New to dog ownership

[Curlylox]

We are shortly to be new puppy owners...how exciting! Have been reading various books and researching etc but what I would like advise on is pet insurance......it's a minefield and such a hugh difference in premiums? Also can anyone recommend a cheap online site to purchase our puppy kit list please?

I did a price comparison for our puppy insurance. Ended up going with Tesco and it was £13 a month. You need to take into account the excess and what type of cover you need (vet fees, lost, reward offered, pts, death etc)

puppies are so exciting, make sure you take loads of photos as they grow so fast

We use Greenbee

Thanks kid. bourbon any specific reason why you use Greenbee please?

Another one for your list is PetMeds online, for things like Frontline and Drontal. It's the cheapest I've found, far more so than the vet's prices, and delivery is fast too, with excellent customer service.

Insurance is a nightmare! But do buy online as there are discounts to be had. I got a quote from morethan via phone did the same quote online and got a 35% discount.

Tesco is giving a big online discount at the moment. Do be aware though that if you once start with one company and do claim you can not claim for an ongoing illness with a new company so although cheap for the first year you need to see what the cost wil be without discount for the following years.

I am still undecided about insurance having a policy for 5 dogs for the last 6 years and only claimed once for a cut paw! However not brave enough to not have them insured.

One thing to bear in mind about insurance is that some vets won't take direct payments from certain insurers.

My vets will take direct payment from PetPlan. but not Healthy Pets. We pay the extra now to be with PetPlan, as £17 per month is more affordable than trying to find a large sum should anything happen. Even we were to get it back.

What is the excess like on policies?
I think we had an excess of £60, which is quite high. Then again, I don't really know the cost of vet fees as never really had to take a dog in for any reason.

Make sure you get a cover for life policy. Many policies will only cover you for 12 months or to a specific cost limit per condition and after that you are on your own. If you are unlucky enough to get a chronic condition in your pet you could find you end up paying a lot over the lifetime of the pet after the first 12 months or £ xyz has been spent - eg diabetic pet needing insulin for life.

The one I had with Tesco was direct debit every month and at the end of the first year, I think they were going to send us a quote for the year and then continue to take direct debit payment unless we told them otherwise

Its all so confusing, same with house insurance. I prefer car insurance, at least thats straight forward.

Their quote was very competitive and the benefuts offered were good incomaprison,also personal recommendation by a number of people,petplan was sooo expensive and if i remember rightly didn't offer such good benfits.We had to make a claim in our first year and they were very helpful and efficient

Sorry that was about greenbee

Goodness me must pay more attention when I'm typing, just seen the typos in my original post!

Cheapest policy excess was about £69 I think, but the premiums ranged from about £16 to £40 odd a month depending on type of policy you wanted. So difficult to choose as a few of you have mentioned some insurances only covering a condition up to a certain amount in the pet's lifetime, but who knows what will happen to your pet over the years !!?? Thank you for your responses although a little wiser still don't know what to do ...
I'm with you kid on that car insurance is a no brainer.