Pet Insurance guidance please

[Espadrillo]

I have a seven year old show cocker spaniel . I have never bothered with pet insurance as I took the view that we would just pay whatever bills as they arose. She has always been very fit and healthy. However, now she is getting older I am thinking that we should get pet insurance in place. There are so many different types and levels of cover and I am a bit bamboozled. Any advice on both insurer and type of policy would be very gratefully received.

We use PetPlan Covered for Life - it means that if we claim for a condition, as long as we keep our policy active continuously, they will always pay out for it. PetPlan is highly regarded and most vets will allow direct claims if the bill is going to be high, so you don't have to pay out in advance.

If you choose an annual policy, they often only pay out for a condition during the first year that it is claimed, then it is excluded for future years. They tend to exclude whole body systems, too. So 'any problem with the digestive tract'.

One of my dogs ended up needing medication that cost £260 per month. My PetPlan premium was £120 per month just before he died but they still renewed without putting the price up and faithfully paid out £260 per month.

Thank you. That is really helpful.

They usually request full vet history on your first claim so it's a good idea ask the vets to send you a copy to check if there is anything mentioned that should be declared as a pre-existing condition.

You'd definitely want £7k+ lifetime cover ideally the most can afford as vet bills are only increasing and it really doesn't take much to run up a large bill very quickly unfortunately.

Petplan are on the more expensive side but you don't get penalised for your own claims it's spread over a group therefore you can put everything through without worrying. Petplan usually paid claims within a week so I only ever had to pay the excess up front and vets/specialists were happy to direct claim which isn't the case for all insurers.

Many insurers try to get rid of the higher risk customers with older dogs or bigger claims by hiking the premiums as know they're over a barrel as by now have preexisting conditions or over age limit to switch to policy offering similar cover and either pay up or end up cancelling. Petplan did go up a steady 20% per year for me but covered my dog till they passed at 17 and the medication alone was more than the premiums for about last 5/6yrs. I think from 10yr+ we also got charged an extra excess of 20% of vet bill claims which isn't unusual, tbh I preferred that option if helped the premiums stay affordable because at least I could try to minimise bills like getting written prescriptions to buy meds elsewhere.

I saw on Facebook that an alternative to pet insurance called Mypetcard is launching.
Apparently you save for your pets care get cheap medications and 24/7 telephone helpline
Not sure when it's starts