New puppy incoming

[coolmum123]

Hello all,
in a month or so we will be collecting our lab pup and we are beyond excited. Now I am beginning to look into pet insurance and having read previous threads on the subject it seems that most on here recommend Pet plan and to go for lifetime cover. However under the lifetime cover they offer 3 policies, I am looking at the middle one which offers cover up to £7k and the higher one which offers cover to £12k. As this is our first pet I have no idea as to how high vets fees are and how much procedures can cost so my question is, is £7k cover enough for a lab pup or should we go for the highest cover and would we be able to downgrade to the £7k cover in the following years? I cant find anything about the changing cover in any of the small print on their website.

Thanks in advance

Go for the highest if you can afford it. I know someone who had over £10k bill for cancer treatment and I have seen lots of operations for several thousand at a specialist vet hospital. An MRI was £2-£2.5k.

I have the £4k policy and if I could turn the clock back I would have gone for the £12k as that means I would never be facing a bill over my cover. But then we have claimed several thousand so know how quickly vets bills can add up and that's for relatively trivial conditions. We were facing one for an accident but fortunately we ended up not needing treatment.

I enquired about increasing amounts with petplan and they said they would need a full history again and then it would go to the underwriters for consideration. Didn't bother due to our vet history but I suspect it's much easier to reduce than increase but maybe give them a call.

Agree, go with the highest you can afford because you never know what you might need.

I've got the £7k cover, and whilst I've made quite a number of claims so far for my now 9 year old dog, there's been nothing horrendously expensive. But as BiteyShark says some treatments can be hugely expensive.

Unfortunately though, it will go up as the dog ages. I'm currently paying something like £84 a month; that's off the top of my head, it could be a bit more, but it's around that mark.

I went with Tesco and they paid out no problem. £5k for a torn cruciate. My premium then doubled in cost and they told me they wouldn’t pay out for any further injuries to his legs as the existing operation meant that his other legs would likely be affected.
Just know that if you make a claim the monthly premium will increase dramatically. My friend was paying £160 a month for her boxer as he had cancer and he had one round of chemo, before he passed away. She was told the next round (plus other treatment) would cost £10,000 on top of £160 a month.

I cancelled the insurance and save the money instead, but I have savings set aside should he need treatment.

The older the dog gets the more likely it will need treatment, so you could pay thousands in to a plan before needing to claim, then when you do the premium doubles.

I am with Tesco - they have been brilliant and paid out considerable sums (my not quite 3 year old retreiver was diagnosed with a mast cell tumour in her eyelid). The tests were c. £2k, the chemo over £4k over the 18 months she was on it, and they have paid every claim very consistently and quickly. My initial premiums for their premium, lifetime cover (equivalent to PetPlan) were very reasonable, but now she's 6, they are ramping up the premiums (am now paying £100 a month), and I anticipate the costs going up massively every year. From what I've read, Petplan don't do this quite so much, and although they may be more expensive initially, they don't frontload the premiums going forward.

Even if I'd saved £100 a month (say) from when I got my puppy, I would not have had enough saved to cover her treatments - if you have £1000s which you can use for your animal, then don't insure.

The other thing to think about, and which many people overlook, is public liability insurance - e.g. if your dog ran onto a road and caused an accident, and any potential victim sued, would you be covered - it may be you are under your house insurance, but do check.