Dog Insurance hike ridiculous?

[Lloki]

Just got my pet insurance renewal through, it's gone up by £163 a year!
I've never made a claim and this will be going into the third year I've been with them.
When I first got the insurance out in 2024 it was £258 per year, its now £489 per year!
He's a 5yr old lab, as I say never claimed.
This is a rip of right? Or is this totally normal?

Ours usually goes up £120-150 a year

We don't insure our nine year old retriever. Huge gamble but we just don't view it as worth the monthly expense

I canceled the insurance for my 2 dogs as the hike was ridiculous, mine are 3 and 1!
I'm putting the money away I was spending and have gotten a 0% credit card out as a just incase while I build some savings to cover anything

If you’ve never claimed you can get insurance elsewhere. My 7 year old border collie’s insurance hiked up, so I moved to Sainsbury’s for half the price.

I think the original amount you paid sounds quite low, so I'm not surprised it has gone up. Like pp, we don't pay for insurance. By definition, you are likely to be paying in more than you will receive and as pets need regular health care, it isn't the same as a rare event like a house fire.

We have a lump sum in the bank should there need to be a big spend, then put aside what we would have spent on insurance every month. Ddog is 8 and so far his vet bills inc vaccines have been less than the insurance costs (and we don't have to worry about paying excess or premiums going up if he needs to go to the vet).

We just cancelled ours for our elderly dog. It doubled in price from £800 odd to over £1600!

Their justification was the fact that they were bringing in new clauses on policies for pets that had “chronic conditions.”

I thought this would be the cancer that he’s suffered with previously however it was a minor eye issue that he was seen for years ago and never again!

daylight robbery.

Sadly it's not just claims that count. Any health issue on the notes, however tenuously linked, could lead to the insurers disclaiming.

Some allow pre-existing conditions though, especially if no treatment required in the last 2 years, for example.

I wouldn't risk moving my dogs despite 2 of them never having claims. I might for example have mentioned loose stools to the vet, that self-resolved and required no treatment. A new insurer could potentially use that note from 4 years ago in the record to exclude everything gastro related from now on.

Yes, I'm finding that around age 5+ years our premiums started increasing massively. We went from monthly £30 - £65 - £85 - £120. That's for a medium mixed breed 6 year old rescue. He is on medication for allergies and previous years we claimed more than we paid in premiums, so it was still a good deal.

Having had another dog with cruciate surgery last year (££££), I'm still keeping him insured for now but dreading the premiums to come and when I'll have to decide to drop the insurance.

I don't insure my two anymore. Instead I put £100 a month into a savings account, and I've also got a credit card that I don't use with a £16k limit. My eldest is nearly 13, younger dog is 7 and all I've ever claimed for was the odd ear infection/ripped dew claw. It's a complete rip off. It's also the reason why Vet charges are so high - they can make a mint of the insurance companies but everyone else has to pay for it.

£40 a month really isn't much if you have decent cover. Insurance also depends on your area.

My three year old Golden Retriever costs £80 a month for £12K cover.

I have 2 cats with an odd medical condition and by the time they were 4, they had had nearly £18k of surgery between them, all of which petplan paid without a quibble. So I was very glad I had them insured! I now live overseas so sadly they are uninsured, but operations can easily run into the thousands, so I always thought the insurance was worth it.

Like some pp, we don't insure our dogs. We never have in almost 25 years of dog ownership (averaging 2 dogs at a time). Some of the big expenses came towards the ends of dogs' lives, when most insurers would be stinging you for a higher excess and a sizeable % co-pay anyway.

After allowing for the vet treatment the dogs have had, at current prices we've saved a minimum of £15k and a maximum of about £30k, depending on the amount and type of cover.

We treat a lot of minor stuff at home, keep our dogs fit and slim, and have always had fit-for-function working-line dogs with low odds of genetic illnesses, but I'm sure that one day a big bill will hit us. We do have savings, and will just have to take it on the chin.

My elderly girl is £140 per month. But her monthly injections are paid at £100 each time and it obviously evens out. I’m considering cancelling as she is over 13 now and a big procedure wouldn’t probably be in her best interests but even the most basic diagnostics cost hundreds and for a net £40 it seems sensible overall to keep it

im now feeling incredibly blessed that i put my dogs on a fixed for life policy from being pups. Id hate to think what id be paying nowadays. One our lab has never needed anything the other ones a retriever hes had just shy of £100k of vets bills and hes only 7.

Get a quote from Animal Friends. I thought that I would shop around as the premium went up this year. No one else came near and they have been good in the past. I agree about not insuring older dogs and just putting a sum aside as the premiums do become prohibitive. When my elderly dog became chronically ill the vet said it's a case of what we can do v what we should do. She was insured btw. Having said that these are all difficult decisions.

God...my family know never to mention dog insurance around me.

We are in same situation. I wish we'd never started and just had a savings account. But now the dog is getting older it seems like a big gamble. So we carry on paying to get fuck all back (dog has a long term issue that needs medication for the rest of his life and an annual check up).

We have had the dog for 5 years. Probably paid about 3 grand in insurance and probably got around 200 back. (And that is only from the cost of the overpriced blood tests.)

No advice...just sympathy.

You have my sympathy. I have two elderly dogs (16+14) and I cancelled our insurance when the renewal quote was over £600 a month, which is more than the cost of our mortgage and we just couldn't afford it. We fortunately have savings to cover the cost of vet bills but I appreciate that's not always possible.

Wow, some really high costs here, £600 per month!
Well, I've always thought insurance was a bit of a scam, that's why I didn't insure straight away, I've had him since a pup, but I weighed it up and just thought I can't take the risk not having it, and obviously at the time it was a reasonable amount, I think it was about £21 a month originally.

In my case if something happened and he needed treatment that costs thousands, I'm just never gonna be in a position to pay that, even putting the money I'd spend on insurance into savings is not going to be enough, it's such a dilemma because I also know I could pay in thousands and never claim.
I also know it will just go up every year, regardless, and also there's extra once he turns 7, its all a bit crap really.

I never had insurance for my two cats and never needed it. The few times they needed vet treatment the cost was not much more than the excess so it wasn't worth claiming, so thats the other thing, most things are not worth claiming for so your still paying out for most things anyway!

I claim for everything. Even if it's only £5 over the excess. I also put in claims that I know the insurance won't pay, as it counts towards my excess for the year.

It always amuses me that people call pet insurance a scam. It's optional. Pay it or don't pay it. I bet most people have never claimed on their home contents insurance, so is that a scam too?

My 4 year old's insurance started at approx £18 a month. It's now £38. I've claimed around £15k over the years, so it has been worth it for her.
I pay around £22 a month for my 18 month old. I've claimed about £200 for her for removal of blades of grass from her nose. So I am in the red so to speak with her. Personally, I'm just glad she's healthy.

@SpanielsGalore I think that when people talk of pet insurance being a scam they mean that the insurance companies and vet companies are in cahoots to hoik up the prices for their mutual benefit.
Now that pet insurance is a thing (wasn’t when I was young) vet practices have massively increased prices, the insurance companies pay, and the pet owners/policy holders have to pay massive premiums.

I remember pet owners paying directly without the 'middle man' of insurance taking their cut. My mum was a single parent on benefits when I was child, but vet bills for our cats were never a big deal.

Now that pet insurance is a thing (wasn’t when I was young) vet practices have massively increased prices, the insurance companies pay, and the pet owners/policy holders have to pay massive premiums

When pet insurance wasn't a thing there also wasn't the range of treatments and operations. There was no ACL surgery, chemotherapy, treatment for cushings/addisons/diabetes etc.

People expect cutting edge treatment whilst spending pennies.

But surely we'd have expected improvements and advancements in treatments with the passage of time anyway, @Automagical ? That's just progress.

The charge of basic treatments, the bread and butter of our vet visits, are being massively inflated. So much so that new legislation is being brought in to cap it and make pricing more transparent and competitive.
Vets charges have gone up by more than double the rate of inflation in recent years.

@CBA2RTFT How has it benefitted PetPlan to pay out £4k for my dog's cruciate ligament surgery? My annual policy this year cost £465, so they are massively out of pocket. And unlike car insurance, my pet insurance doesn't increase dependent on claims.

I have also paid my vet bills in full and then claimed the money back from PetPlan. Are you suggesting PetPlan then bill the vets directly for 'their cut'?

It's companies like IVC Evidensia buying up 60% of vet practices that is responsible for the massive rise in vet bills, IMO. I used to pay £25 for a consultation. Since the practice has been bought out, it has risen to £50.

@Automagical Exactly! I don't remember any of my childhood dogs being referred to specialists for treatment. Back in the day, my dog would have lived with a limp and in pain, had the leg amputated or been PTS.

There are big hikes in the price at certain ages as well I’ve noticed. When our schnauzer reached 8 it suddenly jumped by quite a bit, now this year she will be 10, and people have warned us that will be another big jump.

High prices benefit the insurance companies because they charge higher premiums which boosts their turnover. A % of that turnover will be profit.

There's also been an element of de-skilling pet owners or making them feel bad for not taking Fido to the vet. I patch up our dogs, up to and including split pads, and it used to be fairly common for pet owners to do that. Now it's straight down to the vet for sedation and stitching.

@EdithStourton That's true of all insurance companies. It's not specific to pets. I've paid more in life insurance for me than I have for my dog and fortunately not had to make a claim. I'm counting my blessings rather than complaining about being scammed.
At the end of the day insurance companies are businesses out to make a profit. Same as vets and private health care for humans. No one is doing it purely for love.