune. You get a prescription from the vet for approx £10 and save £££. We were getting monthly tablets for £30 instead of £100 as one example. They are also much cheaper for general things such as flea prevention.

[Winsomelosesome]

I'd go for the 7k cover. I work in a vets and that will cover most accidents or illnesses, including referrals. We had a dog in last week who had an unfortunate incident whilst on holiday, total costs were about 5.5k, they only had the 4k cover. Very few animals will cost 15k over 12 months.

[Winsomelosesome]

Just to touch on pp comments re online pharmacies, I agree they are cheaper due to bulk buying/zero overheads etc, however pet owners should be aware that vets have foolishly imo kept their professional fees extremely low in comparison to other professionals by relying on drug mark ups and that is going to have to change due to the increase in the use of online pharmacies.

[kjhkj]

Thanks everyone thats really helpful. It sounds like the 7k with no excess is the best option for us then.

[missbattenburg]

Who's that withOP?

I am with Bought by Many and have £15k for £69 and no excess...

[kjhkj]

Hmm, its with bought by many. I maybe need to investigate further.

[PrayingandHoping]

Bought by many didn't offer me an excess free policy.... prob depends on your breed of dog

[missbattenburg]

If I remember rightly when the price quotes pop up (value, regular, complete) they have little sliders under the price that allow you to change the excess. The price obviously changes as well...

[PrayingandHoping]

No options to remove excess AND copayment on mine.... only the amount of insurance and cover type.

Clearly gsps are high risk 🙄😂

[missbattenburg]

have £15k for £69 and no excess

I totally lied here - sorry. What I MEANT to say was 15k of cover with £69 +0% excess.

This is not what I wrote. I should proof read more

[kjhkj]

i'm just playing with the various options on the site and it looks like the zero excess option is only available on the mid level 7k policies.

[Itsjustmee]

What you want to look at is
Per condition
Amount per year
Per condition is often cheaper it might blind you with.£10000 per condition
But if your dog has a lifetime condition that isn’t going away once you have used up that £10,000 on that condition you don’t get any more money towards it

Amount per year say it’s £7500 once you have used that amount up on say1- 3 things in one year then you have no more in the pot till the next renewal date although other smaller stuff may be included and the policy will probably go up

Some require you to have there teeth checked every year think that was KC insurance otherwise anything to do with teeth mouth would be excluded and if they could get away with it if your dog got knocked down they would try to refuse paying out because you didn’t have his teeth checked

[Twooter]

What breed is your dog?