Pet insurance for older dog

chocolatepennyfarthing

Our dog is now 11 and his premium is increasing from £80pm to £150pm. Wondering if its worth going with a different insurer, currently with NCI. Aware that they don't normally cover any existing issues, fortunately he has been pretty healthy over the years. Are there any companies that have more reasonable prices for older dogs?

Misslayed

£150/month is £1800/year. That would buy quite a lot of vet care if you saved it in the bank. I did it for my previous dog after her premiums went up to £40 at about age 10/11, didn't need to spend it til she was 15. (She was 17 3/4 when she died)

Vegastare

My dog is over 11 years old and never used his pet insurance till this year, firstly the excess was £75 and then you can only claim about 65% back ( sorry not 100% sure on exact amount) so there was quite a chunks out.....to say the least I am wondering what the premiums will rocket to. Plus just how much I have paid in over the 11 years!!


I don't think you will get a good deal if there is an insurer out there!
You can speak with your insurer and ask why the £70 increase, certainly if your dog has history of no claims in past few years.


They only one I can suggest is Bought By Many, or just put £100 in account each month.

sheramber

Tesco and Morethan insure older dogs I used Tescowho were good for forst year, as is the norm, but premium rocketed for second year so switched to Morethan.

Again good for first year but rocketed for second year.

You can also cancel the policy at existing of firs year and sign up for a new quote online as a new customer and get the introductory price again.

Of course any pre existing conditions will not covered but any new condition will be covered.

ALso try Bought By Many , who have several different policies.

Misslayed

There is a new company called 'Bought by many', they have a policy which guaranteed never to go up, not sure what premium would be for an older chap, might be worth a look? Could be less than £150!

sheramber

Misslayed wrote: »

There is a new company called 'Bought by many', they have a policy which guaranteed never to go up, not sure what premium would be for an older chap, might be worth a look? Could be less than £150!

Only available when pet is under 2 years when first taking the policy out.

gettingready

I cancelled my dog's insurance when they jumped from 250 t 325 per month - Zara was 10.5 year old then.

She is 13 this august and in the last 2.5 years I manage her meds and vet visits without the insurance and it costs a fraction of what would I pay for the premiums.

At this age i would not be putting her thought any surgery/procedures so I did not see the point of continuing with insurance.

Saying that, when she was insured - Argos paid out over 35k for her vet bills so it was well worth it.

Katiehound

Here we come back to the issue: buy pet insurance, or not?

Luckily I have never had any major bills with previous dogs ( & 2 of them lived to 16 yo)
Currently I have 12 yo & 7 yo trailhounds

I don't have insurance. I can afford to pay- if I have to, but I also have the belief that major major surgeries/proceedures are possibly not the way to go:

Just because we can do does not always mean we should do it.

In OP's case I would be banking the premium as a rainy day fund.....and in the hope that they never need to use it.

KxMx

Sometimes costs can mount up even with the usual thinking of "I wouldn't put my pet through anything unnecessary"

My cat was 13 when she lost weight and had persistent vomiting.

My local Vet couldn't diagnose so she was seen at a specialist. She had an overnight stay there and various tests such as endoscopy.

Unfortunately while IBD was the most likely cause it turned out to be small cell lymphoma.

The diagnosis took a couple weeks (biopsies needed a second analysis) and came less than a week before she was PTS. She was being treated for an infection so couldn't have chemo straight away, I in any case soon decided against it as not being in her best interest.

I didn't put my cat through anything that wasn't necessary. 13 is not that old these days for a cat, she had never seen a vet before apart from routine checks, and there was every reason to think it was a treatable condition, it still cost approx £3.5k total. Thankfully I had insurance which paid 80% as per my policy terms, and savings covered the rest.

PennySmart

With my 2 dogs, I opened an easy access saving account and paid into that each month. Had them to 15 and 17 years old and hardly removed anything. Now have 2 7 year old cats and have had to use some but not a huge amount.

Instead of paying into insurers pockets I've accrued a nice nest egg over the years even with the low interest these type of accounts pay (even with regular switching to get the best rate possible).

I was nervous at the start that I might get a £2k vet bill like my mum had to find before I'd put much away. Now when I view the balance I'm glad I did it this way. I still pay a little each month but the majority of what I used to pay now goes into another account that pays more interest (5 year fixed) and is just for me.

Money_maker

My cat is 8, have been running a savings account alongside putting the same premium in there each month as I pay the insurer since she was a few weeks old. Admittedly cats are considerably cheaper to insure but when the premiums start getting too high, will cancel insurance and use the savings only.