Please talk to me about your pet insurance

[CanIBuffalo]

New pet owner here.
I've been on comparison websites but I'd really appreciate recommendations. Tesco, John Lewis and More Than look good. I'm swayed by the high amounts they'd pay out but realistically, what are people's experiences of vet bills for illness/accident? Are they really in the thousands?

10 week crossbreed - Cockapoo. And she's absolutely lush

Thanks Slarty I'll check.

Is she due a vet trip any time soon? They will likely be able to give you a 4 week free insurance policy with petplan. It's active immediately (if you take out a policy off your own back it's not active for 2 weeks) and then if you extend the cover to a full policy from a 4 week free policy, they give you your next month free too. Give them a call and ask

On the topic of what breed to insure the dog as - I have a different and less fashionable cross.

When I ran the calculator on PetPlan and listed him as a Breed A cross or Breed B cross (eg cocker x or poodle x) it was about the same price. When I listed him as a portmanteau of the two breeds (eg cockerpoo) the quote went up by 50%

Unsurprisingly he's insured as the equivalent of a poodle x.

You will get 3rd party liability cover on most policies although generally it only applies if the matter goes to court.

It's a legal requirement for a dog to be secured when travelling in the car now. My preferred method is to secure them in a suitable dog cage/crate

Will do Another thanks

@AvocadosBeforeMortgages thats largely to do with how they calculate premiums compared to claims.

For example if all the Labrador owners claimed £2million over a period of time and all the collie owners claim £5 million, the collie owners premiums will be more than the Labrador owners premiums to reflect that - basically if you get a higher risk breed then that's reflected in your premiums and people with lower risk breeds aren't penalised for the higher risk claims.

It'll be the same with cockapoo Vs poodle crosses - I bet far more people insure them as a cockapoo than a cross breed hence higher claims therefore higher risk

@Another surely the do it on the basis of average claims per dog, not total claims for the entirety of the UK added together?

Otherwise popular breeds would be £££ while your rare breeds would be practically free, regardless of any common health problems.

Something else to consider with non specialist companies is what will you do if they stop doing pet insurance? Halifax ( I think) did this a while ago and there were owners of older pets who were forced to find another insurer with all the pre existing conditions excluded.
That is far less likely with Petplan.

MuttsNutts
Sorry Hodge but that’s nonsense. Vets deal directly with many companies, including Animal Friends via the Pawtal system.

Apologies but I can only go on my experiences, but it's certainly the case for my vets, the other two vets I have extensive dealings with and the 3 specialists I repeatedly deal with. It's obviously not the case for everyone or everywhere, but it is what I have found.

Premiums are based on a number of factors and it's very complicated but breed is one of those factors as (very basically) outlined above. High risk breeds like bulldogs have very high premiums from the off because of the amount of problems (and therefore claims).

I have a healthy, hardy non descript little terrier. Why should I be penalised in my insurance because the country has gone mad getting unhealthy brachycephalic dogs? It's the fairest way of doing it with respect to breed risk.

A comparison I guess would be car insurance reducing with age, particularly over 25 as people become less of a driving risk as they get older

Like so many types of insurance the companies suck you in with a good introductory offer and then the premiums start to rise. Our 10y Labrador was with Tesco originally and then John Lewis which went from £40 premium per month to nearly £80 in two years and that was with no claims. We then decided to go with Petplan a couple of years ago and it’s been a steady £68pcm ever since, even with claims.

@CanIBuffalo I think as a thank you for all the advice we all deserve a pic of said baby cockapoo loveliness!!!

@feralcat19 the worst one I've had recently was an elderly lady (pensioner) coming to me in tears because her renewal had gone up to almost £300 a month (it was over (£3500) per year and she couldn't afford it. This was despite the insurance company knowing full well that the dog had weeks to live

I think the vets claiming direct from insurers varies from practice to practice. We've been with 3 different vets in our dog's lifetime but the one thing they've all had in common is that they will claim direct from Petplan. In fact the vets we're with now will ONLY claim direct if you're insured with Petplan, they told me every other insurers has messed them around at one point or another.

Lol, I sound like I work for them but I don't, I promise!

I adopted an older dog. She's 9 and I took out insurance for the first year with Animal Friends, but have not renewed. There were so many exclusions, and what not, I decided not to bother. Also you hear stories of things like if you go to the vet with e.g. a lump and it turns out to be nothing, if you go back in X years time with an actual cancerous lump, then many insurance companies will try to wriggle out of paying saying that it's a pre-existing condition.

After about 8/9 years old the cost of insurance gets really expensive, and not every company will agree to insure an older dog. A decent lifetime policy for mine came in at around £60 p/m!

If you have a young puppy/dog then I'd be more inclined to say get a lifetime insurance policy for them, but make sure you read the T&C's very carefully.

Personally I now just put £50 a month into a savings account for her. I'd also probably be able to afford any treatment costing a couple of thousand pounds if necessary. It all depends on your financial circumstances, and attitude to risk. I have a pet healthcare plan with the vets as well, where she gets 6 monthly checkups and all her vaccinations, flea and worm treatments etc under that. I also check her regularly for lumps and bumps (and ticks!). So I'd like to think that I'd catch any illness/injury quite early on.

I would warn anyone thinking about not insuring that we had a pet whose bills ran into five figures within 18 months.

Lots of other bills in the thousands too.

Insurance means when your pet is unwell or injured you can give the green light to the best treatment possible. I would never be able to live with myself if my pet had to die because I hadn’t got money or insurance to treat them.

I had a £3000 bill last year, Pet Plan didn't quibble about anything and paid the vets directly.

I got quotes from John Lewis, Tesco and Pet Plan but on reading the small print decided on Pet Plan.

They are slightly more expensive but worth it. I'd also go for a 'whole life' cover as my cat has a reoccurring condition which wouldn't be covered without it.

Definitely petplan - more expensive than others as pps have said but my boy was diagnosed with diabetes this year after numerous tests etc and thank goodness we have the insurance - we are covered for lifelong conditions such as this.

Something else to consider with non specialist companies is what will you do if they stop doing pet insurance? Halifax ( I think) did this a while ago and there were owners of older pets who were forced to find another insurer with all the pre existing conditions excluded.That is far less likely with Petplan.

This happened to us with AXA with whom we thought our dog was "covered for life". When she was 12, they pulled out of the market. She had so many pre-existing conditions by that stage, that virtually nothing was insurable - the list of exclusions was as long as my arm. It's one of the main reasons why I went with Pet Plan for my younger dog.

Try Argos, I have my Lhasa insured with them, premium in the middle range ( deffo get whole of life) and my claim was dealt with super efficiently, directly through the vet .

I've just adopted an 8 year old dog and PetPlan will only offer us 12 month cover. We're going with Animal Friends I think with a lifetime policy.

Another cautionary tale - my DSIS blindly chose the cheapest option for pet insurance. It was around £6 a month compared to my petplan lifetime policy which is about £18 a month so in the grand scheme of things not a huge amount more.
She now has a cat with a lifelong urinary tract condition and the cheapo company excluded the condition at the end of the first year!

Direct line were great with us when we needed to make a claim. We happened to be on holiday at the time and they were great sorting everything.
Also, we had forgotten to change our address when we moved house and only noticed when we went to claim (sceptically we thought this would be a good get out clause to stop them paying out) but it was no problem at all. Even when we had to claim multiple times over 2 months before ddog had to be pts they still sorted all of the bills with multiple vets with no stress to us.

We've always been with Petplan. They're the only company Vets in our area will claim direct from. Do not go with E&L though - nightmare of a company to deal with.