Sidestepping pet insurance

[Froghat]

We've had a terrible shock with our PetPlan insurance renewal for our 4-year old dog. The premium is set to go up to £167 per month. It's currently £109. We have £7000 per year on a life cover plan.

I got another quote today and it was in line with the above (slightly higher overall since the excess was considerably higher).

My question is: have you chosen to put money away instead of getting pet insurance? I'm thinking of going down that route.

This is my first dog and I'm nervous of what he needs he might have when he gets older (and whether I will regret not having insurance). But then if this is the premium level now, what on earth will it be when he's a senior?!

I'm looking for comfort that this isn't a barking idea (pun intended!) and any war stories.

Have you claimed a lot already? Our lab is 11 now and we pay £127 to Petplan. We have claimed for a fair number of ailments and surgery and they do pay out without a quibble.

"Putting money away" instead is a massive gamble. Petplan paid out more than £9000 on my dog in one year.

The dog after that one needed surgery costing £12000.

Not at all! We had a £263 claim for a grass seed in ear in summer 2022 and that's it!!!! I cannot understand why it is so expensive.

£167 per month for a 4yo dog seems absolutely extortionate. My beagle is nearly six, we have over twice the level of cover you do and pay about £57 a month with Tesco.

Have you claimed a lot or do you have a breed known for having lots of health issues?

The issue with putting money aside is that you could stop your insurance tomorrow and your dog could need expensive surgery next week. Could you afford to pay out 7k if you needed to? How would you feel if you had to put your dog to sleep because you couldn't afford to treat him/her?

If you've never claimed and your dog is healthy t would be better to just look for a different policy, but bear in mind that anything you've ever seen the vet for could be classed as a pre-existing condition.

No I wouldn't. If you're going to change insurance though make sure you've not claimed or there's nothing on your dogs record that could be cause for concern for a future insurer because it won't be covered.
If you do change though make sure you know that there's a window of up to usually 14 days that won't be covered so you'll need to negotiate an earlier start date from the new insurance (we've done this before).
I agree that is steep though. But then I've claimed well over £7k in the last few years so I would never gamble on pet insurance

We don't have any pet insurance now. Dcats diabetic and none of that would be covered after renewal including related conditions. Ddog had two lots of teeth extractions (apparently a thing, with long greyhound muzzles) that weren't covered, and has had issues in past now not covered. It just doesn't seem worth it. It would be a lot now due to them being 16 & 13yo respectively. We have an emergency fund should we need it. But because they're older anything major we may choose pts now, depending what it is.

That seems very very steep!
My 4 y/o lab is £22 monthly with petplan. We had one claim when he was 1 y/o for xrays after he swallowed something he shouldn't have.

What breed is your dog? I guess you have shopped around?

I was with Many pets but the put the fees up extortionately. I moved to John Lewis, was cheaper than I had been paying previously. I found getting a quote direct was cheaper than going through comparison sites.

You would have to have access to several thousand pounds for peace of mind. Emergency treatment in particular can end up costing thousands in just a few days.

Yes, I’ve always done this as I’ve always owned several dogs. Their account now has a substantial balance of several thousand pounds, money that would be in some insurance firm’s profits.

Wow that sounds hugely expensive.

I'm paying less than £20 a month (for each dog) for a 6 year old terrier, 4 yr old border terrier and a 2 yr old foxhound cross. All with £6000 a year vets cover and the usual third party stuff. I've always found Pet Plan really expensive. I'm with Purely Pets

That’s a lot per month. My 8 year old lab bitch is £48 per month for £7k per year. She is ridiculously healthy (touch wood).

Meantime, her older ‘brother’ was uninsurable by 7 years old. Premium was £2000 per annum and going up. We saved money , and now he is elderly we are dipping into it - in the last year he has racked up about £4k in vets fees, probably close to £3k the year before. And hopefully we will have him for a wee while longer. That said, some of those costs are discretionary .

Sorry I meant to answer your actual question. I work with a dog charity and see lots of people who put the premium away each month and build up a savings pot in case their pet has to have vet attention. We recently lost one of our dogs at 6 yrs old, we spent about £1500 on treatment before he was pts. If I'd have banked his insurance premium I'd have just about broke even.

I would keep the insurance, but shop around or call pet plan to see if you can haggle on the premium. We racked up nearly £1500 for our cat in one day without anything invasive being done!

There has to be more to this. My 8 year old ISDS registered Border collie is £47 per month for £16k lifetime cover.

It’s seems understandable to gamble on saving the pot of money to use for health as long as you have back up money. But my worry would be a claim for personal injury eg if your dog causes a road accident and someone has an injury claim could run into £££? Or would that not happen?

If you feel that your insurance has acted unfairly you can contact the financial ombudsman service ,i don't think many people know that they consider pet insurance problems too.

I put money away every month instead of paying insurance premiums. HOWEVER I also have access to decent savings and a credit card with a large limit that I knew I’d use if I needed to. I now have several thousand pounds in that account on top of paying every vet bill in full for 5 pets in the 2 years I’ve been doing this. I’m comfortable with my system but it’s not for everyone and the insurance companies know that

I’m too scared that the moment I stop paying for insurance something will happen.

We have two dogs with pet plan and I was also shocked at the increases:

• spaniel cross 3 yo £34 to £41
• labrador 6 yo £79 to £101

I was really shocked at the lab! I did expect it to be over £100 until she was at least 8 :( but I just can’t bring myself to cancel it.

Try Direct Line, OP.

You can get third party insurance for £25 a year via Dogs' Trust.

Thanks for your reply. May I ask how you square the third party risk point raised by @Mistlebough above? That has given me pause for thought but then I don't know how things work - would someone actually sue you if your dog ran across the road and caused an accident. And would the insurers really pay up anyway?

Pet plan doubles our insurance and we have six dogs and also look after three others which we also insure for walking.

Of our own dogs we have stopped paying insurance on two of them and put aside £200 each month for the two of them in the event of any veterinary bills. The reason for this is one is a crossbreed of two breeds and Petplqn despite us providing DNA tests that show the two breed mixes, will only insure one of the breeds which is the one that is known for health problems. Dog will be 9 and has never been ill or injured. He doesn't have any of the breed complications that a pure breed type is prone to.

The other dog is elderly and we would not subject to an anaesthetic or invasive tests and treatments.

The rest are fully insured and we now insure through Many pets.

We no longer have horses and their insurance was also going up and up.

A friend of mine also has several dogs. Luckily she still insures though, as she’s had more than £25k of vet’s bills on unrelated ailments across three dogs this year alone. ‘Several thousand pounds’ can be wiped out very quickly.

I do think pet insurance has created this monster, but I live in an expensive area and I just couldn’t take the chance on not having insurance.

You’ll still need public liability insurance even if you don’t have vets fees.

What breed of dog do you have?