Can I send him back?

gettingready

If he's not pure EBT, I too can't see why insurers would suggest that. He's a crossbreed, so I'd put him down as crossbreed!

Exactly - he IS a cross so put him as a cross.

I was silly enough to put Zara as a GS, right now her insurance is 129 per month but she had a lot of claims.

Still at the beginning her insurance was higher than it would be for a "GS lookalike" that she really is. She is not pedigree so she is not GS - really.

Did you look at Argos Platinum? That is where Zara is insured, it is 7k per year for life cover and so far they paid out close to 17k... no problem ever and vets happy to accept direct claims if the bill is over 350.

krlyr

gettingready wrote: »

Still at the beginning her insurance was higher than it would be for a "GS lookalike" that she really is. She is not pedigree so she is not GS - really.

Not having pedigree paperwork doesn't make a dog a crossbreed. Or do you mean you know she has some other breed(s) in her?

fluffnutter

Put the £20 into a special saving account each month and don't bother with the insurance. If anything happens to your pup, hopefully you'll have enough in savings to manage the bills.

krlyr

fluffnutter wrote: »

Put the £20 into a special saving account each month and don't bother with the insurance. If anything happens to your pup, hopefully you'll have enough in savings to manage the bills.

Hopefully being the keyword here. Insurance is a gamble - you don't use it, then you've 'wasted' £20 a month. But self-insure, and your pet gets ill/injured, you run the risk of not having been able to save up enough to cover the bills.

Personally, I own breeds that can have expensive hip conditions and be prone to things like bloat - which can require emergency surgery ASAP (so no waiting until the vet is open - it needs to be done there and then regardless of time of day). Insurance is a great safety net I would be reluctant to lose. If I did drop it, I would want savings in my bank from day one - it would be just my bad luck that one of the dogs got ill in month two when I only had £40 to try to pay a large bill!

elsien

When I got mutt she cost me several hundred pounds in the first few months. Then was diagnosed with some ongoing medical conditions. Previous dog was also not the healthiest. As I seem to have an uncanny knack for choosing expensive dogs healthwise I'd rather have insurance to be on the safe side.
Plus there's the third party git factor to take into account if he ever gets away from me and causes havoc.

gettingready

Elsien - you do realise that whatever happened with the dog before you take the insurance and all "connected" issues will be excluded?

Krlyr - I have no idea what is in Zara to be honest, she LOOKS like a GS but with no paperwork, how can anyone be sure?

Frind's dog looks like a GS and just for fun really she send off the dog;s saliva for some form of DNA testing, turned out there was a greyhound in it and several other breeds...

Katiehound

If your dog isn't a pure bred breed then it's a crossbreed (don't let's worry about fancy designer names!)

For 3rd party insurance remember it is given to you as a supporter of Dogs Trust. (membership and independendent 3rd party used to be a similar price a few years ago.. I remember checking)

And as already mentioned if your dog has had medical issues they won't be covered.

System

fluffnutter wrote: »

Put the £20 into a special saving account each month and don't bother with the insurance. If anything happens to your pup, hopefully you'll have enough in savings to manage the bills.

glad i havent done that as i would only have £700 of the £2k needed for my dogs leg op :eek:

fluffnutter

krlyr wrote: »

Hopefully being the keyword here. Insurance is a gamble - you don't use it, then you've 'wasted' £20 a month. But self-insure, and your pet gets ill/injured, you run the risk of not having been able to save up enough to cover the bills.

That's the same with every type of insurance. There are very few insurances that you're obliged to have, the rest is a personal choice and it's a myth peddled by the insurance industry that your life will collapse if you don't insure yourself up the yingyang.

If you're thinking about insurance you should calculate the likelihood of a risk manifesting as an issue, you should assess how severe the impact of that issue would be, i.e. what problems it would cause you if it happened, and you take into account the cost of insuring yourself against that risk and whether there are other ways you could pay a vet bill, e.g. loan, savings. Your own personality comes into to play too - how risk averse/cautious you are.

People need to know that it's a completely valid choice to not have insurance. Provided they've done their research, they should be free to choose whatever approach they like. As an aside and I appreciate that we're talking about pet insurance, I find it really interesting to think that the chances of you claiming on your contents insurance policy (if you have one) is 1 in 17,000. Most statisticians would deem that a negligible risk, not bother with the insurance and spend the money on wine instead.

Rottensocks

More than have a good reputation for paying up without trying to dig up every possible loophole!