Talk to me about pet insurance

[mumnosbest]

So we finally have our puppy home and have started looking for pet insurance. There are so many! Can anyone point me in the right direction or tell me if there are any to avoid. What should I put as minimum payout per condition? Also can you add another pet? We have a cat too.
TIA

PetPlan are brilliant at payouts. Not had any experience with anyone else, but Bought by Many is also recommended.

Bought by many here. Two SBTs £65 for both per month. Had to claim last year they were brilliant. 7k lifetime cover.

Petplan wanted £150 per month for the same cover

Definitely lifetime cover. Bought by Many has the option of a set fee per month/year for lifetime (or thereabouts, I can't remember the exact T+C) for certain ages of pets when the policy begins and also have free vet video calls (other policies have vet nurse, though I'm sure also good). It's also Which Guide number 1 (no I don't work for them!)

I went with bought by many. I pay £15 pm for a no excess policy for my Jack Russell

PetPlan is brilliant. My boy is very accident prone and has had several payouts with no quibbles. I also know a few vets who insist on the client paying then getting refunded as they know the insurance will argue but accept PetPlan as they do actually pay. When the bill is £3000+ you really don't want to find the money upfront...

The bills go up every year but they are worth it. They don't go up more if you claim repeatedly.

PetPlan are good.

Get more cover than you think you need - the last 4 days of DDog's life, when he had to be admitted to veterinary hospital for IV fluids and a specialist emergency scan, and then needed a neuro MRI when he deteriorated further, cost £4000.

We'd already used some of our yearly covered amount of £7k on a minor accident earlier that year and then various unsuccessful attempts at diagnosing and treating what turned out to be his final illness, so we had to pay a large chunk of that final £4000 bill ourselves.

Definitely BoughtbyMany. It gives you free access to FirstVet, an online vet service. You can get an appointment within 15 mns, including out of hours. Used them twice and they were brilliant both times, excellent advice that proved correct and a fantastic report including advice by email within a couple of hours.

I thought my premium would go up for the second year as a result, but it actually was reduced by 40 pounds. Very impressed so far although haven't have to make a claim yet.

@vivainsomnia This is good to hear! I've just purchased our policy with BBM for our new rescue and the free online vet service was certainly a plus! I did wonder if it would affect future premiums if we had to use it.
When we last insured a dog it was 18 years ago and there wasn't the choice there is now. It was pretty much Pet Plan! We stuck with them for his whole life as after a few huge claims no one else would cover him anyway.

Thanks all. So looking at either pet plan or bought by many. What sort of amount would you recommend getting for a young dog?

@mumnosbest

Thanks all. So looking at either pet plan or bought by many. What sort of amount would you recommend getting for a young dog?

As much as you can afford. I claimed over £2k just for a bad bout of D&V which required numerous admissions, investigations and treatments.

An accident was going to set us back over 5k had we needed an operation on his back (fortunately we didn't need it). MRIs are over £2k alone.

It very quickly mounts up.

Wow! Thanks, best get sorted then. He's into everything so bound to need them for something sooner or later. Probably a stick or something else he decides looks tasty 🙄😁

Lifetime insurance was worth every penny for us. My dog developed epilepsy at 3 years old. By the very end (she died just before her 10th birthday) the monthly instalments were about £200 a month. That was what the epilepsy was costing in terms of drugs, blood tests etc. If we had stopped the payments then there would have been no insurance for anything else. And other things did happen. A few years back she had an emergency operation on a weekend for bladder stones. And then she got cancer. In fairness they paid up every time. The one time I felt they increased the premium unreasonably I did argue with them & they reduced. The fact is you can’t realistically jump ship to another company if they have a life long condition so they do have you over a barrel to a certain extent. But thank goodness we had that life time cover!