Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

kawoh

hethmar wrote: »

Aaargh, my heart sank when I read the message from kawoh - ditto what alba and lowis says!

What sort of dog do you have to get such a high premium?

petinsurance.co.uk is NOT real for life cover. If you read their policies, both are limited to £4k - once you reach £4k for a condition you are on your own. Real for life top up the pot every year.

Thanks all so much for the advice.

So now i'm tossing up Asda + Argos pet insurance. They are pretty much similar - it is 19.30 GBP per month, includes up to 2,500 coverage p.a., and various other odds and sodds. Thoughts?

The dog I have is a shiba inu. Most sites don't even show it so i just choose finnish spitz ;-)

I will do a search on others. I'm shocked how expensive AXA are... at close to 600 GBP / yr, it's better just to save the cash and save it up.

I will do a search of this for thoughts on others.

lowis

only the argos platinum policy is proper 'for life' cover. their other two levels of insurance will only cover you for 12 months for a condition therefore if your dog got diabetes - something that would need treatment every year, the two cheaper policies would be useless as you can only claim for one condition for 12 months i.e if you made a claim tomorrow then you would only have cover for that condition up until October 4th next year...and it doesn't renew! these 'time-limited' policies are next to useless.

asda only gives you £6000 (their best policy) for the life of the pet, this amount does not renew each year. considering the high costs of some treatments now available, this amount could soon get eaten up. for example, i am about to submit a claim for almost £2600 for a biopsy, CT scan, tumour removal and hospital stay - that is on top of £800 last year for heart scans and dental work.

i was once told by a vet that the supermarket branded pet insurance is best avoided (with the exception of M&S). try NFU, M&S, GreenBee, Pet Plan (not the value policy)...and give AXA a call and talk to them and ask then why the premium is so high.

welshmoneylover

I got Asda insurance for my dog and the limit was £1500 per condition. I was utterly amazed at how the vet bills run up quickly when he was poorly, they reached over £2000 so I had to make up the shortfall. This was despite paying insurance for over 8 years.

My next policy is going to have at least £10,000 cover! Don't want to get stung again lol

kawoh

So i've done the following now:

1/ Argos policy - it's £7,500 p.a and renews each year for the same problem so could be over 10 years £75,000 am i right? - this was £564 p.a. £60 excess

2/ AXA - This was £476 p.a., but reading above, it appears their £7,000 is a ONE OFF per incident, it doesn't renew each year? Then why is axa so good then?

3/ M&S - This is £50.99 /month - £600 or so p.a. with a £70 excess. Whilst I appreciate the value M&S represents, is there any reason to choose m&S OR ARGOS over the axa policy? considering they are considerably less but still comprehensive?

It all appears VERY costly... for a shiba inu (about the size of a fox terrier and a very healthy breed with minimal hereditary defects)

lowis

kawoh wrote: »

So i've done the following now:

1/ Argos policy - it's £7,500 p.a and renews each year for the same problem so could be over 10 years £75,000 am i right? - this was £564 p.a. £60 excess

2/ AXA - This was £565 p.a., but reading above, it appears their £7,000 is a ONE OFF per incident, it doesn't renew each year? Then why is axa so good then?

3/ M&S - This is £50.99 /month - £600 or so p.a. with a £70 excess. Whilst I appreciate the value M&S represents, is there any reason to choose AXA or M&S over Argos policy? considering they are considerably less but still comprehensive?

It all appears VERY costly... for a shiba inu (about the size of a fox terrier and a very healthy breed with minimal hereditary defects)

AXA definitely does renew each year, you get £7000 a year. also one other consideration that makes AXA so good is that you don't suddenly become liable for a percentage of the claim once your dog/cat reaches old age (usually set at 8 years for a dog), you just pya your £75 (or £50) excess. some policies increase the excess by making you liable for as much as 35% of any claim! and another plus point for AXA is that they are their own underwriter, so there is little danger of them suddenly falling out with their underwriter and using another one - hence then changing the policy benefits and increasing premiums by ridiculous levels.

regarding the argos policy - check what happens to the excess once your pet reaches old age...and also check who their underwriters are - and then google the underwriter to see if they have a good reputation, or a barrage of negative feedback.

personally i would choose AXA, for the very reasons i pointed out above.

good pet insurance is not cheap...but unless you have ready access to a few thousand pounds at any given time, then personally i feel it is a must. just check out the current threads from pet owners who are worried about vets bills, who are facing costly vets bills and who are not insured...it breaks my heart to think that people are stressing out about money and how to pay to mend their ill pets - as if an ill pet wasn't stressy and upsetting enough.

kawoh

lowis wrote: »

AXA definitely does renew each year, you get £7000 a year. also one other consideration that makes AXA so good is that you don't suddenly become liable for a percentage of the claim once your dog/cat reaches old age (usually set at 8 years for a dog), you just pya your £75 (or £50) excess. some policies increase the excess by making you liable for as much as 35% of any claim! and another plus point for AXA is that they are their own underwriter, so there is little danger of them suddenly falling out with their underwriter and using another one - hence then changing the policy benefits and increasing premiums by ridiculous levels.

regarding the argos policy - check what happens to the excess once your pet reaches old age...and also check who their underwriters are - and then google the underwriter to see if they have a good reputation, or a barrage of negative feedback.

personally i would choose AXA, for the very reasons i pointed out above.

good pet insurance is not cheap...but unless you have ready access to a few thousand pounds at any given time, then personally i feel it is a must. just check out the current threads from pet owners who are worried about vets bills, who are facing costly vets bills and who are not insured...it breaks my heart to think that people are stressing out about money and how to pay to mend their ill pets - as if an ill pet wasn't stressy and upsetting enough.

I agree, i found the AXA policy actually now comes out at £476, so i'm going to definitely go for that one and agree completely with you. I wonder why the excess is £75 and not £50. If you call them can you adjust the excess ie to £150 and then reduce the policy cost? Or is it fixed?

Ziggy_Stardust

I'm picking up my new pup this weekend, I was toying with going with M&S for a few years as they are cheaper than AXA and then moving over to AXA when she is a bit older because M&S charge the percentage plus excess when over 8/9, do you see any problems with this?

shelovestobuystuff

We dont have insurance for our dogs because it would cost us £60 a month and that was the cheapest we could find, then any claim has a £60 minimum excess anyway(some places wanted £100).Instead we put £50 a month in savings and pay any vet bill of that.So far in the last 2 and a bit years we have had to make 4 or 5 vet visits between the 2 dogs with each time costing under £35 and instead of having paid a fortune to an insurance company just incase,we now have £1,400 in the bank reserved for doggie emergencies.
With the excess we would have been paying for insurance and had to pay those bills ourselves anyway.
If anything had happened before we had a reserve built up we would have got a credit card out,they are useful for emergencies.
I dont see the point in paying for something just incase,I would rather save up then if it does happen you can pay it,if it doesnt then you have extra cash which you would have given away to some company for a bit of paper which is usually pretty useless anyway.

The only insurance we do have is buildings insurance because the mortgage lender insists on it.We did make a claim on that once when a ceiling collapsed and they managed to get out of paying for that so we had paid about £3k in insurance over the 6 previous years and when something did happen it was useless anyway.

lowis

Ziggy_Stardust wrote: »

I'm picking up my new pup this weekend, I was toying with going with M&S for a few years as they are cheaper than AXA and then moving over to AXA when she is a bit older because M&S charge the percentage plus excess when over 8/9, do you see any problems with this?

yes - anything that you claim for with M&S - or even just report to your vet without making a claim - will be excluded from the AXA policy. i had a kitten that had the sniffles, which i reported to my vet, when i came to insure her she was excluded for all 'upper respiratory illnesses' for the rest of her life. you can not chop and change insurance policies for pets, like you can with car and home incurance.

lowis

kawoh wrote: »

I agree, i found the AXA policy actually now comes out at £476, so i'm going to definitely go for that one and agree completely with you. I wonder why the excess is £75 and not £50. If you call them can you adjust the excess ie to £150 and then reduce the policy cost? Or is it fixed?

the monthly premiums decrease if you opt for a higher excess. you couold always call them and ask if there is an option for £150.