Pet insurance for older dogs

pineapple

Has anyone actually started pet insurance when their dog was already 'senior' - and if so, how much does it/did it cost? Or is the cost prohibitive?
My collie is over 12 and still fit but having seen a friends bills for a 15 year old colle I'm getting a bit worried

krlyr

I imagine cost will vary hugely, from breed to postcode so hard to give a definitive answer. Might be worth taking 10 mins to do some quotes yourself and see. Two companies I've seen recommended recently for older dogs are Tesco and Axa. Tesco won't cover for behavioural issues or medical conditions with a behavioural cause though apparently.

hethmar

The other point with an older dog is that he is likely to have a vet record of previous illnesses/conditions which will be excluded from a new insurance policy.

If he has no chronic illness and nothing they can use to wriggle out of paying out for in the future, then have a good look on one of the comparison sites. Have you had the dog all his life?

Dollardog

krlyr wrote: »

I imagine cost will vary hugely, from breed to postcode so hard to give a definitive answer. Might be worth taking 10 mins to do some quotes yourself and see. Two companies I've seen recommended recently for older dogs are Tesco and Axa. Tesco won't cover for behavioural issues or medical conditions with a behavioural cause though apparently.

A friend of mine had their dog insured with Tesco from when it was around 2-3 years old. When it got to 10, Tesco wouldn't insure it anymore. They were on the cheaper option though, so don't know if that makes a difference. She then ended up paying out £400 a month for the tablet form of chemo that the dog was on.
I'm with Sainsbury's, my insurance shot up from £64 a month to £130 a month this year. I was told they don't now take on dogs of 9 or over although they will continue to insure ones that are existing customers.

pineapple

hethmar wrote: »

If he has no chronic illness and nothing they can use to wriggle out of paying out for in the future, then have a good look on one of the comparison sites. Have you had the dog all his life?

Yes - there are no conditions that I'm aware of.

rising_from_the_ashes

I think it depends on the dog / your own circumstances.

When I got Ben, I couldn't prove any medical history and his age was disagreed upon by the vets in my practice (helpful!).

I was quoted £60 / month with a £100 excess (bear in mind this was now around 9 years ago so would be even more now).

I weighed up the pros / cons - and personally I do feel there is a point / age at which you keep your pet as happy and comfortable as possible but it wouldn't be fair to put them through painful / long / difficult treatment or surgery etc.

So .... for him, I self insured & put £50 / month aside to cover any treatment needed.

I was very lucky with him - we had the odd tummy upset / sore ear which usually cost around the £100 mark and he was on arthritis medical long term - which cost £15 / month - so, for us, it worked.

Obviously I couldn't have covered a major surgery etc - but I wouldn't have put him through this anyway due to his age.

So ..... I'd do a couple of quotes and see what they come out at - reasonable / affordable then it's by far the best option. But if hideously expensive, I'd probably sit down and think about what you think would be fair for your dog and see if you can self-insure to cover any such treatments. HTH

pineapple

Just on the subject of vets bills, a friend of mine used to work in a vets and she was convinced the bills were hiked for insurance claimants.
Which can't help premiums, if true.

rising_from_the_ashes

pineapple wrote: »

Just on the subject of vets bills, a friend of mine used to work in a vets and she was convinced the bills were hiked for insurance claimants.
Which can't help premiums, if true.

I often wonder too - I do know that when Ben had one of his upset tum's we got given 2 different types of meds. The cost was astronomical and when I asked what each one did / cost, the ones that were 4 pills were around £30 each - when I asked if they were essential / really made a huge difference, I was told that they might or might not & it wouldn't do any harm to give him the other meds for 2/3 days and see if they settled his tum before trying the others ...... guess what, the others worked fine.

Just after Maisie arrived, she had an unexplained high temp episode (106 deg:eek:) and was rushed in as an emergency - again asked if she was insured (can you believe she had 3 days remaining of her exclusion period:mad:) so they said they would do Option 1 first (can't remember what they were called) and see if it worked and only follow with Option 2 (more expensive) if needed - again, if she had been covered, they would've just gone with Option 2 straight away ..... Pleased to say, Option 1 worked fine:) (and of course, this is now excluded from her insurance:()

Also, independent vet practices can't complete on price for meds with online retailers - eg Ben's arthritis meds were £68 / bottle from the vets - but I could buy for £17 online :eek:.

Had I been insured then I'd just have got all the pills without even querying the bill / bought his arthritis stuff at the vets as I was going to get the money back ..... it must affect insurance costs.:(

Dollardog

I'm sure they hike the costs too, the old vet I used to go to, who's now retired always used to ask if my dog was insured when he was treating him for anything.
A friend of mine didn't have insurance for her poodle, she used to self insure. The dog needed an operation to remove a lump and I can't remember the figures but they were quite high. My friend said she coudn't afford it and asked the vets to give a run down of what the costs for each thing was and if it was necessary. One of the things was a biopsy, she cut that out because it wouldn't make a difference as it was a biopsy of the removed lump anyway which they knew was cancerous. She queried quite few of the other things and cut those out. In the end, she had got the bill down to less than half what it was. Like Rising said, if she had been insured, she probably wouldn't have queried it.

RosaBernicia

I've just learnt that lesson too - took big mog to a local posh vet recently and they asked about insurance, then spookily treated him right up to the excess amount.

I'm not terribly happy with posh vets though, every sentence seems to relate to selling me something rather than diagnosing the cat, so although I'll take the little mog back for her second shot I am seriously thinking of taking them to the local Pets@ in future. I have to find somewhere that will do evenings and weekends, and I don't mind paying for what they really need, but I'm not going to fork out for stuff like 'oh she has just slightly more tartar than we'd expect for her age, we could help you with this vastly expensive dental diet' (she was abandoned and then in a shelter for a year !!!!!!, she hasn't exactly been eating top quality all her life, so it's not necessarily a current problem). Funnily enough they don't seem to like being asked questions about the evidence behind their recommendations and where I could read up about it... :rotfl:

I wanted to be sure I had my two insured for the first year I've got them, in case of finding any major issues, but after that I think I will try and self insure or keep a policy with a really high excess just for eg. RTA surgery.

(I would rant about how it would be completely immoral to run a human practice where they made their profits off the drugs they prescribe, but it will just depress me to think about how that may not be too far off if the NHS collapses further.)


Rosa xx

Hillbilly1

Having been in practice a long time and dealt with thouands of insurance claims I can whole heartedly say if the bill meets the insurance amoutn it is because they have cut the costs of some treatments to meet the insurance limit, not that costs have been inflated.

Insured clients suffer from the safety net that it is all covered - and so rarely ask the cost of different options. Likewise the vets are trained to offer the "best" medical or surgical options which can be the most expensive (not necc the most profit making).

As for comparing to NHS - who makes the most profit from drug sales, doctors, vets or the pharmaceutical companies??

Finally, we are woefully underprepared in this country to ask the cost of anything, esepcially medical care. The NHS ensures that! Ask costs, treatment times, success rates - its your money and your pet, regardless of insurance or not!