Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

shell820810

Have just insured two Yorkie pups with Axa. They both have pre existing conditions, that I know wont be covered but just wondering to what extent would be:

Puppy 1: Legg Perthes disease
Condition in right hip, right hip removed.
Assume possible exclusions will be arthritis in the right hip or other complications, disease in left hip, what else.....
Also been treated for diarhea - any consequences?

Puppy 2: Virus? causing diarheaa and vomitting, leading to hypoglycemia
Any exclusions from this?

Just trying to get an idea of what I am still exposed to, cost wise.

Thanks

larmy16

Oh my goodness, this is an interesting and informative but seriously scary thread. Who would ever have thought owning a pet would be so expensive???

where?what?how?

I'm about to insure a new stray dog we've acquired. I've already got 4 other dogs and two cats with a mix of Petplan and Tesco. Is there a good company that offers reductions for such a large number? They are mostly quite young and the idea of raising premiums is horrifying. Perhaps I should invest the money?

cathodetube

Everyone I know with a lot of animals doesn't have insurance. M&S gave me (supposedly) a five percent discount for insuring both my cat and dog with them. But that is relative depending on what premiums they charge. The premium for the cat went up to nearly £50 a month. Owning animals has become expensive, and it is to do with insurance charges and vet fees. I have owned dogs and cats before and my current dog and cat are the only ones I have insured. It has not been worth it. In retrospect, if your animal had a very expensive condition, like cancer, then you could look back and say whew I am so glad I had insurance. But some policies only pay out so much per condition. They are in it to make money. I believe one major reason vet's fees have gone up so much is to do with the advent of insurance. Pet insurance has only seriously been around for about 12 years. But it was limited to a few companies.

wibblewibble

You never ever know when your pet is going to injure itself or become ill, my own dog broke his leg doing nothing more than his usual walk - it was a stress fracture and 4 months, 2 operations and over £7,000 later we are still back and forth to a specialist vet 3 times a week and will be for another couple of months yet.

We have M&S insurance thank goodness which on our policy means £7k cover per condition per year whole of life, we've been lucky as the new policy year has just started giving us another £7k available for the remaining treatment.

Had we not had this cover then we would have had to make a decision on medical treatment for our dog based on money and not what was in the dogs best interests long term.

Please when taking out pet insurance make sure you check exactly what is and what isn't covered - some policys won't cover for things like hydrotherapy or physiotherapy - luckily ours does, and ours also covers for our own travel to the specialist vet which when you are doing the trip 3x a week over a period of months adds up to rather a lot of petrol!

Our renewal has gone up because of a combination of the dog getting older and this claim so we're now paying almost £50 a month but we have had more than our moneys worth - it would take over 12 years for us to have paid in as much as we have had out already.

I understand that people are on tight budgets - we are ourselves, but it's worth paying that little bit more for a policy which gives a per condition per year option.

RosiesMum_2

Make sure you read all the small prints.

What age are they covered till
Whats the excess
Do they put it up as pets get older
Does your vet wait for them to pay out or expect you to cough up first, a lot of vets do!
Some charge more if they are not neutered as in females makes them more prone to mammary problems in later life.
Again some charge more if not vaccinated.

We take on rescue dogs, with health problems or dogs that are older so its harder to get insurance, in fact one insurance tried charging us £70 per month for a 10 year old dog, who was always vaccinated, never had an ill day in his life. We have other dogs who have hip dhyspasia, and we said we know this is prior condition etc and we would pay the £5k for the operation but their insurance was so high.. it would have cost us over £300 a month for our dogs..

So we didnt get insurance, we opened up an account at a credit union and put in £70 a month and we call it the pets piggy bank fund. Sadly one of the dogs died of nasal cancer in June and he wasnt in pain, not on tablets, we had him xrayed and it had spread to far, and we decided to let him go and it broke our hearts. We went to pay the vet and they only charged us £80 for xrays.

The other time we dipped into the pets piggy bank fund was when we had a lovely rescue collie, aged about 8, sold for £5 by a druggie, again very high fees to insure. We had her neutered and vaccinated and chipped, and she had a brillaint life, but was epileptic, this only cost £18 a month for tablets. But sadly she got mammary tumours and was devastated two years down the line, she sadly passed away. We did have an mammary strip cost us £800 and we used the pets piggy bank fund for that but a couple of weeks later she got worse and she went to rainbow bridge :A.

The dog with hip problems our vet said to leave alone, he has grown used to it and manages and we adapted our home for him. He is on glucosamine £1 it costs a month for those. If he is really stiff on his hips I get metacam from vets at £18 a month.

So for us our pets piggy bank fund has worked. We put the same money away and after 14 years its grown and is their for any emergency. You have to think whats best for you and your pet, but we would have spent a fortune to insurers over the years when all our pets have been generally healthy except for known rescues we have taken on that had problems.

uptontm

RosiesMum wrote: »

Make sure you read all the small prints.

What age are they covered till
Whats the excess
Do they put it up as pets get older
Does your vet wait for them to pay out or expect you to cough up first, a lot of vets do!
Some charge more if they are not neutered as in females makes them more prone to mammary problems in later life.
Again some charge more if not vaccinated.

.

Hi All - RosiesMum is so right with these questions to ask and also whether it is worth it - one of our dogs got a twisted gut and luckily survived but because my husband had been made reduntant we had cancelled our pet insurance about 4 months earlier and had to pay out over £4k for all the operations. We then got them reinsured with the cheapest people and paid for that too - we used E&L and they have been a nightmare. They take months and months to pay out and use any excuse not too. I have left my old dog with them for the last couple of years as I thought I wouldn't been able to reinsure her and they have just rejected a claim "as the vet couldn't get a definiate diagnosis" - another £800 bill not getting repaid. I have just cancelled the insurance with a stinking letter and have moved to a more reliable insurer (hopefully) :rolleyes:.

I must stress this is just my view and although my vet also rolled their eyes when I told them who she was insured with, maybe somewhere out there they have a happy customer xx

prudryden

I just got an online quote from HALIFAX for a 5 yr. old Cocker with no negative medical history. The quote for a year was £708. If it wasn't so ludicrous, I would cry. I did double check that I had requested a quote for a dog and not a race horse.

missyjules

I had a renewal through from M&S for my year-old lurcher for £10.99 per month (£131.88 Annual Premium- unlike many insurers they don't charge extra for monthly Direct Debit). Their cover is as good as anyone's so I checked on their website how much a new quote was going to be - £68.04!! A difference of £63.84!! Then through Topcashback another £30.00 back.Of course I didn't renew and the new insurance is costing just £38.04.:money:

cathodetube

That is amazing. Had you had a claim for your lurcher before? They are also classified as a mixed breed so should be cheaper than a pedigree but there is still something fishy going on with pet insurance. Am going to go online and have a look. Just checked first page and noticed they offer 15% off online but it is only for new customers. I obtained a quote and it was £7 cheaper a month. But because I am not a new customer I can't use it. I assume it is the same through the cashback site.