Best Insurance for Elderly dog

musogirl295

Hi all,

After losing our rescue Collie a couple of months ago we are picking up our new rescue dog from the RSPCA tomorrow. He's a Black Lab, approx 11 years old that we have decided could use a nice retirement home. With our previous dog who was young and relatively healthy we just had a basic insurance policy with the RSPCA, however with the new one we think it will be sensible to get a rather more comprehensive policy, given his age. He is generally healthy and in good nick for his age although whilst with the RSPCA they have removed several fatty lumps (apparently quite common at his age) which they have said are nothing to be concerned about.

I have had a scour of a couple of comparison websites and reviews and I am now somewhat confused. We would like a relatively high level of vet cover but we're not too fussy about the other bits that are covered. With our previous dog we were recommended Petplan but having looked at the website the only type of cover we qualify for (given his age) doesn't really seem to suit. I have also looked at Animal Friends Insurance who have good prices for the level of cover however if you claim you are required to pay 35% of the treatment cost.

Can anybody give me any guidance, views or personal experiences with these or any other insurers?

Thanks

Muso x

elsien

I think with the dog being over 10, you're going to hit higher costs with practically all of the insurers - I'm with petplan and as soon as the mutt hit ten the costs changed to monthly premium plus excess plus 20% of the bill on top of that.
Given that you're taking an older probably hard to home dog off their hands, can the RSPCA not help out or make any suggestions?

lowis

sorry you lost your doggie...i am sure he is still very much in your minds and hearts

i had the exact same problem as you when i adopted a 14 year old cat from siamese rescue. hardly any companies offer insurance for the oldies. HOWEVER, i did lots of research and discovered that AXA, M&S, Halifax, Animal Friends and HSBC were a few that did. And thankfully these are all proper 'for life' policies from companies that seem to have a good reputation with pet insurance. You might want to look at NFU, I did not check them at the time, but they are one of the best too.

In the end I chose AXA because they are their own underwriter so will not chop and change underwriters and hence policy terms will remain the same. And they do not charge a % excess of vet's fees - some companies charge anything up to 35%, which if you make a claim for £2000 (easily done when they get old), would mean an excess of £700 :eek: my excess is a flat £75.

good luck and you are wonderful for taking on an oldie

meerkat2007

I have my two insured with Axa. The cost for the two of them is a total of £70.20 per month, which I know sounds a lot, but I got them insured to cover anything major like treatment for cancer or if they were in an accident.

I originally had them insured with Petplan, but the premiums got ridiculous, not to mention the excess. I cancelled that, and then didn't bother insuring them for a few years, as there was a limited number of pet insurers back then.

I took out the Axa insurance last year - it's just coming up for renewal in about a month or so - when one baby was 12 and the other one 11. For my purposes, it was the most suitable cover I could find, and to me, it's worth the premium, as I don't have any savings to cover any major conditions.

lowis

the premium for my cat is £28 a month...and within 2 months of starting the policy i made a claim for £800 and AXA paid up no problem!

when you adopt, make sure the rescue centre gives you a letter (or some sort of document) stating that the medical history is unavailable (if that is the case), that your dog has a clean bill of health and there are no known pre-existing conditions. i had to provide a certificate of adoption and letter from Siamese Rescue stating the same when I made my claim.

musogirl295

Thanks for your replies. We're not too worried about the cost, we knew taking him on wasn't going to be cheap and this was probably part of the reason he was being overlooked by potential adopters in kennels. Fortunately my DH and I are in a position to take on that responsibility (and I'm a sucker for a sad story!), so its more a case of getting the right policy. I'm going to take a look at AXA now. Petplan seemed to not offer life cover for a new quote of his age

Muso x

lowis

Hi Musogirl...yes I was very surprised that Petplan only offered their very basic (frankly, pretty rubbish) policy for an oldie. If you don't have any joy with AXA don't forget about NFU and M&S and Greenbee...as I recall Halifax and HSBC offered policies for oldies but were ridiculously expensive, I think they quoted around £80 a month for a CAT!!!

(PS - i'm a sucker too for a sob story...i'm aware of three-legged siamese that needs a home at the moment, if I had a bit more cash floating around it would have a home here with me!)

elsien

musogirl295 wrote: »

Petplan seemed to not offer life cover for a new quote of his age

Muso x

I didn't realise that - been with them since I got the dog and have never looked to change as any new insurer would have too many exclusions (she's not a healthy pooch.)
Good luck with your search.

lowis

elsien wrote: »

I didn't realise that - been with them since I got the dog and have never looked to change as any new insurer would have too many exclusions (she's not a healthy pooch.)
Good luck with your search.

if you took out a policy with Petplan before your dog was deemed elderly then you probably have one of their decent policies. they introduced the basic policy recently, it is available as an option to all, but is the only policy Petplan offer to oldie pets.

musogirl295

To update, I went with AXA in the end. Wasn't the cheapest but seemed the best value.

Unfortunately, our first day with Toby didn't go quite to plan. We brought him home at about 1pm. He was brilliant, settled in well, even had a walk off his lead in the park. At about 5pm he got up from a sleep on the floor and we noticed blood dripping from his main wound on his tummy from where a lump was removed. We rushed him to the emergency vets. We initially thought that he must of somehow ripped his stitches out, however they were intact. It seems that when the vet took off his lump one of the blood vessels didn't seal correctly, so the poor lad ended up spending his first night in surgery at the vets. he came home this morning and seems to be fine, although he won't eat his dinner, just a few treats.

Thankfully the RSPCA agreed to pay the vet bill (over £500), although we decided to pay for his meds and initial consultation ourselves to help out.

Toby's now feeling a little sorry for himself but hopefully on the mend!

Muso x

lowis

aw, give toby a big hug from me!

and that is great the rspca have agreed to pay the bill - i would expect nothing kess (and maybe they should cover anything ongoing to this in the future!)

x