Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

beardiedog

Thanks lowis. Looked at AXA and they quoted £149.80. I haven't made any claims yet so no problems moving from Petplan.

lowis

no probs Beardie - also make sure there is nothing but routine stuff on your pets medical records at the vet. when i got my kitten she was a bit sniffly and had to have some antibiotics to clear an infection, this was reported at the time of taking out insurance and she was then exlcuded from any upper-respiratory problems for the rest of her life.

hethmar

AXA also has a £50 excess rather than £70 that M and S have now and AXA does underwrite several of the other pet insurers so should be fairly safe.

As lowis says its a minefield as you believe you have chosen the best policy then they change it and you are stuck with them because of the excluded conditions you would have if you moved.

So if you are absolutely sure you have nothing that they may jump on in future claims go for it and save a fair amount of money. Oh and you will have a much bigger pot to claim from every year with AXA if you were on the budget Petplan.

beardiedog

The only thing he had was a reaction to his initial vaccination when he was 4 months old and he had to have a course of antibiotics. I may go for M & S as the cover is a little better overall so may be worth the extra £23.

kingkongkirk

For both my cats from sainsbury's bank .
£522 for the both of them, "what a rip-off". So i checked to see whether it was on auto-renewal which it is, but here's the best bit of the renewal letter,
"but you must contact us within 10 days from the date at the top of this letter if you don't want to renew the policy"
(companies trying it on with lines like that make me livid).
Date at the top was 21/08/08, right i recieved that renewal last Wednesday which would make it the 03 september..... are they trying to tell me it's taken 12 days to reach my home address? or is it a con?, and it begs the question, what if people were on holiday.

It's nonsense like that, that will put me off working with company's for life, even if in the future , they may provide the most competitive quote.

Managed to get a M&S quote of £218 for both cats, now that's difference, plus £9 cashback from yocashback.

hethmar

As you probably know sainsburys isnt genuine "for life" - but has a limit per pot of money.

essjae

Hi everyone,

I've been looking at all the different insurance quotes for my bengal kitten for a couple of days now, and have only just twigged on to the whole lifetime cover issue!

So I've got a few quotes which seem reasonable from the usual suspects, and also one that is a bit more expensive from Pet Protect (about 40 quid more). However, this has a £0 excess.

What would everyone recommend? All provide similar levels of cover - is the £0 excess worth the extra expense? Obviously I'm hoping my kitten won't get ill at all, but claiming once a year would negate the difference in the policy costs....

hethmar

Ive no experience of Pet Protect - have you checked it out on the defaqto site to see if it has all the right elements for cover?

The only other insurer that had £0 excess was M and S and a couple of years after they had that policy they increased the excess to £70.


http://www.defaqto.co.uk/consumer/insurance/pet/compare-cat.aspx

Gary1974

Just thought I would share my policy renewal tale with you, though I am sure I am preaching to the converted !

Having received a renewal quote from Tesco for £6.86 for our 3.5 year old cat (moggy variety in insurance terms !), I shopped around the usual comparison sites as well as looking at Petplan and the likes - the cheapest I could find was £5.11 from Argos.

Then looked on the Tesco site, and proceeded as if I was a new customer and was quoted £3.77 per month. Having spoken direct to Tesco, there is no issue for me to cancel my existing policy with them and start afresh as a new customer - they are not able to match the price on the phone, you must apply online for the discount.

Policy meets our needs, with up to £2500 per condition, with no upper claim limit per year, so worth considering if you are renewing anytime soon

Cheers

Gary

lowis

remember though that they will exclude anything from a new policy that you have claimed for previously - even if you cat had something minor, like the sniffles, and had to have anti-biotics to treat it - they will deam this as a clinical sign of something and will more than likely exclude all 'Upper respiratory' illnesses and diseases for life as a result. Happened to me so i know that they do this!