Best Pet Insurance for dogs

I_am_mad

Hi I have had a look on the forum but there is just so much to look at. I need to get pet insurance for my dog. She is a Lab crossed with a collie. I just have no idea about which type of insurance to get and what it should cover etc. Please could someone help me?

Thank You

Penny_Watcher

Hi

There are so many policies out there. Personally I feel it's very, very important to get a life long policy - that is an insurer will cover your dog for the rest of her life for whatever illness or accidents happen and not refuse to cover you at renewal time.

Others will be along with their advice, but my recommendation is for PetPlan. All my three are covered for less than £20 per month each. They are all crossbreeds.

balloo_2

Penny_Watcher wrote: »

Hi

There are so many policies out there. Personally I feel it's very, very important to get a life long policy - that is an insurer will cover your dog for the rest of her life for whatever illness or accidents happen and not refuse to cover you at renewal time.

Others will be along with their advice, but my recommendation is for PetPlan. All my three are covered for less than £20 per month each. They are all crossbreeds.

PetPlan bah humbug we had Petplan and my Boxer dog developed a skin rash and when we took her to the vet He gave tablets which were very expensive and she was taking these every day along with other tablets as well he did skin tests the results came back saying she wasn't allergic to Pollen Grass Trees we tried on his advice changing her food for an anti alergy one still nothing anyway because PetPlan was paying out the price was going up and up when we left them they wanted,
£35.00 a month
plus
£70.00 or £80 Excess
and
10% of the bill

I am disabled and had to give up work so I dont get loads of money to live on, the dog is part of my family she is like a child so we just couldn't get rid of her so we thought it would be cheaper to save the money and use it for paying the vets bill, but as it turned out the PDSA came and opened a surgery by me so we pay what we can and hand loads of clothing and items into the PDSA charity shop. but credit where credits due Petplan Paid out straight away except for the excess and some things they said they dont cover.

viktory

Another vote for Petplan. Great service & recommended by the vets. They paid out for my dogs eye op in full with no quibbling.

tankgirl1

PetPlan now do a budget policy, which sneakily, does NOT offer life cover!
I have heard good things about AXA but have no personal experience

Good on you for getting insurance though

hethmar

Generally, having looked at this so many times now, I think petplan is probably the best (the full lifetime policy) but after that AXA is a bit cheaper and gives full life time cover - the top £7k policy. Make sure you enter your dog as non pedigree so that the price is lower than for pure bred dogs.

But whatever you do, dont put it off, if you read some of the threads on here you will see what dire straits people can get into when they have no insurance and thousands of pounds of bills coming in. Get a quote from both of these on line.


http://www.axa.co.uk/insurance/pet

http://www.petplan.co.uk/

I_am_mad

Thank you every one. What does it mean life long cover, as I presume thats if you renew every year? What happens if say a dog broke its leg with pet insurance, how does the paying for treatment work? I just dont get it, its so confusing lol!.

When you are asked what kind of dog you have its say mixed or cross breed, which do I choose as arent they the same?

Thank you

I_am_mad

Ps has anyone used more than?

I_am_mad

Me again, I have a quote for £108 a year for my dog, but it says that its included vets fees of £7000 per period of insurance, however on more than and I think Petplan it says per condition. Can someone please tell me what the difference is? Thank you

hethmar

£7k per period of insurance means £7k each year that you have paid the premium - you have £7k to spend in the year and thats it, pot empty . But you will get the pot filled up to £7k the next year and each year you pay the premium.

£7k per condition - your dog could say, break his leg - he will get up to £7k to treat that. Then he gets an ear infection, up to £7k to sort that. And so on. If it doesnt say per condition per year though it means if your dog had exzema or a life time condition (one of mine has dry eye which needs £41 a month ointment) then once treatment reached £7k paid out then you would be on your own.

Your other question about paying for treatment. If your dog broke his leg obviously you would rush him to the vet or have the vet out to attend to him. In normal circs you will pay the vet's bill and then fill in a claim form for the insurer to pay you back, less any excess. Some insurers will pay your vet direct.

Most quote sites either have cross breed or mixed - and yes they are the same thing.

More Than are NOT complete life cover - they will pay up to £7k for a condition in total - thats what their site says. Which, as said above means IF your dog should get a condition which costs more than £7k in his lifetime then you would be on your own to pay anything over that.

Only Petplans very cheapest budget plan says per condition and it also says only for 12 months, so definitely to be avoided. The other two policies they have are the ones to go for or the AXA one.

devildog

£7,000 per period of insurance is just that, for the period of insurance(a year) the maximum payout possible is £7,000.

If it states £7,000 per condition then for the same year of insurance they would cover each unrelated illness/treatment upto a limit of £7,000 for each,

Extreme example,

Dog got run over and needed major major surgery-£6,000
Dog then had eplilepsy, tablets for the year, £400
Dog got attacked by another dog, further surgery for £1,500
Each unrelated treatment would be covered(subject to any exclusions in your policy)
But then say your dog needed further surgery in relation to the first accident(being run over) the policy would only cover upto a further £1,000
Do throughly read the small print on your policy
Please don't take these figures as indicative as to what any treatment might cost, they have just been plucked out of the air so to speak. My dog was insured for 9 years and never had a claim(8 of those years with PetPlan) Initially the premium was under £10 pm but after 8 years they wanted nearly £50 pm!!