Pet Insurance Cost Cutting System/MoneySavingExpert.com Discussion

angela-la

Only 59%, think yourself lucky! My brother's M&S renewal has increased by 160%!! He has rung them and complained about how unethical it is, that initial premiums have been set low but once customers have swallowed the hook then the premiums are increased on renewal, they were simply not interested. We both also opted to pay a slightly increased premium for no excess, and this has also been taken away. My brother and I are both now stuck as our dog's have long term but not life threatening health issues, and can't go elsewhere. I think that Marks & Spencer's rates for insurance had better be updated pretty quick as they are no longer a company to recommend. My insurance went up by 60% last time, hate to think what I'll end up with after the next renewal. Are others having similar issues, is it just M&S or are other pet insurance companies also increasing their premiums to a similar level? I'd be interested to hear some feedback.

lazza_w

Bromley86 - very comprehensive post. You have been busy!

I spotted that you note Petplan as £4000 per year with a limit of £4000 per condition. I believe that the £4000 per conditon is renewed each year as well and is therefore unlimited (ie you can claim up to £4000 each year in vets fees year after year, irrespective of how much each individual condition has cost in the past)
Therefore a dog with arthritis could claim £4000 each year for 10 years ie £40000. This is probably better cover that a policy that will pay £6000 per condition and once the money is used up there is no more.

Just another factor to consider when comparing policies

tonyp_3

I have held a M&S pet policy for my dog for the past year.
The latest renewal has raised my premium by a whopping 231%.
My premium has risen to £20.45 a month from £8.86 month including 5% insurance premium tax.
Also, if a pet is over 9 years old at the time of treatment then the excess is £50.00 or 15% whichever is the greatest.
When I contacted M&S they said "it's nothing to do with us, talk to AXA"
When I rang AXA they said "it's nothing to do with us talk to the underwriters"
When I rang the underwriters they said "this is an across the board review of our product prices and we are not prepared to negotiate"
Apart from the hefty increase it says something about M&S and AXA that they were not even willing to discuss the increase with the customer.
If they do this to all pets as they are reaching eight years old you will be stuck with a pet which cannot be re-insured.
Cover for life if you can find the extra 231% !!!

SuiDreams

Getting another dog shortly and just realised our currently policy with RSCPA is limited to £6000 per condition for Life, So if he had something serious we would be covered for a year or 2 then excluded? We are currently paying £16 per month for this policy and the second dog would be £13 per month, looked at pet plan and that would be £29 per month per dog for supreme or £20.5 per dog per month for Budget, which doesn't cover everything that the RSPCA Gold does. Not sure what to do can anyone help?

Even more confussed now found the following

Pet pals Supreme £5K per condition per year £19.06 per month per dog
Or Pet protect £22.45 per month per dog for £6K per condition per year or £17.92 per month per dog for £4K per condition per year but excess is £70.

Can anyone help they are shetland sheepdogs aged 1 and 2

SuiDreams

Anyone have experience of Halifax think we're going to go to them £13.27 for the 1 year old and £12.67 for the 2 year old.

mirrorimage0

asea wrote: »

Actually there is a company called Animal Friends who do provide insurance for pets who have pre-existing conditions. They also help out a lot of animal homes, like the Mayhew Animal Rescue Centre (who told me about them)

i have just rung them and although they do lifetime cover they stated they do not cover pre existing conditions, which is a shame cause i would have gone with them if they did, if anyone knws of one that does please pm me. thankyou

bjblackmore

We've been with M&S for the past 2 years for our 2 dogs (2yrs & 3yrs old). The first year the premium was about £7 per month each, with no excess, which was the best we found, and they were really good paying out when one of the pups decided to go sniffing through a bag and found a pack of ibuprofen, so had to be rushed to the vets for emergency treatment total cost was over £800, and M&S paid up with out hesitation.

However 6 monts later the policy came up for renewal, and they increased the premium to £12 pm each and sneakily added £50 excess to the policy, which we luckily noticed before the renewal date came up. So we cancelled both policies & renewed online selecting the no excess option, the premiums came down to about £9 pm (still more than previous year). Then 6 months ago one of the pups found a hole in a fence along a field and decided to play chase with a horse on the other side, which didn't take to kindly and kicked him in the head, we rushed him to the vets again, and luckily he was fine, but it took M&S nearly 2 months to pay the vets bill, the vets kept writing to us telling us the bill hadn't been paid, and we kept ringing M&S asking why, and they kept saying 'oh we can't see any reason why it hasn't been paid, we'll look into it and ring you back' they never did!

I notice now M&S have removed the no excess option entirely from the web site, and I'm sure you used to get 10% discount for signing up online (although I could be wrong), but that seems to have gone down to 5%, so we may have to look around again next year!

Bromley86

lazza_w wrote: »

Bromley86 - very comprehensive post. You have been busy!

I spotted that you note Petplan as £4000 per year with a limit of £4000 per condition. I believe that the £4000 per conditon is renewed each year as well and is therefore unlimited (ie you can claim up to £4000 each year in vets fees year after year, irrespective of how much each individual condition has cost in the past)
Therefore a dog with arthritis could claim £4000 each year for 10 years ie £40000. This is probably better cover that a policy that will pay £6000 per condition and once the money is used up there is no more.

Just another factor to consider when comparing policies

I was typing it all up anyway to try to get my head around it . If I'd done it better I'd have dropped the Condition Limit line except where it directly applied.

In all cases, the policies that I listed showed the condition limits per year. None of those policies had absolute condition limits. So in PetPlan's case, they don't have a condition limit per se (i.e. you can claim up to £4k p.a. for the sum of any conditions), I just included that for comparability with the others that do.

Chimera

HIya... I'm lookng at getting kittens for the first time (always had adult rescue cats).. Bit confused about insurance... can anyone offer any advice? We are getting two - do you get a discount for two?

Bromley86

Yes, I believe so. Certainly you do with Halifax.

Pretend that pet insurance is similar to car insurance. If you're after "comprehensive" insurance, then the list in my earlier post should help. I didn't look in detail at the "3rd party", but Moneysupermarket would be a good place to go.

Note that Halifax seems to be a comp-type at 3rd-party prices. Perhaps it won't last (as with M&S), but at least you're starting low .