So, who uses pet insurance?

I used it for my cats and it came in handy once or twice. We’re about to get a crossbreed dog (Patterdale / Lab) and being quoted about £20 per month. Not sure if this is a good amount or not or whether I should just put some money aside to pay for any bills myself

All policies are different.

Read the T&C’s for lifetime cover, exclusions etc.
If your talking £240/year it’s not a lot of money once something goes wrong with your pet.

Wouldn’t go on coat alone. I am with Petplan can’t fault them can’t see me ever changing. No quibble great service and I have claimed, just on my second claim now as the boy is going for knee op which is about £2k and they are sorting it so the vet is paid direct ie nothing out of pocket except the excess. They are even paying ofr his physio and aftercare.

Get a whole life policy.

Wouldn’t be without.
Ours is about £18 pm and in the last year we’ve had to claim just shy of £5k for two ruptured cruciates.

Get a whole life policy.

This x 1000.

With petplan for my two.

On average you’ll pay more for insurance than vets bills. Obviously.

So it’s down to whether you can afford unexpected bills.

I don’t have pet insurance, or any non-mandatory insurance.

Another one for Petplan here.

We’ve been with them for 9 years and have had to make quite a few expensive claims between our 2 dogs over the years.

They’ve been great to deal with though and we haven’t been refused a claim yet.

They’ve always been quick to pay and stress free to deal with.

I don’t think Petplan are the cheapest, but I’m pretty such they’re widely regarded as being the best.

I personally wouldn’t risk not having insurance as Vets bills can be huge.

A mate was offered two policies for his Springer Spaniel puppy, upto £4k cover in a year or £7k. He chose the former and now is looking at forking out a grand over the insurance payout after 2 operations in 2 months 😯

Cheers,
Jamie

Pet plan for our 2 labs. About £28 a month each. Not claimed on the dogs but have with the cats and they were excellent.

Our 11.5yr old Boxer is no longer insured.

When he hit 10yrs Petplan upped the policy to £500 a year and excluded common issues associated with his age. (So the policy cost increases due to age but excludes any age related illness. WTF). We looked elsewhere and the next “cheapest” premium was £950. As he had been insured with Petplan since he was puppy and had only one claim for £150 in that time I can assume he had a large NCD.

“He” now has a bank account and the insurance premium, Solar Fits income and Bupa Dental cheques go to him. He has over £4k in there. He has third party insurance via the Dogs Trust.

Our 3yr old Boxer has insurance as his insurance cost is around £220 a year.

A vote for PDSA Insurance here. We’re with them and we pay £11 a month for cover up to £7k for our doberman. We’ve always had pet insurance – we just couldn’t afford the extortionate vet fees if anything was to happen. We’ve only had our dobie for a couple of years and she’s already had an operation to repair a leg. The monthly fee is a smaller hit worth taking.

we just couldn’t afford the extortionate vet fees if anything was to happen. We’ve only had our dobie for a couple of years and she’s already had an operation to repair a leg.

Not to be a spoil sport here but that probably what things cost, if you saw the cost of your own medical treatment it would make vets look cheap.

We’ve recently received a renewal quote for £75 per month with an excess of both £75 plus 25% of remaining cost.
7 year old Golden Retriever. M&S pet insurance.

At this point we cancelled!
I appreciate that they’re not a charity but I’d have to be in real danger of consistantly claiming over a thousand pound every year to make that look attractive.

Insurance isn’t cheap but we have to get a disclocated knee sorted on one of mine. It may require both knees doing. He goes in for the op after being refered to a consultant and its £3k per leg. We are increasing the insurance to the £7k next year.

Some of you know, we asked the same question here on insurance for our pup. We kept getting freebies from the vets, for her first innoculations and again for her microchipping. this is from Petplan, which gives you 2 months to decide what you want to do. We had to make a claim, when she broke her leg. The vets we are registered with sent us to Fitzpatrick Referrals, who rebuilt her leg and has Ti bolts like my bike now. £2579 for the work to be done. We had to pay P.R upfront and has taken 6 weeks for Petplan to ‘eventually’ pay us back. We’re not loaded and that was a fair wedge to be missing. Petplan claimed they lost the paperwork and ‘it is in the post’ ( no the letter they said they were considering our claim was being looked at was in the post) We obviously have to stick with Petplan, due to other insurance companies not covering anything to do with her current injury in the future. We decided on the For Life policy for her at £27 a month. cant say its been a great start, but thank the lord for insurance cover or I would be £2479 in debt for even longer !!
M&S quoted us £20 minus 15% on line if we took out their top deal insurance.

Gratuitous rebuild front leg pup picture. Bump on her elbow is a ti bolt.

What gets me is I have 2 dogs, both with different insurers & what they never tell you is that the cost will keep escalating with there age, so what was once a sensible premium is now a joke & your now stuck thinking the dog is older, but fit as a butchers… yet the premiums you have already paid but not claimed on count for nothing, so approaching £50 per dog per month now & how I would like the time again to put the money in to a separate account.

My time again & I wouldn’t bother insuring, your experience may differ, but that’s insurance for you, most they win some they lose, it is a business after all!

I am coming from a different perspective but I want to know why do your dog(s) get sick all the time that require expensive medical bill?

Am I right in saying that breed dogs are prone to illness?

😯

chewkw – Member

Am I right in saying that breed dogs are prone to illness?

Yes, that’s why we can’t poke our cousins, you get to much from the same gene pool & the world stops spinning!

On a serious note I didn’t explain properly because it would be boring, but my first dog was from from show stock & last of that line (for the reason above) & as a puppy a few weeks old fell (jumped) from my lap & broke her leg, the same working stock breed can still jump form over a meter at the age of 6 & have no ill effects*

* Boarder terriers FYI.

PDSA on a kitten. £10 a month..ish.

Into the second year on policy, £4k spent keeping the shit alive…and not once ounce of trouble from PDSA (or whoever the underwriters are).

EDIT: Worth noting, that what kept him alive and out of vets, was owners doing some research themselves and changing diet. I do think insurance is a meal ticket in my experience.

As an aside my springer had to have a broken leg fixed like thrustyjusts, I haggled a price with the vet and got it done for £650.

If it had been on the insurance it would have been over £2k.

So haggle with them.!

we have argos top notch insurance and are just experiencing our first claim with them. Only had the policy for a years worth of payments and this bill was £800 bill so more than what we’ve paid already. Will decide after this whether they’re really good or not. Was nice to receive a text msg saying they’d received my claim but would of rather they paid my vets rather than me but oh well thats down to the vets.

I am coming from a different perspective but I want to know why do your dog(s) get sick all the time that require expensive medical bill?

Am I right in saying that breed dogs are prone to illness?

You have to wonder when a premium for a dog is greater than my car insurance premium – and we’ve two working stock spaniels – neither have ever had insurance, and not a penny spent at the Vets (except yearly jabs).