[Closed] Dog health insurance - do you?

Our last dog ran up over £15k in three ops. Very glad he was insured.

We've recently got a 17 year old rescue Bengal (thinks he's a dog !)

when his 4 week free warranty runs out, I won't be renewing at £60 per month !

id shop around if I were you, I'm guessing these things are like car insurance with regards to daft renewal prices

Shop around, play with voluntary excess, consider different levels of cover.... I think we are about £19 a month for pretty decent annual cover.  "Lifetime" policies do seem to be expensive at the moment.

Why do you have so many exclusions? Did your dog have a rough start?

I would go price comparison as some only offer £1500 per condition or £4000 per year total. Last lab we had we only claimed about £500 in her lifetime (didn't insure her after she got to about 10 as quotes were getting silly) have a new pup and she is insured on a lifetime policy for now.

One of my dogs got a renewal through from Sainsbury pet insurance for £780 a year. I went on a comparison site found the same level of cover from another insurer for £120 a year. Same as car insurance/Sky/BT and every other house hold bill if you just accept the renewal they will continue to increase the premiums year on year. Shopping around at renewal time pays.

On of our dogs broke his K9's (teeth) these cannot just be pulled out as in dogs they go right back into the jaw and removing them weakens the jaw I saw the bill (which the insurance company paid it was around 4k. That was enough to convince me its worth having some sort of insurance for them.

Definitely shop around, i pay £20/month for my 3 year old Lab. with Direct Line. If you get a big vets bill at some point its certainly worth it.

Tesco pet insurance is reasonable and they pay up on claims no problem but premiums rocket after a claim. Our cairne is hell bent on injuring herself so a necessary evil.

Firstly, no photo in a dog post, for shame sir, for shame!!

Shop around, can't recommend petplan enough.

When we got our pup, we opted for the best policy we could afford so that if she did have a chronic condition, we were covered.

Plan was to keep it running for 4 years as the vet suggested most genetic conditions would raise there head by then. Plan was after 4 years to just put the cash into a bank account and cross our fingers.

We then subsequently forgot about the plan and just kept it rolling, she's 8 now.

Last couple of years been a tad unlucky cutting herself badly on a coke can (£1,000 in bills) and got cancer (the good kind it transpires, who knew!! - £1,500 and likely to go up).

As it stands, we've broken even on what we've paid/got back. If we hadn't kept it running, no policy would cover her now for the cancer so keeping it running is the better option, maybe.

So maybe, probably, don't know.

Pic.

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Glad we’ve got ours insured.

£1600 for throat/stick interface (don’t throw sticks for your dog)

£1000 root canal (don’t let your dog chew flints)

£900 allergy testing

£500 for lump removal

also make sure it includes 3rd party/legal cover.

Any companies people recommend by name?

No, I'd never insure a pet. I can afford a few thousand in one go, so I'd rather risk that than pay a few thousand regardless. And... If it really is many thousands worth of procedure I'm not putting an animal through that.

Our old vizla cost a few hundred towards the end of his life. The five year old we have has cost next to nothing. The one year old is allergic to grass (ffs!). Luckily a new wonder drug has fixed that but it'll cost £700 a year.

Ours is £34 per month with quite a comprehensive plan.

But split between us it's £17 each so a easier pill to swallow.

Annoyingly there's a £100 excess, so when he was vomiting quite badly, like a pinkish colour, we got a the 24hr vet charged £60 odd quid for an appointment, and 2 injections, a pain killer and an anti sickness thing.

He was absolutely fine after though

So felt a bit burned on that, but the Mrs insists on good insurance as she had a potentially ruinous episode with her cat on 2 occasions.

Im a little bit more sceptical but I see her point, I wouldn't want to be in a position of having a several thousand pound bill, with the alternative being putting the animal to sleep.we simply don't have a couple of grand laying around.

The guilty party :

Ours is through pets at home, pet plan or something. It's like a package that also covers vaccination and flea and worm prevention.

Like any insurance, seems expensive until you claim.  PetPlan have been great for me £35 per month for each dog (up to £4,000 cover per year) but have always paid out and so far have claimed over £2000 in first 2 years.

You could just put the money away each month but that only really works if big vet bills come in after a few years and not in the first year...

I'm with Lifetime Pet Cover. Costs about £30 a month for £4k cover in a year. They were the only ones I could find who would cover her for life, she's 13 now. Never had to claim but gives me peace of mind.

I have just cancelled home insurance with Direct Line. Found them an awful company to deal with and £60 for a young dog sounds like a lot.

Petplan has cost us 30-odd pounds a month for the last 9 years but we’ve had thousands back because of assorted accidents/injuries and a couple of long term chronic problems.
The medication he’s on would cost us £160 a month alone so we are effectively in credit just for that. Cardiologist cost a couple of grand & he has to have the same later this year, etc etc...
If he’d not turned out to be such a sickly bugger? I’d still have paid it. You never know what could happen.

Another Petplan here..

Can’t Remember our premiums but they’ve paid thousands out over the years.

900 squid a throw to put them in the doggy mri scanner before even going for op.

My pal is a vet and he said if he needed to take out insurance be would use pet plan. Never had an issue with then from the vet side.

It’s not just the dogs health, insurance covers costs incurred as a result of your dog by other parties. So if he startles a rider on a horse, runs in front of a car or something else that causes an accident, you are liable.

I don't bother with insurance for the cat as for me the bond is not the same as with the dog and I feel if I had to make a difficult decision I could with the cat. The dog on the other hand is my best friend so she's insured and we've used it quite a few times over her 8 years. I think dogs tend to have more mishaps. Surprised at your cost though is it a breed issue? Beech the black lab is only costing £25 per month on gold level premium with animal friends. We've claimed 4 or so times for various accidents and operations no issues.