6months old puppy, best insurance?

[katesmithl]

I am looking to insure our 6months old dachshund puppy, but cannot decide between all the pet insurance i've looked at.
who's insured their dog/cat? i feel like most insurance providers offer the same type of services, so instead of asking you which one I should go for, can anyone tell me which one I should NOT go for?

Hi @katesmithl

In general when looking at insurance, you are better of going for a "lifetime" policy rather than a 12 month policy. It will be more expensive but will get you more. What it means is if your dog is diagnosed with allergic skin disease, and you were insured up to £4,500, a lifetime policy would pay out £4,500 for that per year for the rest of your time holding that policy. A 12 month policy would pay out £4,500 on skin for 1 year, after which time skin would be excluded and you could never claim for skin again, even if the dog still suffered with skin disease.

Now the next thing is the amount you go for. Read the small print, some lifetime policies will offer £4,500 per condition per year, giving you an endless supply of your £4,500 per year as long as for different medical reasons, others would at £4,500 per year across all injuries and illnesses. If your young puppy had some lameness issues that your first opinion vet felt needed a referral for a CT scan and subsequent surgery at a referral centre you could be easily reaching that £4000 limit, so you may prefer to protect yourself to a higher limit, but that is very much dependent on how much protection you feel you would want.

The most important thing I would say is always go for a lifetime policy. Secondly, if you decide to change insurance providers at any point in your pets life please be aware they will place exclusions on anything your pet has been ill with before. Some will place "temporary" exclusions and others will place permanent exclusions.

I hope that helps 😊

Hi @Tropicana1,

Sorry for the very late reply, and thank you so much for the time you took to answer! It is indeed very helpful