Pet insurance

[ew1990]

I've got 3 weeks before my free 4 week insurance runs out so I've got a week to pick one
Anyone have any recommendations,
We've got a puppy mini dachshund, im torn between petplan and napo, anyone have any experience with these 2?

We got 4 weeks free with petplan through our vet so I'm tempted to go with them as I think they will pay our vets directly

We went for Petplan. We have a vet in the family and it is the one she recommended.
I've seen Sainsbury's and Agria mentioned a lot on MN so they may be worth looking at also.

We have direct line. My friends dog had a lot of problems and they paid out every time so that helped us decide!

We use Marks and Spencer. Swapped from ManyPets.

Petplan is expensive (but they all are) but have a good reputation. I've found them to be very good.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you choose an insurer who doesn't specialise in pet business, you can be left high and dry if they later decide to pull out of the pet sector and in the interim your pet has developed conditions which will be pre existing for a new insurer. This happened to us. A friend had insurance with exactly the same underwriters but fronted by Tesco. Tesco just found new underwriters and continued to offer the policies on the same terms, whereas we were insured directly with the underwriters and had to move elsewhere on less advantageous terms.

Always PetPlan.

Most insurance has to be taken out 2 weeks before you can claim so you may not have cover if you leave it to the date that your existing insurance runs out.

Don't leave it for more than another week; I'm with Navpo, which paid out for a castration due to an undescended testicle but it took a month.If there is nothing more this year I'll probably compare the market as a removed testicle isn't likely to have a follow up 9 months on and because they went up a bit for year two, but if they are still around the cheapest I'll stay. Also has a free virtual vet service.

I won't, my free trial runs out on the 15th so I've got till the end of December

A lot to think about here but I think I might continue with petplan, more so because our vet takes Direct payments and god forbid I have to find thousands upfront

We've been with Napo for 2 years and they pay our vets direct (and another vet we were referred to for specialist treatment not available at our own vet).

We've had 4 claims in the 2 years for our 3 year old lab and had moved to them after Petplan hiked our premium renewal quote (despite us not claiming anything for our pup in year one). Very happy with Napo and there hasn't been any quibbling over payments. Premium has only gone up by £10 per month this year for good quality cover (up to £8k treatment and free video vet and behaviourist access)

Avoid animal friends. There's a Facebook group made as they're notorious for not paying out.

Pet plan pay out really quickly , we have it for our Siamese . Our late dog was with direct line on the life policy and we never had any bother with them covering anything , including dental but it did take weeks often to get a payment back .