Dog Insurance??? any recommendations??

[tiredemma]

WE will be new owners of a Cocker Spaniel puppy at the end of April- Im trying to get everything into place (before my days are spent cleaning poo etc).

Can you point me in the right direction of insurance etc??

We became the proud owners of a rescue springer spaniel in October last year.

At the time, DH conducted fairly exhaustive research (cos he's like that...) and settled upon John Lewis, which was also the provider recommended by Which.

Hope this helps, and good luck with the puppy!

My advice, NOT PETPLAN. We got 4 weeks free with our rescue greyhound and when the docs came through his DOB was wrong, and also his breed, they have him down as an Alaskan Malamute the 4 weeks ran out 25th feb, the letter I received was dated 26th feb and telling me to phone them by 25th to get a month free! I didn't get the damn papers till 3rd march!

thanks for replies- I wasnt impressed with petplan- will have a look at JL

Im so excited. Its like waitiong for the birth of a baby!

I've gone for Axa. A lot cheaper than most. Homebase, argos etc were putting their prices up extortionately.

£32 for a Staffy and a Labradoodle (a cross on their records). Life time plan £7,500 a year in vet fees.

Lovely people in the call centre. Answered all my irritating little questions.

Animal friends. Been very happy with them. They donate a share of their profits to animal charities.

Lifetime cover, no cap on individual illnesses and at least £7000 of cover.

Pet Plan have paid out £14 000 plus for me in just over a year, no quibbles, super quick and very helpful.

AXA were much slower, less efficient customer services and quibbled about a bill although all sorted out fairly easily.

E and l, the moist poo crumbs of the insurance world.

I use Tesco, have had no problems ( and they paid out for a claim I put in less than two weeks after taking the insurance out)

Pet Plan paid out for us but we had a saga with them after adopting our dog. In short, they lost our paperwork and then claimed it was our/the charity's fault. After a week of daily hour long debates and phone calls it was established that it was their fault and, to be fair, when I started dealing with managers instead of call centre operatives it got sorted out pdq.

The owner of the rescue kennel our dog came from told me that this is not the first time she has encountered those problems with PetPlan either. However, things may be different if you're starting from scratch with them instead of with the month's free charity cover.

From what I remember, I think there are ethical issues with PetPlan - I could be wrong but I think I have read on here that they insure puppy farms? We were sort of stuck with them because of a claim from the month free we got (long, complicated and rather boring so I won't go into details.)

Enjoy your lovely new puppy!

M&S and John Lewis are both good - and so is Pet Plan.

It's one thing I won't scrimp on. Make sure you choose a policy where cover is per condition, per year - ie cover for life. A number of the cheaper policies give a maximum amount per condition for life. So, with a long term condition like diabetes say, you'd only have a set amount for meds, tests and follow up care for the life of the dog - and once that has gone, you are on your own.

Much better to have a max amount per condition, per year so it defaults to a full pot of cash at the beginning of each insurance period.

petplan are good because they cover your dog for life and also dont cap ongoing illness.

Direct Line are ok, slow to pay out and ongoing illness isnt covered after a year, so you have to be careful.

We have a policy with protect your bubble, or some such weirdness. DH organised it, and we haven't had to claim on it Not sure exactly what it covers even....

I have Pet plan for my cats and they paid out no problem a while back when they could have quibbled about it. It's pricey though. I got a pup recently - cavalier king charles - and they wanted £52 a month for lifetime cover and not even the top rate of vet fees. Much as I think they are good I couldn't justify that for a puppy. So I've taken out John Lewis as recommended by a friend and apparently Which magazine recommends them as well.