Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

debbiefletcher

My vet has advised me that petplan include most dental work. Unfortunately we didn't know at the time that we took our new rescue dog for her check up and ended up paying £407 for the dental work that needed doing.

I've just insured using sainsbury as they have always been good to us in the past including paying for our cats dental work as it was causing her illness, but the premiums did go very high one the cat reached 10 years old.

beachbeth

pboae wrote: »

I'd have thought your eye specialist appointment would come under the same 'condition' as her ointment, so surely it would be covered by the excess payment you have already made. Do they have a different criteria for seeing specialists? If not, it would definitely be worth arguing it out with them.

Someone else said this to me too. I just assumed that I would have to pay £70 each time I made an appointment or bought ointment. I will look into this because I think you may be right in that this is all part of the same condition that I have already claimed for (even though I have paid no excess because I have a "no excess" policy at the moment)

pboae

Ah, you should be OK then, I definitley don't pay an excess each visit (and if I did, I'd ask for a full year's meds up front!). I think you'll get away with just one excess payment. I have to pay 3, one for his arthritis, one for absecesses (spl?) in his paws, and one for his ears. His renewal was up in January, and by February I'd had to pay £210 for the 3 excess payments :-( but since then, I've not had to pay again, even though we've been back for all 3 at one time or another.

red-boxer

Quite a few posts on here mention Pinnacle are they good, as they work out cheaper than Halifax and Petplan, for my 8 month Labrador. Looking at lifetime policy renewing each year. As pinnacle get mentioned quite a lot, nobody seems to say they are with them........ do they pay the vets direct (so that i don't have to pay out first and then claim back of Pinnacle).
Haven't tried NFU yet as i can't find the phone number, or any info on their policies.

Bromley86

Try Googling "NFU pet insurance" .

With Pinnacle, last time I looked, their cheaper policy had a £1k per condition per year limit (even if the total is £4k). This is not sufficent for any operations, although it may cover the worst of repeat medication.

Their more expensive one was fine at £6k/yr with no condition limit.

The reason why I discounted Pinnacle was that their premiums seem to rise a lot for older dogs. You can't expect quotes for a (say) 7 year old dog to necessarily reflect the premium you'd face if you insured with the same company from puppy age, but it's the only information available. The Pinnacle premium when I looked increased to £450, whereas NFU & Halifax increased to £250.

Plus their excess was £90. That wouldn't put me off the right policy, but our lab pup was much cheaper with NFU and Halifax anyway, so PInnacle wasn't an option in our case.

red-boxer

I contacted NFU and their quote came in just over £20 a month (11 months) so just a bit cheaper than Petplan, and a bit dearer than Pinnacle (top policy). Halifax, AXA and M&S all more expensive for the best policies. Just waiting for the documents to come through so that i can read through them all, before we decide, but i definately looks like we will go for NFU , just hope the premiums don't shoot up to much as Jet gets older.

debbiefletcher

I can't believe how the premiums vary with the size and age of the dog. I'm sure vets bills don't vary so much.
The cheapest I could find for a 7 year old Samoyed was just under £300. Which was Sainsbury, many of the others I tried were between £400 and £500.
Should have got a smaller, younger dog ha!

pboae

Vet fees do vary massively according to the dog's size, because vet meds are dosed by weight. My St. Bernard weighs 90kg, one of his regular meds is Rimadyl and his dosage is 300mg a day (approx £2 a day for the tables). A Yorkshire Terrier weighs an average of 3kg, and their dosage would be around 7mg a day, (I don't think they even make the tablets that small, but if they did the equivalent cost would be around 5 pence a day. It would cost less to medicate the Yorkie for a year than it does to medicate my dog for a fortnight.

On top of that they will factor in potential large claims, so anesthetic for a large dog is a lot more expensive than for a small dog, and a large dog needing an op may have additional staffing costs (e.g. it would take several people just to move my dog around when he was under anesthetic, but probably not for a small breed).

Bean_Counter

Hi,

Just looking for a bit of advice and reassurance please.

My wife has delegated to me the task of arranging the pet insurance. I have read the main article but I am a bit confused.

We have two pedigree miniature schnauzer females who are now fifteen weeks old.

After reading the article, the Pet Plan policy ('Covered For Life - Basic') seemed a reasonable level of cover as it is really just the potential vet bills that concern me. Pet Plan also seemed to have a reasonable good name for itself, as far as I can tell.

For the two pups, the premium is £46.72 per month.

Hence I guess my questions are:

1. Whilst the premium is probably higher than many, do you reckon this is reasonable? (On the face of it, it seems horrendous when I think that Iam insuring my car and home for a lot less!)

2. Is there any scope for negotiating the quote down? It does with two months.

Any advice is appreciated. It seems a reasonable policy, but I don't want to appear to be a mug for paying so much for it.

Thanks.

zavarony

red-boxer wrote: »

I contacted NFU and their quote came in just over £20 a month (11 months) so just a bit cheaper than Petplan, and a bit dearer than Pinnacle (top policy). Halifax, AXA and M&S all more expensive for the best policies. Just waiting for the documents to come through so that i can read through them all, before we decide, but i definately looks like we will go for NFU , just hope the premiums don't shoot up to much as Jet gets older.

Hi Red Boxer

I have 9 month old lab insured with NFU mutual - premiums are £18 ish per month - it is the cheapest quote I could find with a very comprehensive covered for life policy.

I took pboae's advice and phoned around all the ones suggested and they seemed to have the best policy (for us anyay....) the docs all come through really quickly too!

its an absolute minefield and I feel better now I have finally got around to sort it out.