Another insurance question

[Aussiebean]

Hello

Going through insurance and while I am sure I will get life time coverage, I am unsure how much.

I am thinking about Petplan and their vet fees are 12000, 7 000 or 4 000

What would be a good amount?

12 seems too much, but worried 4 won’t be enough.

Any tips?

I have £4k and I do wish I had gone for the maximum.

A severe case of D&V set us back just over £2000 with admissions and treatments. (that was with lots of discounts as we were part of the vets health plan).

We were referred to a specialist hospital after an accident and the cost of surgery would have been more than my yearly limit of £4k. Fortunately we didn't need the surgery. However, I looked on the price list and an MRI was £2000-£2500. Several surgeries were over £5k.

I also know someone who had a bill for over £10k one year for cancer treatment for a relatively young dog.

The highest you can afford...

Some things are just really really expensive.

Having just spent (including insurance cover) over £21,000 in 18 months on one of our dogs, I would always go for the highest you can possibly afford. That amount is not including all the additional things we paid for ourselves on top of medical/vet bills or the eyewateringly expensive specialist meds we bought online via prescription (£400 for two weeks from the vets, just about half than online.)

It was frightening how quickly it added up. When he initially became ill and spent a week as an inpatient at a specialist veterinary hospital, with scans etc and £450 for each follow up appointment the final cost would have taken us straight over the £7,000 cover limit.

We were/are with PetPlan and I have to say they have been fantastic. Multiple huge claims were paid without question and although the premium did increase, it was nowhere near as bad as I had expected considering how much they had had to pay out for him.

I'd opt for highest you can afford as you can downgrade cover with petplan anytime but only increase it ( without starting a new policy) on annual renewal date they obviously won't increase to cover something that's cropped up in same way as new policy doesn't cover pre-existing conditions.

I'm lucky that vet bills here aren't as expensive as some areas of UK but I've had a dog that required 2 MRI's one year for different conditions & hospitalisation is very expensive. If its young dog the cover won't stretch as far either in old age due to inflation, which I hadn't considered with my first dog luckily the £4k policy was at least per condition per year.

Thank you all