Petplan Dog Insurance renewel

smash7

Hello,

I have a male rhodesian ridgeback who is just over a year old. We have had him insured with petplan from the day we collected him and we did pay £35 per month. The renewal has come through for this year and they have quoted £41.64 per month!!! :eek: Is that not a ridiculous increase?!?!?

We have made one claim this year for an injury to his ear which was for about £200.

Would be grateful for views. Thanks!

Smash

david39

We were with Petplan for 8 years with our last dog - Skye Terrier.

Every year they put the price up and in the later years they increased the excess,too. The last year we were with them, when the dog was 10, they wanted us to pay the premium, pay the excess on each claim and also pay 10% of the remaining balance of any bill. We declined the renewal.

Afterwards, we added up all the vet bills (including unclaimable ones) we had incurred during the dog's life and then all the excesses and premiums we had paid and found that we would have been considerably better off by not insuring him.

With our current dog - another Skye which we have had for 2 and a half years - we are putting £30 per month into a separate bank account as his medical-fee fund. This has now amounted to over £700 despite having paid all his vet bills, including innoculations from it.
We would have paid Petplan at least £30 per month, which would amount to £900 by now and not claimed anything from them, as any bills would not be eligible or would be less than the excess.
I know the argument that long term medication or serious accidents are covered by insurance policies, but we are prepared to risk this - we are slowly building up our own insurance sum towards these risks.

elsien

It does seem a lot - are there particular health problems associated with the breed that push the premiums up or is it high because ridgebacks fall into the large breeds category?

As a comparison mutt is a 12-13 year old english bull terrier with ongoing health problems, and I whack in larger claims than that every year practically since I got her. Her premium is approx £45 per month with petplan - I've tended to find in the past that if you put in a claim the premiums don't go up by much but they push the excess up year on year. We're now on £120 plus 20% of the final bill per condition. Having said that, for mutt it's still worth it because if there's an ailment going she'll get it.

Have you tried shopping around for comparisons? Mutt's renewal is due any day now - no chance of moving elsewhere with her age and history, but it'll be interesting to see what they push it up to this time round.

becky4131

Im sure you are already aware of this but if you change pet insurance companies then anything you have previously claimed for will not be covered.

Just thought i would mention it as most insurers will not tell you this when you take the policy out.

david39

An excellent point there from Becky.
It's like having to declare our own pre-existing medical conditions on life and travel insurance.

elliesmemory1

My pet insurance almost doubled this year. I think they ar all going up.

withabix

smash7 wrote: »

Would be grateful for views. Thanks!

You made a claim, so the premium has gone up. What did you expect?

Personally I find that Petplan are very expensive - the same cover is available from other insurers for a lot less. Watch out for annual, lifetime and continuing care cover limits though. Petplan pay commissions to vets and breeders iirc - that's why they always advertise in vets etc.

Try Tesco, Halifax and some of the others and go via Quidco for cashback.

We were with Halifax for 6 years (no claims) until the age of our cocker spaniel triggered a double premium and having to pay 25% of any claim ourselves.

elsien

Just came back to say mutt's premium for next year has come through.
The premiums have increased to £48.06 per month (from 42.38 so last years premium's were less than I thought) and the excess is now £115 + 20% which is unchanged, but I have claimed over £1000 so far this year with continuation claims still to go in.
I would say that although insurance is going up, your premium was high to start with, which has to be to do with the breed of dog if there's no other factors you can think off. Generally speaking, one £200 claim wouldn't make that much difference.