How much?!! Hound's annual insurance has gone up to £1200

[PerfectlyDone]

We did have a claim last year (abscess in one of his toes that proved to be quite treatment resistant and required surgery 2x), but he is otherwise a healthy 4 year old greyhound.

Should I shop around?

I might sell him for cat food otherwise.... [joke]

Who are you with?

If you are happy with the foot issue not being covered under the new insurance, should complications arise, then by all means shop around. New insurer might also exclude the same condition on any other foot...

More Than.

And to be fair they were very good with settling all bills, the big vet hospital he ended up going to settled directly with them - no complaints about the service but a bit aghast about quite how massive the hike is: >100%. I paid £498 last year.

Jeez that is high!
I read this as my dogs insurance has gone up to £1140 this year but she is 10, and I've claimed nearly £5,000 over the years.

In your position is definitely shop around and accept that you're not going to be covered for a toe absess in the future.

The toe abscess was due to glass lying around and a tiny sliver getting into the pad of one of his toes

mando, thanks for letting me know that dog insurance can get this high

This is a rescue dog who did not cost me much to get him....
And he is really not pulling his weight around the house either

I will shop around.

I knew it would be More Than. Total bastards. Go to Pet Plan.

Oh, really?
They have that reputation? Who know?!

I am definitely going to speak to PetPlan, thanks.

I'm with petplan and am really happy with them. Claimed over £2.5k first year and premium went up £15 for the year. Just claimed another £2k so will be interesting to see what the renewal is like for year 3. They do say they don't factor in any claims for the cost of the premium.

However, they will ask for a complete history from the vets when you make your first claim so may preclude anything you have consulted them about even if you didn't claim.

They have done it to me on both dogs I have insured with them. I now tell anyone who will listen that pet plan seem expensive at the beginning but they will not price hike, and they will pay out reliably.
More Thanseem to have the attitude that they are a loan account for the pet and aggressively recoup any ‘losses’.

Wow that's crazy.

I was a bit shocked that mine seems to jumped every year and is (just renewed) now well over £600 a year but my dog is 7 years old and I've claimed over and over for her ongoing condition.

Like pps I'm with Petplan, I have a mid range lifetime policy and they pay out without any problems every time.

I switched to petplan for my small dog when the price hikes became ridiculous with my previous insurer (Argos) - she’s only 4 and they were increasing >50% a year despite her having no claims and no health conditions.

I’m waiting to see what the damage is for my big dog before deciding whether to switch him as well, his insurance is already expensive and I made a £1,500 claim this year. Have to weigh up the risk of the exclusions vs what I’m expecting to be an eye-watering cost of the policy with his current insurer!

I looked at More Than when I was first looking for insurance for my dog and found their very pushy attitude put me off. I glad I trusted my instincts.

Note - PetPlan have changed My brother had been with them years, had huge claims in first year on his dog (rescue) and it had never gone up by more than a few pound (literally less than £10pa increase).

So I put my dog with them. My first year renewal price was hugely more (went from £30 - almost £50pm) on a 1yr old healthy dog - who had only ever been to the vet for vaccinations! I thought there had been an error but they said no that's perfectly normal percentage increase now.

My brother's renewal came just after and his premium had gone up over 50%. He queried it and was told that that increase was now a perfectly normal increase percentage (dog wasn't old only 5-6ish).

We've been massively unimpressed with Petplan. But due to the age of DDog (9) we're stuck with them as he's now uninsurable elsewhere. They placed a whole raft of exclusions on our policy to begin with (to the point where it felt like we were only insuring his head and feet!), because anything mentioned in his notes was excluded (even if there had been nothing wrong - skin issues are excluded because the vet said in his notes he has 'white coat syndrome' ie isn't keen on the vet, PetPlan refuse to accept that isn't an actual medical condition despite written confirmation for the vet!). When we queried the exclusions they said the majority were 12-24month exclusions and once we'd "proven" there weren't any underlying issues they'd be removed after the relevant time. The time is up for them this year, there have been no issues since the policy began and so we telephoned to ask for them to be removed. That was March, we're still waiting for them to get back to us with confirmation that they're going to remove them. We've sent two letters from the vet, four copies of his notes confirming perfect health, rung countless times and we're still no further forward and yet the whole time we're paying £80 a month for the insurance.

If we had the choice I wouldn't touch PetPlan with a barge pole.

Shelby that's so funny!
White coat syndrome.

Well, now I am thoroughly confused, reading the negative PetPlan experiences....

Have you consulted your vet for anything other than the claim? Limp? Eye discharge? Etc. If so then I expect them to have certain things excluded if you move companies.

Pet plan do say premiums aren't affected by claims but honestly as dogs get older they are going to increase even without claims. Certain breeds probably have different risks at certain ages so I totally expect my premiums to increase each year.

It's all a bit of a gamble because in year 2 at £4500 in total claims and less than £800 in total premiums it's going to be a few years before I have paid in more than they paid out assuming that we have no further claims (and we already have one life time condition which comes and goes). Obviously lots of people who don't claim or only make a couple of low claims would feel like it has been a waste of money.

No, I've only been to the vet's about this one problem (presented as a limp, took ages and several visits to diagnose appropriately, took 2 lots of sedation and surgery and many weeks of antibiotics and antiinflammatories to sort out), he's only been for annual vaccinations etc.

I've paid about £1000 in premiums in 3 years of ownership, claimed £2.5k last year and greyhounds are genetically speaking a very healthy breed.
What I really want is liability/3rd party insurance should he ever run in to a car or summat.

If you can self fund several thousand pounds in medical care if needed then I think you can just get third party insurance from dogs trust.

Petplan are good BUT premiums have generally increased for them in the last year or two, there's reasons for that as there's been changes to the industry and the way they have to run which have cost them a lot of money. They settle claims pretty quickly and their service is really good. Their systems are old but they do the job

Perfectly if you can access enough money should the need arise then the third party route is a good option. I've done it and ok I've spent out on vets bills in the last couple of weeks (tail injury, that has now led to amputation) but it has still cost me far less than the annual insurance premium on just one of my dogs.

Obviously there is the risk of certain conditions, that may need lifetime medication or multiple things happening in a year or if you need out of hours veterinary care (which is generally off the scale of expensive - a woman I was talking to in my vets surgery the other day said the animal hospital that do the out of hours care for our area (none of the other veterinary surgeries around here do out of hours) charge a couple of hundred per each 7 hours stay and the cost of the vet or vetinerary nurse checking on them periodically is not included in that and costs hundreds more. She spent over £1000 for her cat to be there just one night!

It's a gamble. You could pay premiums and literally never claim or you could end up claiming more than you ever pay. So long as you can access enough money if needed, then its up to you which gamble you are happier with.

Hm.
Food for thought.

Thank you for sharing your experiences, everybody.

I am now quite tempted to go down the Dog's Trust 3rd party insurance route and putting the £50/month I paid last year in insurance in a separate account.
Hm.

The downside of putting money into an account is if something big happens in the first few years.

If you have access to several thousand without crippling you then it can be worth the gamble. It would have taken many years for us to have saved £4500 to cover our bill just using the monthly premium.

@PerfectlyDone Ddog is a greyhound, too! Given that he's 9, he's had what I would describe as excellent health so far. We've had the usual cuts and scrapes from when he was younger, a limp that appeared for a couple of weeks then vanished never to been seen again then the only long running issue we've had is his anal glands (!!). Unless they're emptied on a 6 weekly basis he starts walking funny, then starts yelping when lying down etc. It took a while for us to realise it was the anal glands causing it and since realising we've had them emptied every six weeks and have had no further issues at all. Therefore we expected anal glands and related issues to be excluded but they've excluded virtually everything.

The white coat syndrome was (and continues to be) eye wateringly frustrating. After getting cross with the first person I spoke to about it, they went to speak to the underwriter who apparently then said that the call handler had misunderstood and that neurological issues were excluded because of his white coat syndrome diagnosis, not skin issues (they're excluded because it's in his notes he has a poor quality coat..... ). I obviously queried the neurological issue and was told that fear of the vet would suggest that he's not neurologically sound. Our vet has written twice confirming that she was merely meaning, in a tongue in cheek way, that he's terrified of the vet (he really, really is - he went for a dental recently and lost control of his bowel, twice, in fear ), but PetPlan will not back down over it. We can't get to speak to anyone other than a call handler, we get promised someone will call back and no one ever does, it's beyond frustrating.

I'd cancel it, but I'm terrified that what if he's ill and it's a long running expensive issue - we'd be fine for a while, but there's a limit, and I'd be distraught at not being able to afford to treat him so we're still paying the £80 a month.... Although DH has pointed out that PetPlan would probably refuse to cover any issue because they'd try to link it to his imaginary skin/neurological condition....

Self funding is a good idea if your dog is young, healthy and you could afford any sudden expensive claims early on before your vet bills pot built up. We did it for a couple years when both dogs were young (we had DDog's brother until he died aged 6) and it was fine, I almost wish we'd carried on then we'd have a sizeable pot in addition to other savings.... Hindsight is wonderful!

Sorry, I've ranted and derailed a bit.

This is ridiculous. My friend's Westie had to have thousands of pounds worth of surgery last year and her pet insurance jumped from around £34 to £60 so your seems very excessive !

It sounds like the pet insurance industry is becoming like house insurance, broadband, electricity and so on -- you need to change to a different provider each year to get a decent deal.