Large dog insurance ?

Cyril

Just wondering if I'm getting a good deal. I pay £31.99 a month for a premium £6k per year per incident level of cover for my bullmastiff girl.

I realise you can pay as little as you want for cover but I don't want cover thats so minimal as to be useless so wondered what others are paying for a good level cover.

fid1892

Check out Sainsbury's insurance. When I insured my dog (Japanese Akita), it was the best and most comprehensive policy I could find. He is covered up to £ 7k per incident, with no limit on the number of claims per year.

Premium is around the £15 per month mark this year, although I did get a couple of months free loyalty bonus

hethmar

Be careful as some insurers are now excluding these dogs from cover I met someone with a bull mastiff yesterday who said her monthly premium with Tesco was £70

Who are you with Cyril?

ali-t

I swapped my rottie from M&S (nearly £40pcm) to AXA who are around £22pcm for the same cover - that led to one happy Ali!

Cyril

hethmar wrote: »

Be careful as some insurers are now excluding these dogs from cover I met someone with a bull mastiff yesterday who said her monthly premium with Tesco was £70

Who are you with Cyril?

Why would they exclude BM's.

I'm with Animal Friends at the moment.

greenmoneysaver_2

Alot of companies don't cover large breed dogs - so you are in a limited market. Kennel lub are fab, I presume larger premiums, but good quality cover!

Your premium and cover are actually quite good for that breed. However, where are you in the country??

Animal friends are currently very competitive on comparison sites but when processing claims for clients (as I do) the routinely cap their payouts for certain items. Now, alot of companies do this to a small extent, and my practice sees alot of this as we are in Central London and are v expensive - the companies work out an averag cost of items and we can sometimes be above that (not surprising being in London).

However Animal Friends are currently taking this to a new level - refusing to pay for things like hospital examinations( and fluids, drugs, tests etc)! If your pet was in hospital would you not like it thoroughly examined at least twice daily??

They are also among the slowest to pay out and ALWAYS claim never to have recieved the correct paperwork, which I know has been sent. The call centre is staffed by people with no idea what they are doing and recent calls have resulted in an average 45 minute wait (30 calls over 4 weeks) and being told that "we have a very big filing cabinet".

Cyril

greenmoneysaver wrote: »

Alot of companies don't cover large breed dogs - so you are in a limited market. Kennel lub are fab, I presume larger premiums, but good quality cover!

Your premium and cover are actually quite good for that breed. However, where are you in the country??

Animal friends are currently very competitive on comparison sites but when processing claims for clients (as I do) the routinely cap their payouts for certain items. Now, alot of companies do this to a small extent, and my practice sees alot of this as we are in Central London and are v expensive - the companies work out an averag cost of items and we can sometimes be above that (not surprising being in London).

However Animal Friends are currently taking this to a new level - refusing to pay for things like hospital examinations( and fluids, drugs, tests etc)! If your pet was in hospital would you not like it thoroughly examined at least twice daily??

They are also among the slowest to pay out and ALWAYS claim never to have recieved the correct paperwork, which I know has been sent. The call centre is staffed by people with no idea what they are doing and recent calls have resulted in an average 45 minute wait (30 calls over 4 weeks) and being told that "we have a very big filing cabinet".

Thats very interesting as my other dog has just died and it took two whole days of constant phoning to get through to the claims dept which just isn't good enough when you're struggling to compose yourself because you're so distressed. After 8 weeks I have just got a settlement of a fraction of the sum assured on the basis that he was 7 and therefore an older dog. They asked me to submit documentation showing how much bulldogs are and all are about £1800 and I got £312 for him. A drop in the ocean compared to what i'll have to find to buy a new one. Apparently this is stated in the T @ C's but all that is glaringly obvious is the max sum assured of £1000.

I hate ins companies really but can't afford not to insure. Its so hard to know who to use as everyone has different feedback about them all, some good some bad.

greenmoneysaver_2

That is sad, apparently they are in the process of settign up different phone lines (most places have a vet only one at least).

In my experience (Vet Nurse and process alot of claims) Petplan and Petprotect are both good, Kennel Club for dogs also good to deal with, all 3 have paid out regularly, even in claims where I really didn't think the client stood a chance! You will pay more, but is worth it!

I have put on another post about cat insurance:

Key rules:-

• get minimum of £4k per cat and £6 per dog per YEAR cover
• avoid time limited policies
• start insurance as you mean to go on, changing/upgrading means getting a new policy and therefore means potential pre-existing exclusions!

Cyril

very helpful thankyou.