Which insurance provider.

[Okki]

New to dog insurance and how many providers there are with such a range of cover. I think we are veering towards lifetime cover. We have a small dog (jack russell x a few things) 1 year old rescue. No known issues. (He's currently covered on petplan free insurance from charity)

How much cover do you have and who would you recommend. Petplan seems so expensive compared to others. Thanks.

Insurance: maximum possible lifetime cover, unless you have really good savings you don't mind going on the dog.

Petplan is expensive but for good reason, it would appear from other people's experiences:

• they pay out quickly and with minimal fuss
• they do not hike prices up as the dog ages quite as much as others
• they do not hike prices if you claim
• the top levels of cover are comprehensive

I insure with Bought by Many who were a similar price to PP and pay £25pm for a 2 year old, intact male springer and £15k per year, lifetime. £69 excess.

Just in case a comparison is useful...

Good insurance isn't cheap so always check the T&Cs carefully as not all policies are equal.

You need a life time cover for as much as you can afford in terms of vet fee limits. I would avoid any that also require you to pay a percentage as well as your excess and make sure they don't have a limit per condition (what's the point of a yearly £10k limit when you are capped at £2k per condition for example).

To give you an idea of prices, I paid £2000 for a severe d&v episode which required treatment and admissions. An operation to remove an obstruction after he ate a rag cost several hundreds of pounds. After a back injury it cost £240 for a specialist vet consultation and we would have been looking at £5000 if he had needed surgery. An mri starts at £2000. I also know someone who faced a bill of over £10,000 in one year due to a cancer diagnosis with operations, mri scans and treatment. If things go wrong it isn't cheap as it's effectively private health care.

Once you see the vet about anything, even if you don't claim, it can be deemed as a preexisting condition which makes it harder to swop around every year like other types of insurance. For example I have claimed around £5000 already for many different things so I can't swop now even if I wanted to as most of his body would be excluded under pre-existing clauses.

I would search for a few threads on here where people have given recommendations for different providers.

Thanks all. @missbattenburg have your premiums increased much from when you took the policy out?

Just insured my new rescue dog with animal friends but not the cheapest plan. As above, you need to consider how vet bills can mount up, my old dog had an obstruction after eating something and it cost me £3000, a year later she became ill again and I paid £1000 including having her PTS . I have had cat vet bills that have been similar. I would make sure you have at least £2000 per condition.

Battendog is only 2 years old. They were £27pm for the first year then went down by £2. I think that's just because dog's typically cost a bit less in vet's fees in the 2nd year. I expect them to start to go up from next year...

Petplan life cover for me. We've had him for 3 years now. Yes, pay a bit for the cover but he's also had 2 hip replacements, 2 tooth extractions, 2 stomach scans due to dodgy stomach and other bits and pieces. Big dog with big teeth- so any time they need to get something done that requires a proper look, he needs putting under. Have now found out, he is most likely to need 2 elbow replacements in the future. Vet fees have been humongous, as you can imagine, and continue to be so. Probably easily around 20k+ up to now. Have never had any problems with dealing with the insurance. Haven't had any other dogs in UK, so no other experience but Petplan have been brilliant.

I am with M&S with lifetime cover, they have been brilliant and always paid out. The limit is 7k per year but to be honest I wouldn't want to put my dog through anything so extreme that would go over 7k anyway and if it did I could just pay for it myself, but I recommend them and I do think it's worth paying for insurance