Insurance novice

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We have a puppy, he's come with 5 week kennel club insurance and I'm going round in circles what to do about insurance. Vet recommended lifetime cover, costs about £50 a month. It's our first dog, both sets of parents don't insure their dogs and say it incentivies vets to do more procedures. I want some form of insurance, but looking into it, it seems a lot of cost is in the diagnosis rather than ongoing pills, should I get cheap insurance and save the rest or is fully comprehensive better? We do have savings, we also have kids who adore him, I am just going back and forth with decision and would love some advice. He's a Cavalier KC, so prone to some health conditions, but vet checked and from a reliable breeder

Costs are high. A severe bout of D&V which required admissions and tests cost us over £2000 6 years ago.

It was I think about 1.5k (he's had so many issues and accidents I can't remember exactly which cost it was) when he ate a rag which cause a blockage requiring emergency surgery.

Neither case was bloated to incentivise the vet to get more money.

The issue with cheap insurance and not having life cover is that ANY thing you see your vet for, irrespective of whether you get a diagnosis or claim, will need to be declared to a new insurer and often excluded. This means if you go for a limp then a few years later you get diagnosed with something serious like hip dysplasia then they may not cover you if it is a new policy.

I think a lot of people that self insure and say insurance isn't worth it have just been lucky. You often see threads on here about how people can't afford treatment and have no insurance.

We have a springer who is 9. He's with the Healthy Pet Club through the vets so we get his flea and wormer treatment included, also a 6 month health check and his boosters, that's around £15 a month I think. We pay around £75 a month with Pet Plan for his insurance and it's been so worth it - he had an allergy years ago (didn't know at the time what it was) and his blood tests and treatment etc would have come to around £6k! One set of bloods went to France (long story) and we only paid the £90 excess. It's a lot to pay every month but in the long term it's worth it for us

With a breed like that, you want the best insurance money can buy. Please don't skimp on it - it could lead to heartbreak down the line if you find yourself in a position where your dog is unwell and you can't afford the medication or the surgery.

Vet bills are not cheap. Unless you have thousands of pounds sitting in a bank account, or a credit card with a high limit available for emergencies, you need insurance - a lifetime policy that will pay out as much as possible.

Always get insurance and lifetime cover. My CKCS is 6 months, she's from health tested parents and currently insured with pet plan, lifetime cover I also chose the middle one which I think covers up to 7k. It's costs roughly £38.

My old girl had a bad heart, towards the end she was on 3 lots of medication. One cost around £93 every 6-7wks, one £37 every 30 days and another that was about £20 every couple of months. I also needed to take her to an emergency vets at just under £500 to be treated and kept in for about 6 hours.

I'd never be without insurance, you think a young pup won't need it but it only takes them eating something they shouldn't which can result in an expensive vets stay or operation, or the could injure themselves having zoomies.

With Cavaliers, if they detect a heart murmur at say 6 years and you don't have lifetime cover or insurance at all you will be pretty much stuffed, they might not need medication immediately but they will eventually and they will need to be on it for the remainder of their life. Nobody will insure you after it's been detected and if you are insured but don't have lifetime cover then they won't pay out for medication after the initial year the murmur is discovered.

Thanks that's all really helpful

AwkwardPup developed immune mediated polyarthitis at 9 months old, & ran up nearly £9k of vet bills in the following 9 months. Most of that was diagnostic tests & two periods of care in hospital - nearly two weeks when he first became ill, & a week when he relapsed.
The actual medication was expensive - £200 a month from the cheapest online pharmacy I could find - but only a small portion of the total.
Thankfully insurance covered every penny (except an excess of around £100).
He's now fully recovered and free from medication.

Our cocker was PTS, age 15, 2 months ago age 15. She had a broken leg pinned and later amputated age 4-5, and many antibiotics in between for infection in the bone; cancer treatment age 10 and painkillers for arthritis for the last year. All things that probably seem unfeasible when you have a young puppy, but would have cost £1000s.

Just had to go to the out of hours vets. Almost £300 just to be seen. Treatment is on top.

Yes I have to pay the excess but at least I get some of it back with insurance and if we have to go back then all of any further costs.

Go with the best lifetime policy you can afford . We are with Direct line on their better policy , we’ve not needed it much but dog is 12.5 and they paid out when he had a tooth removed a couple of years ago and not all policies cover dental . Unfortunately we’ve had 2 visits to the emergency vet yesterday and today with some medication that has so far this BH cost us around £600 . Sadly my lovely dog has been provisionally diagnosed with some kind of neurological problem , likely to be a brain tumour and is in quite a bad way . We will be going to our usual vet tomorrow to see if anything can be done . ☹️

My Lab is insured through Many Pets. £15k cover. I think for his first year it was £350 or thereabouts for the year and he is covered for working when he's ready. We have used M&S for the previous Lab and Petguard for my working spaniel.

We got £2k insurance, I thought I had done my research on the most expensive surgeries for the breed of my dog, insurance company said 98% of claims are within that amount, he was fit and healthy so we thought it would be fine but last night we had to use out of hours vet, £360 for appointment plus them giving him a tablet to calm his down, then £600 to out of hours eye vet, that was before surgery. He actually needed 2 lots of surgery so we are now having to pay over £1k on top of insurance. I am so cross I didn't go for the higher amount, frustrated at myself for making such an error, in future I'll go much higher than I think I'd need.

Do you mean that your puppy is ‘vet checked’ (which means very little), or do you mean that your puppy came from extensively health tested parents, through the breed approved schemes?

Either way, you do not have the healthiest of breeds and there are no guarantees, but properly screened parents would make some difference at least. In addition, all the health screening in the world doesn’t prevent accidents, and they can be very expensive, running in to the £000s very quickly.

Personally, I would never be without insurance, and my breeds are much healthier overall.