Looking to insure our dog. Pet Plan have been recommended but by gosh they are expensive.
Wondered who other dog owners I sure with? And what’s good/bad about them?
Yes, I’m aware of the positives of self insurance, but for the sake of this conversation, let’s ignore that option.
If you think insurance is expensive, try the self route. We’ve used direct line and they’ve been very good. On dog number three now. I think we’re about even overall, but the last one died young. The vets do seem to push the “full investigation” route a little faster in my opinion, when insurance is mentioned, and the dog has better healthcare than the humans.
We went with Petplan a month ago because they were recommended by Dogs Trust which is where the dog came from, and figured it would help support them and get us insured? By which I mean we did no research at all 🙁
I recognize this doesn’t help, but…
Two labs both with Petplan since pups.
Yep - expensive! They’re 9 & 10 now. Started at £26 a month each, now £95 each with £105 excess.
We’ve claimed ..a lot. Still do with the Ongoing medication.
Never an issue with claims - the vets have always put the claims straight through and we’ve never had an issue with them paying. Expensive but I really can’t knock them. Zero hassle.
we used to use Tesco. kept going up every yr but always paid promptly when needed to claim. looking now again as have new pup on way.
I’ve gone with M&S it’s the first time I’ve insured a dog. I’ve paid out some big amounts over the years for ops and things but it still worked out cheaper than the insurance would have. Decided this time to insure at least while he’s a pup.
I used one of the comparison sites a couple of months ago. Went with a recognised company rather than just the cheapest, (might have been Aviva) and it was less than £20/month for our 1 year old. About a third of renewal IIRC.
Insurance is always just luck. Does your car get knocked/crashed, does your animal get ill/die etc,.
For me it also removes any additional worry when they are ill as I know that what treatment is required I will have it rather than having to think about the £3,000 bill at the end.
I would still be running at a loss if self insuring my two dogs as they had A LOT of problems with very expensive bills for first few years. Now they are more settled it is catching up and policy increasing by the year but they they could need stuff done as they reach the end of their life so keeping insurance now anyway.
And PetPlan is a more expensive option but they have paid out every single time. Not sure if that is the same with other insurers who are cheaper so saving money with them many be great until you actually need to claim.
We're with Bought by Many (now ManyPets), not needed them yet but the last two were in need of some serious veterinary work before they died.
My old spaniel needed 4k worth of care at what was already a difficult time and it was one less thing to think about. Petplan. I have the limit set at 4k for the lab. I figure that if a dog needs more spending than that I might be doing him a disservice. As a pedigree his premiums are a fair bit higher than the spaniel's were. 🙄
If you ever needed a lesson in what private healthcare would look like then this is it!
We're with Kennel Club and they're been excellent, though I only know this as we've sadly had to make a fair few claims as we lost one dog to a rare form of cancer last year and another in a car accident this year. We ask all our staff insure their dogs as they take them with them to work and we insist that they have some form of liability insurance.
We use animal friends for our pets.
Had to use the insurance 3 times over the last 4 years for serious issues and at all times they responded quickly and allowed the vets to bill them directly.
Previously used Tesco and whilst the prices were ok, the service wasn't always the best.
If you think insurance is expensive, try the self route.
Never had insurance on any dog nor horse (my OH's hobby).
We had to put one of our Springers to sleep last weekend. In the 10 years we had him we spent less than £800 at the vets, and £550 of this was last week as he suddenly collapsed at tea-time on a Sunday - we called the Vet out, so prime-time costs - burst spleen tumour. And he'd had his annual check up a couple of weeks before.
Unsure what we'd have spent in insurance, but pretty sure it'd have been a lot more.
Never had insurance on any dog nor horse (my OH’s hobby).
Dog - may be worth the risk.
Horse - not a chance! 🙂
Think we've claimed £15k to £20k for horse related problems in the last two years.
We are with 4paws, more than before that and Animal friends before that.... I tend to change insurance companies when the renewal is significantly more than previous years - easy when the pet is young, harder when the pet is older. I go through a cash back web site and can recover £100's each year, which I use on bike parts 😂
Had a few claims in the past and all have been fine easy process, our vet usually makes the claim for us.
I can get back about £5-600 in cashback annually, doing 4xpet insurance, home insurance, 2x car insurance, car brake down cover and life cover, add to that all small online purchases....
You could get upto £75 cashback on petplan (£39 for a single dog) on Quidco at the moment. Go through the app rather than direct to the web page and the cash is credited to your Quidco account about 6months later and you can withdraw to your bank ac.
Works on CRC too....
My vet bills confirm that insurance is worth it, not expensive. (2 year cost of insurance ~£500, claimed so far ~£10k). Max out that cover unless you are really lucky, we have been unlucky, lifetime illness MRI and 2 spinal taps to confirm, 3 relapses, regular drugs and treatment plus the surgical removal of 2 tennis balls to date). Hence my advice to people to NOT GET A DOG, but no one listens.
We use cover my pet, but petplan are used by lots of folks I know and get no complaints from them.
Was with Tesco, now with Legal and General (LV).
Never claimed so no idea what they are like for that.
E&L since our almost 13 year old BC was 10 weeks old. Its about £75 a month now.
One claim for her eating some skunk/hash/? in the park over lockdown. Very interesting effects from that episode.
Current claim going through is for the diagnosis and fitting of a pacemaker a couple weeks back.
we should get about 3/4 - 2/3rds ish I think.
Do people buy annual insurance of lifetime?
The latter look much better, but clearly cost more.
Whichever you go for you want to find a lifetime policy so, as it states, the dog is covered for life and not just left to struggle after a year. One with a nice generous amount per year as I found the £4k I had for Ziva soon got blasted through as she got older. I was with pet plan and found them to be excellent, always paid out immediately and vets were happy to deal with them directly so it's nice to walk away and not be worried about it. Having said that there are number of alternatives which I hear good things about. I'm in two minds myself about self funding or not this time, at least for the first few years or so when claims aren't quite likely as claims generally speaking happen as dogs age.
Like any insurance it's a gamble, glad I listened to the wife, our dog has had 2 new hips and a broken leg all covered by Petplan. I think we are at about £17,500 claimed in 3 years.
I don't want to tell the kids the dog has had to go to Devon due to not bein able to afford yet him fixed.
For me it also removes any additional worry when they are ill as I know that what treatment is required I will have it rather than having to think about the £3,000 bill at the end.
Yep, one of our cats cost us £4k a few years back, just as I'd lost my job as well...
Pet Plan - cat's are much cheaper - three of our cats are cheaper than one dog ! Sister's pup is nearly £60 a month.
We use Pet Plan for our cat. Think we have a £3k or £3.5k annual limit. We've exceeded that every year. So far this year we've used about £1,200.
there must be lots of people not claiming megabucks to make up for some of the numbers up there.
my cat is insured but not sure why i've bothered, the only time we had a big bill turned out it was under an exclusion.
edit: although I do wonder what proportion of those numbers the vets actually see or if its all inflated
If I was to do the whole insurance thing again I would do it differently if circumstance allowed. If we had savings (which we did) I would have put 3k aside for vet bills and then paid the cost of decent pet insurance into the account. We have gone 5yrs so far and the largest claim was around 1k, and the annual premiums around £600. We would have been significantly better off with the scenario mentioned above.
That said, we didn't do it and have had great service from Direct Line pet insurance. A good price, and no fuss when wanting to make a claim. Pet Plan and Kennel Club are always at a premium once you have used up the discounted 6 month starter offer it seemed to us. I liked the look of Bought by Many but again it came in at a higher premium so we are sticking with Direct Line, they also didn't hammer us after our claim either, which was nice.
there must be lots of people not claiming megabucks to make up for some of the numbers up there.
Some people I know have perfectly healthy happy dogs who only need the occasional visit to the vets, But I can also find a greater number who have had in recent months replacement hips for labs from a crappy breeder who then blocked the people she sold the puppies to, collie getting something in a field sharp enough to puncture his skin on his underside that became infected. Pure breed Newfoundland, GS and frenchies with allergies (one of the frenchies is allergic to grass FFS, not my kind of dog, but seriously) and in one case asthma. A golden who also swallowed a tennis ball, a Cocker with no tear ducts, I could go on and on, vets round here are never quiet/poor!
So yeah, presently have no idea how pet insurance functions as we are using it enough for about 15 other people!
Horse – not a chance! 🙂
Think we’ve claimed £15k to £20k for horse related problems in the last two years.
Based on looking at horse insurance a few years ago, the amount you could claim was directly related to how much the premiums were. How much have you paid in premiums for the 2 years?
I've been with petplan for the six years I've been owned by my dog. Never claimed. Cost crept up every year from about £25 to £55. This year, for first time, I shopped around. MoreThan had better cover and only £28 per month.
So yeah, presently have no idea how pet insurance functions as we are using it enough for about 15 other people!
Its pretty much as it looks, more gets paid in than out, overall at least. Otherwise no one would sell pet insurance commercially.
This year, for first time, I shopped around. MoreThan had better cover and only £28 per month.
Im sure you have, but for anyone finding good deals do read all the terms and conditions. My parents found out that yes, theyll cover you for x y or z, but only once.
My previous dog was a labradoodle who was rarely in the vets and he was huge and gangly and looked like he'd hurt himself. My current dog is a staffie lab cross who looks very sturdy, so we went for the "self insure" route. Long story short we've spent £7k so far and shes only 8! We've had her 7 years (rescue), so thats £83.30 per month. Insurance would have been far cheaper.
I've not read every response, so sorry if this is a re-post, but which ever insurer you think about using, make sure you read the terms and conditions with a fine tooth comb. Then re-read them and maybe a final time again just for good measure. I'd recommend insurance due to the cost of vet bills if something really significant and costly happens as it gives you the peace of mind of being able to afford the care rather than the alternative. However, do not underestimate the cost of treatment and operations (e.g. the first set of back surgery was a flat £7k rate, we thought that £3.5k cover was sufficient, so we had to make up the difference. After that we upped the insurance at the providers advice, and when his back went again the helpful operator advised we should be covered again due to x & y, etc.. Fast forward 2 months and we were £7.5k out of pocket due to our rejected claim which had a massive impact on our finances. If I'd been fluent with the T&Cs instead of relying upon the unreliable guidance of the call centre person, I guess we'd be without a dog now and £7.5k better off. In the emotion of the moment, we trusted the expertise of the provider when in reality the underwriters had a very different opinion. Lesson learned and the hound is snoozing blissfully unaware next to me now, so every cloud has a silver lining, just go into it eyes open as the costs can be eyewatering in the blink of an eye.
Sorry, we pay I think £60 a month for a 10yr old corgi.
They don't make dogs like they used to...
Just said goodbye to my old lulu. Other than annual vax and pet passport I think he cost me about £150 in vets bills over his 16 years.
But he didn't match my cushions...
Petplan here - our vets and surgeons know they are going to get paid with Petplan and completed any paperwork on our behalf with us providing little other than a signature. All paid up after a couple of weeks. My only regret is reducing the cover thinking £4K of cover is more than enough rather than the original £7K policy - turns out scans and operation on a spine can come in at over £5K plus the visits / overnight with the local vet trying to figure the problem and you soon have a £6K bill (on a small dog)
" and you soon have a £6K bill (on a small dog)"
Dachsund?
@ The Beard.
We ask all our staff insure their dogs as they take them with them to work and we insist that they have some form of liability insurance.
Take care with that. Most companies don’t cover taking your dog to work. I know as I insist my team also have insurance if bringing dogs into work. Dogs trust membership gives 3rd party liability that covers taking dog into work.
Can recommend having 3rd party liability too ( comes with most insurance policies) as friends got sued after their dog bit a child whilst it was in its own garden and they had told the child not to come in if they’re were not there to supervise. Insurance made that a lots easier to deal with
there must be lots of people not claiming megabucks to make up for some of the numbers up there.
That is how insurance tends to work.
i.e. this person "In the 10 years we had him we spent less than £800 at the vets," if paying insurance would be covering the costs that this person "me spending £3,000 a year on vet bills for first two years" incurs.
That's the thing though, you don't know if your dog will be the never gone to vets dog or the always at the vet dog.