Pet insurance - NOT Petplan

[Acidburn]

Hello everyone

Can someone recommend me a good pet insurance apart from Petplan? I have 2 very young indoor only pedigree kittens, and Petplan want over £50 a month, which I think is ridiculous. Is there any other insurance provider that you could recommend?

Thank you

I agree with everything @SimonJT has said. Harry is insured with Petplan and they have paid out without any problems. I like the fact that the vet deals directly with them and that they cover dentals as most of his claims have been for dental issues.

I pay £39 a month and as he's nearly 16 he's got a higher excess and we have to pay 20% of the treatment cost but I'd rather that than have the premium shoot up every year.

PetPlan might be expensive but they have excellent reviews and many vets will deal with them directly.

You've chosen breeds with known health issues so unfortunately this is always going to bump the price up. Personally I would rather pay £50 a month and know my cats are covered no matter what.

I have three cats and we're with Tesco - they're aged 5,4 and 8 months and we pay £24 a month for all three, but they're not a particular breed which makes it cheaper. We have lifetime cover upto 15k per year, per cat.

I pay £43 a month for three adult cats, one with a pre existing condition - my policy covers this - with BoughtByMany, but I'm still waiting for them to pay out for her asthma tests and treatment from Christmas. The bill wasn't massive, but I don't know whether they're going to pay.

I was with Tesco for my previous moggy and ran out of insurance money at the end - the last 6 months of her treatment had to put on a credit card, which was painful but I would have tried anything. Losing her was awful.

These 2 are with petplan on lifetime. I cant face pet illness being made worse by money worries ever again.

Petplan are expensive but they do pay out with little drama and lots of vets will claim directly from them.
That said, I think it's pretty shocking they charge nearly twice as much for our nearly 4 year old at our London address compared to the quote at my parents address elsewhere in the country! There isn't that much difference in vet bills. No idea if others are the same.
I think we've had more money from them than we've paid them too. Our old girl became diabetic as a result of chronic pancreatitis/triaditis and they paid out for the diabetes with no queries. The vet was all ready to defend the claim.
Like all insurances, be very careful reading the small print. Vet surgeries can't tell you which insurance to go for but they know which aren't good at paying out.

Obviously too late for the OP, but for anyone else looking:

I have always been with Petplan and I can’t fault them. One cat, who I had to PTS last year, had multiple claims - never any problem claiming and they were great.

My remaining cat, I’ve never had to claim.

Am surprised by the cost. My remaining boy is 11 and costs £30 per month for lifetime insurance.

I would strongly not recommend Animal Friends. They have completely buggered up the insurance for my mum’s cat - am lodging an enquiry/complaint, but they’ve been awful. Will be following it through to ombudsman as something in their system has gone really wrong in this case.

Excuse my ignorance but is insurance a must have?
My previous cat lived to 21 and I only ever paid for a dental op for her other then that no other costs but I guess we were lucky.
I now have a two year old cat and wonder about insurance and its worth. Hearing these big cost ops make me realise I couldn't pay out for anything like that so I really should start looking but £40 a month seems a lots to pay out.

We had our rescue cat all of two months before she came in one night injured and had to go to the out of hours emergency vet - she was in for 3 days and it cost nearly £2.5k out of the blue. Insurance is so necessary!

It depends on your attitude to risk and financial circumstances 25years. I’ve never had pet insurance, but we’ve got a lot of spare income and an unsentimental approach to pets (I take care of them well and show them affection but they’re not my fur babies) so probably wouldn’t spend tens of thousands on cancer treatment. Hence I’m happy to self-insure. The guys who started up Petplan became millionaires in very short order because most (but not all) people will pay in noticeably more than they take out.

However if you would struggle to pay a couple of thousand pounds for a broken leg or whatever, then pet insurance probably is worth it to stop you having to make those terrible decisions on whether to let a much loved animal die or spend money you really don’t have. Look at it this way, you’ve got away with not buying insurance for twenty one years so you’re quids in. Now is a good time to stop riding your luck.

Use a comparison site to see how much others are charging. It might be that £50 is competitive.

Insurance is necessary if you can’t afford the risk.

When I was single and less financially stable I insured my pets.

Now I am better off I don’t but accept the risk. When the dog needed an operation costing a few k I sucked it up. But on balance it still wouldn’t have paid to have him insured for his lifetime. That’s how insurance companies make their money. But you need access to decent funds to be able to take the risk.

I work in the industry and would only ever insure my animals with Pet Plan or Bought By Many, they're expensive for a reason

I recently read pet insurance is more expensive because people are so much more likely to claim on it than any other insurance - makes sense to me, I know I have certainly claimed on it more than any other insurance policy I've ever had.

25years I would say if you'd struggle to pay £2k unexpectedly, then yes, insurance is a must. Anything that requires out of hours treatment or surgery can easily cost several thousand. I've also always liked knowing I can say yes to tests and scans without thinking about it because I know insurance will pay. Personally I wouldn't put my cats through cancer treatment but most other things I would want to have the financial safety net insurance offers. I pay about £20 per cat per month with Petplan currently - 2 and 3 year old cats (they also offer a multipet discount), lifetime cover and £7k annual limit.