'Bought by many' Insurance for a dog

[CockapooHelp]

Hi there

Please help! I am a bit lost with all the insurance options for our new cockapoo.

So far I know we need to do a lifetime option.

My query is how much should we cover ourselves for? Is it likely operations will go over £4K!? There seems to be the options 4K, 7k or 15k.

'Bought by many' look like a good option for us, has anyone used them before? I'd not heard of them before.

Many thanks!

I am with bought by many.
I did the lifetime cover which is whatever a year and 20k over the lifespan.

Ddog had an accident and it has cost about £550 overall. General, stitches, aftercare.

I think it depends on your vet. Ours is mostly agricultural and fairly pragmatic and wouldn't encourage extortionate treatments that would leave the dog in pain.

Thanks - can I ask how much you spend per month? £20-35 seems to be the ballpark when I search.

I've just set up a BBM policy for our new rescue. Our last dog was always covered by Pet Plan - they were one of only a few options when we got him many years ago but the market is much bigger now!
He had an accident and the operation and after care cost £2.5k. This was 7 years ago. No bones were broken (amazingly) so I'm not sure if costs would have been higher if that had been the case.
He then went on to live a very long life (PTS at 19) but had a chronic illness managed by meds.
We have covered our new girl at the £7k limit on the lifetime policy and our fingers are crossed that she doesn't get to know the vets as well as our old boy did!

Go for as much as you can afford.

A severe episode of D&V which required vet admissions and investigations set us back over £2k.

An accident left us looking at a possible operation which would have been over £5k but fortunately he recovered without needing it.

An MRI would have been £2-2.5k.

It mounts up very quickly and specialist vets are expensive if you need one.

BBM and PetPlan are the companies which get most shout outs on the boards here by a comfortable margin.

Definitely get a life-time policy, which re-sets completely (no hidden per condition limits) and I'd say at least £7k cover

BBM offer a free video call with vet service, whenever you need it. May just be with some packages, but it’s so useful

Pet plan are stupidly expensive. We were paying £70 a year for a youngish dog and didn't insure second. Then I looked at bought by many and ffs it was MORE cover for £50 a year for both!!!!!! Much better insurance. We've only ever needed to claim once when our last dog died snd it was around £4500.

@Greenmarmalade yes! The free online vet service definitely swayed it for us. Our old boy always got ill on a bank holiday weekend for maximum cost so this would have been useful back then!

I pay £42 a month for the lifetime cover.
I just hated the thought of my dog getting to age 8 and being uninsurable.

So our pup had to have a relatively small op on her paw and then dressings every three days plus antibiotics plus testing to make sure the problem wasn't something nasty. All in, I think it was just over £1000. We went for £15,000 option because it is really easy to ramp up costs. Next door dog has just had vet treatment costing £16,000! It doesn't take much - an overnight stay or two, emergency out of hours,. Go for the max you can afford. Bbm paid out really quickly.

I would say 4k is nowhere near enough, unfortunately.

We pay for 20k cover for all our pets - lifetime cover. It's not cheap but we don't have a huge pot of savings for illness. My last cat ran up a bill of over 1k in two days - treatment for a cockapoo for similar issues would probably be triple that (or more).

Animal care is expensive - the NHS means we really have no idea just how much surgery, scans, aftercare etc. actually cost lol. We're insured with Tesco and have never had an issue with them paying out. I pay £37 per month for our 3yo beagle.

We’re with BBM - no regrets. Lifetime cover (our girl is a rescue) at £15k pa.

Vet fees were £8000 last year. Eye surgery, pancreatitis diagnosis, & eating a grape - resulting in 48hours hospital treatment. So go for what you can afford. It soon mounts up.

We went with BBM for our younger dog - she's a slightly unusual breed so premiums are quite high, but they paid out within the week for a recent £600 incident which covers the year's cost already. If the premium rises significantly, I"d consider ringfencing a chunk of money in Premium Bonds specifically for vet bills instead, but the 'putting money aside every month' argument only works when you've already got £4000 saved up.