Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

regularsaver1

This makes me sad - I walked in from work yesterday and found my cat dead

MortgageMamma

O nobody knows then. Good job I went away and did my own research I'm good at that you know for some strange reason...

from the companies I compared, Tesco, petplan, nfu, E & L, Marks and Spencer, direct line, lloyds tsb, halifax, sainsbury's bank, pinnacle, and crufts pet insurance, it turned out that Marks and Spencers. although not the cheapest turned out to have the best policy with the highest cover limits

However, I did have one gripe with them

I insured my mini schnauzer girl pup with them at the begining of the year for £10.07 per month

I rang them for a quote today and they wanted £17 a month for my boy Schnauzer pup who arrives Monday.

I asked them why was this, and they said on 1st August they put their prices up as they were not making money previously! Also "boy dogs are more expensive to insure than girl dogs". I just laughed and said add him on to the existing plan....

So, its a bloody good policy but not as cheap as it used to be...

Ps - spent 4 hours doing this, and then realised that in that time any money I had saved had actually not been saved due to reduced productivity on my part.!

beaky6

M&S offer the best cover. I have that for both my pets (cat and dog). They have recently put up their premiums.

They charge more for male dogs as they are more likely to be agressive (not always the case, but may be so for entire dogs).

I don't think they cover for complications from breeding, as they are very common.

Breeding is an expensive business. From the health checks for parents, weaning pups, vaccinating, worming, feeding mum, feeding pups, and then taking back any pups who 'bounce' from their new homes. And that's not including any complications from the mating process to the birth. Many people do not actually make money but do it for the love of the breed. They show their dogs and make sure they are the best of the breed before they think about breeding from them (when they win the shows, this signifies they are breed standard).

I don't know if you are doing it to make money, but I suggest you speak to a lot of experienced breeders first and get some experience before you risk your own dog's health.

MortgageMamma

HI

No I'm not doing it to make money. I make enough from my occupation. I'm doing it because I love dogs in general. I've never shown my dogs but the breeder I am buying from shows hers and has invited me along to a couple. I'm just at the early stage of a long learning curve and I'm not rushing into anything,

I've been told its about time I got myself interested in something other than money! Thanks for the advice, and if you are a breeder/shower yourself I'm all ears for more!

pboae

A few of my friends have had their pet insurance renewal quotes through for marks and spencer and have and had huge premium increases. Mine isn’t due till New Year, but I’ve just done a quote on their website, and if I were taking a policy out now the premium would be £390, for the last two years I’ve been paying £120. Even PetPlan are cheaper than that.

Since having the policy my dog has been diagnosed with an expensive and ongoing problem, if I try and change insurers they will exclude that, so as far as I can see they have me over a barrel. What’s to stop them tripling the premiums every year from now on? I won’t get my official renewal notice until just before Christmas as it is due in the first week of January (if they bother to send one out, which they didn’t last year, I had to hassle them for it). So I’m looking into this now, because it’s impossible to get hold of finance companies over the Christmas break.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to a way around this?

regularsaver1

pboae - you have claimed so thats probabaly why it was more expensive when you did a quote. Quite understandable, although maybe not that much

maybe be worth getting quotes elsewhere, to compare coverage, but including your claims history

pboae

Thanks for the reply, M&S have re-evaluated their premiums across the range (although I've not heard of any that have gone down yet).

When I did the quote this time I did it with a fake name as a new customer with no previous claims, so that it was comparable with my original quote. So my actual renewal may be higher still if there is an additional surcharge for that.

However, they didn't increase the premium the second year, even though I had claimed a lot in the first year (more than I have this year).

I can get cheaper quotes from loads of companies now, but they all have a blanket exclusion on existing conditions. It's not that they charge extra for it, they just won't cover it at all.

regularsaver1

jeez that is an increase then - i thought you meant you'd done a quote with the claims quoted


yeah existing conditions - comes up on our policies too

taliwillow

Hi,

I agree, the increase is shocking. I got a quote for my cats a few weeks ago and they were all quoted at around £4.50-£5 each per month. I decided today that I would go with M&S so called to arrange it but it now seems that 3 of my cats premiums have now gone up to £8.88 per month because they are pediress. The lady at M&S told me that this was brought in at the beginning of August because they found that they were losing money because of how cheap their policies were. I could just be being naive but I don't wuite understand why my pedigree cats should cost any more to insure than my other cats as the vets don't charge more to treat them because they are pedigrees and they aren't more accident prone than the others! I have decided to cover my moggies with M&S and I think I will go with healthy pets for my pedigrees. It's just a shame that I can't find any companies other than M&S that have an option for £0 excess.

Does anyone know of any?

Thanks

Taliwillow

Bob63

Our existing dog is insured with Animal Friends, but I just insured our new flatcoated retriever puppy on Sunday with M&S having compared their policies against PetScam (sorry I mean PetPlan), More Than, Tesco, Animal Friends etc. I discounted a load who didn't offer lifetime care. The result was that while M&S was very similar in price to all the others (£20/month) its lifetime care, £7000 p.a. cover and £0 excess won me over. I understand that in the past year they have been much cheaper but at the new levels they are still very competitive. I really can't see that they would ever go through such a huge premium increase as they just did because they would then be uncompetitive compared with the rest of the market and wouldn't win any business. The only thing they might do is make the cost of the £0 excess option prohibitive.

M&S get my vote for now.

regards,

Mike