Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

robster1964

Hi Guys,

Hope this helps someone.

Quoted 14.44 for 5 year old Yorkie. Also got £18 through quidco.

Some details below.

<H1>Pet Insurance Information

</H1>At M&S we know you’d do anything to keep your pets safe and well. And that goes for the sprightly young pups who love to wreak havoc, and the stay-at-home cats who are starting to show their age.
M&S Pet Insurance offers lifetime cover from age 8 weeks, providing you renew your policy and cover continues to be made available to you. Cover for vets' fees for illness and injury, up to £7,000 a year with our Premier cover and up to £4,000 a year with our Standard cover. You’ll also receive money towards the cost of advertising if your pet goes missing, a reward if found and emergency kennel or cattery costs.
M&S Pet Insurance Premier Cover has been Five-Star Rated for features and benefits by Defaqto, an independent research company.
If you become worried about your pet’s health you also have access to Vetfone. It’s a 24-hour freephone advice line manned by qualified veterinary nurses who can give you immediate advice on your pet’s condition. And, as an M&S Pet Insurance customer, you can benefit from a 5% saving at Bestpet Pharmacy. With this online pharmacy you can order repeat prescriptions, purchase discounted prescribed and non-prescribed drugs such as worming tablets, pet food and dietary pet food, all of which are then delivered to your door.
We offer two levels of cover, Premier and Standard. The table below highlights the different cover options available so have a look and see which is most suitable for you.

BenefitsPremier Cover
Up ToStandard Cover
Up ToVeterinary fees for illness and injury (inclusive of *)£7,000£4,000* Vet fees – Cover per conditionNo limit£1,000* Vet fees – complementary treatments£1,000Not covered* Vet fees – prescription food£200Not covered* Vet fees – Euthanasia / cremation / burial£100Not covered* Vet fees – Referral to behaviourist£250Not coveredEmergency boarding or daily minding£70 a week up to a maximum £750£60 a week up to a maximum £600Advertising costs£1,250£600Reward£750£600Theft or straying£1,500£600Death from injury£1,500£600Death from illness£1,500£600Holiday cancellation£3,000Not coveredQuarantine costs£2,000Not coveredLoss of pet passport£250Not coveredRepeat tick and worming treatment£500Not coveredEmergency expenses abroad£2,000 emergency vet treatment + £500 other costsNot coveredDamage to kennel and bedding£100Not coveredFailure of spaying£250Not coveredThird party liability (dogs only)£2,000,000£1,000,000

stevetodd

hjw wrote: »

Marks & Spencer offer a great option on their pet insurance policy. For my cat, I could choose to pay an additional couple of pounds and then have a zero excess. My last policy with PetPlan cost me about £35 more than the M&S policy and it came with a hefty £75 excess.

I took out M&S insurance for our lab it was £12/month in the first year with no excess, £17 the 2nd year again no excess but the 3rd year they have raised it to £24/month AND introduced a £70 excess!

So in just 2 years they not only doubled it but introduced a £70 excess

hethmar

Im afraid that M and S changed a lot of their policy - AXA no longer underwrites them either. Im stuck with them for one of my dogs as we made a claim in the second year we had the policy. Ive moved my other boy over to Halifax.

First boy with M and S now about £15 a month £70 excess and boy with Halifax £12 a month, £50 excess. Also M and S have now added a percentage to the £70 excess for any dog over 9 years old. But they are still both decent policies. Noted this time round M and S have taken off the cover for damage to own property and also added some other conditions which I telephoned to query. i.e. If you call a vet out of hours you are supposed to ring them first to ok it! They are joking, if a situation is so worrying you ring a vet out of hours you are hardly going to first search out your policy and ring them for their agreement! I am writing to them about this and will let people on here know the outcome.

IF you do take out a policy with M and S - which I would no longer do to be honest, DO NOT take the standard £4k cover as its not a for life policy - only £1k per condition.

bluedog

Can anyone help regarding finding insurance companies that offer cover for chinchillas please?

I have 4 chinchillas and finding it really hard to find anywhere that offers insurance for them. Exotic Pets only insures pets up to 5 years old which is pretty useless for chinchillas as they can live to over 20 years. (the oldest one I had was 14 when he was PTS).

Also, 2 of mine are rescues with ages unknown so adds to the problem. (To my knowledge, even the experts say it is very hard to guess ages accurately.)

Masquerade_2

I too am finding pet insurance very expensive.

I have been quoted £22 per month by Petplan with excesses for two kittens.

Perhaps I am a bit naive but this seems very expensive to me.

hethmar

bluedog, its quite a specialist area, do you belong to any chinchilla clubs who could help? Try a google for chinchilla forums.

http://www.chinchillas-unlimited.co.uk/forums/index.php?act=home

Masquerade, Im afraid it is an expensive old job - you can try a few other insurers, like AXA, Halifax, HSBC?

karena

I have just had my min. daschund vaccinated (his previous owners had let them lapse) - where to start for insurance and not paying a huge amount. Is the NFU reasonable? I have looked at money supermarket, cheapest may not be best!

hethmar

Have a look at the posts further up karena - you need real whole life cover - so that cuts the market down for you a bit petplan is the market leader but the others named above also give genuine life cover - including AXA, Petplan, Halifax, HSBC, NFU.

Dont forget that some of those have "standard or budget" plans which dont cover for life. Go for the premium policies when you get a quote. Also remember, you can get cash back through quidco for some of those.

larmy16

I took out insurance with M&S a couple of years ago on recommendation from this forum. It seemed quite a good deal at the time but the monthly payment has jumped up from around £8 pm to £14. That is for my cat aged 6 years.

I am pretty sure my car insurance is less than that!!!

Can I ask (as I don't really understand all this) - he had an accident earlier this year and I made a claim after paying the £50 excess. Does this mean I cannot look for a cheaper quote with someone else now? Do I have to stay with M&S if I want cover?

hethmar

Of course you can move but what will happen is that anything connected with the accident would not be covered Say that little beauty in the avatar had broken his leg in the accident and next year you had a problem with the leg again - they would say it was down to an incident before they were covering you. Pain isnt it. I am stuck with M and S with one of my dogs because I had to have some allergy testing done on him and some dry eye medication - both the sort of long term condition which I need insurance for and which would be excluded by a new insurer.

We were all dragged in by M and S's prices and zero excesses but now a lot of us are stuck.