Pet Insurance guide discussion area

hethmar · 14 May 2011 at 10:28AM

Yes, thats another point, most household insurance covers public liability.

With NFU dog insurance you can choose to exclude that part of the cover from their policy to lower the premium a bit.

albacookie · 14 May 2011 at 2:23PM

A couple of things - Bernese Mountain Dogs are not considered aggressive dogs, they can however be difficult to insure as they are prone to several serious illnesses.

As a vet I've filled in thousands of insurance forms and I've never known a company refuse a claim for one type of cancer if the pet has previously been treated for another type. There is usually a section on the form for the vet to say if the 2 conditions are related.

I also agree that the don't be afraid to switch part could be dangerous - if there has been any treatment for a condition I'd stick with my current insurer.
ETA - It may also be worth pointing out that branded policies (Tesco, Sainsburys, M&S) may change underwriter and hence your terms and conditions (for example M&S launched with no excess on their policy and then changed this a couple of years later) if you've got a pet with an ongoing condition you won't be able to get it covered elsewhere. For this reason people on the sticky post often recommend Petplan, NFU and axa who underwrite their own policies.

albacookie · 14 May 2011 at 5:51PM

Another couple of points.
Pre existing conditions - some insurers will offer cover after a period of time has elapsed without the pet needing treatment.
If your pet dies many companies will deduct any premium outstanding from the final pay out.

juliebunny · 14 May 2011 at 9:23PM

Hello, I don't have pet insurance because I have a lot of cats - I tend to get the 'lost causes' from the rescue shelter where I help and foster kittens so mine often are old or have pre-existing conditions which wouldn't otherwise be covered. I heard it's expensive to cover old cats too.

My advice to people homing from me regarding pet insurance as to whether or not to take it is that if you can't afford a big vet bill - take out insurance.

So without insurance, you have to make sure you have the funds that let you make decisions which aren't based on money but on your pets needs. If you are rich, or with a good job (athough we all know they aren't secure these days), not a problem. If you are average like me - consider self insuring. I have a standing order each month that goes into the 'pets' bank account. Over a year, I worked out vet bills for vaccinations, wormer, flea treatment, etc etc, then a contingent for a large vet bill of say around £2000 (which I have already had once!). I also considered what the monthly premium would be per cat for insurance.

I then added in other expenses for my other pets (goldfish

) and worked out what would be a reasonable amount to put away each month to build up a contingency fund, bumped it up and bit, to be sure, and set up my SO.

All vet bills and regular meds now come out of this. Even if I have a humungous vet bill that isn't covered by the fund, at least it makes a good start towards it!

EDIT when I did ask at my vets about pet insurance, the practice manager there said pet plan are the ones who pay up with the least hassle. She said she uses them.

Lil_Me_2 · 15 May 2011 at 7:12PM

My only tip would be to not get pulled in by a cheap first year deal. I insured both my kittens with Tesco and paid just £9.99 a month for the both of them for the first year, by the second year it went up to £18 a month! Unfortunately in that time I had to claim for one having a heart murmur so am now "tied in" with Tesco as any other insurer wouldn't cover any problems we have with her heart. I swapped the other cat to Petplan pretty quickly after and pay £10 to Tesco and £11 to Petplan.

I wish I'd thought about the long term as from the second year onwards Tesco cost almost the same as Petplan would have done.

Definitely worth the money though, we've claimed well over what we've paid out in premiums.

anna23 · 25 May 2011 at 10:13AM

Thanks for all the above info. My cat is 11 and I have just been quoted approx £27 - £30 per month by PDSA. Lucy is an indoor cat, and very touch wood is healthy. She has her annual jabs (for the cattery really) and has her annual check up for her flea treatment. She is not a pedigree and never goes out. Does anyone know of any pet insurance that takes this into consideration (ie a home cat?) Any answers gratefully received.
Thanks
Anna

Joto_2 · 25 May 2011 at 10:34AM

A couple of points if you are looking for pet insurance. Check with you vet who they recommend and more importantly who they don't, our vet will wait for payment from some insurers but not for others based on who queries every little thing, who takes months to payout.
You also need to be aware that once you have a mature dog (usually 8 years old) new insurance companies won't take you so you are locked in with your current insurer
In our case (E&L) our dog(12years old) had a growth on her leg a couple of years ago and although it was benign the company excluded and further growths including cancer from our policy, this year she has had pyometra and she has a heart condition. We have just paid out £1500 but because she is a mature dog the limit we can claim is £500 less 35% of vets fee the total we are due is £280 for the Pyometra and £130 for the heart. We haven't recieved the payout yet! but we have recieved a letter saying they will no longer cover the heart( the pyometra she can't get again because she had her uterus removered) We can't move because of her age. In our experience I would take out insurance for the first year when anything that your dog was born with show itself but after that I wouldn't insure again.

purplepiggy69 · 25 May 2011 at 12:07PM

Unfortunately with pet insurance companies you invariably get what you pay for. The other unfortunate thing is that vets, who know more about pet insurance companies than anyone else, are not allowed to advise clients on a professional basis. I probably spent nearly half of my life as a vet on the phone to insurance companies to ask them why they were being so slow at paying and why they were messing the clients around. As we were an equine practice we allowed many clients to wait for the insurance company to pay us directly, and believe me there were months differences between companies (slow payment invariably being due to a 'backlog'). I have also had a great deal of trouble with one of the two insurance companies I insure my own pets with.

With car insurance going for a cheap policy is a good idea, since we like to think we won't ever use it. With pets it is not the same - I have had to claim for both of my animals twice for different things, and they are both under 4 years old! Please please please, DO NOT buy because it is cheap. Price is the worst criterion for selecting pet insurance, and the sooner the public realise this the better!!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted · 25 May 2011 at 1:08PM

I think there should be a section on the charities that provide treatment or assistance to the poorest people - the PDSA, for example.

Oh, and what to do if you can't get affordable insurance.

hilux22_2 · 25 May 2011 at 1:13PM

Before getting any pet insurance, make sure you understand the different types of cover - lots of the cheaper policies turn out to be fairly useless in the event of all but the smallest claims. The insurers only mention the good points about their policies - the bad points/things not covered are always buried in small print. The Which? website has excellent explanations of the different types of cover, and also lists which companies provide what and the cost, divided up into the different categories of cover, so once you know what you want, making a choice of provider is much easier.

Other things to be aware of:
You can't claim on most policies for the first 28 days after taking them out, sometimes longer. So you can't go to the vet, get a bill, then take out insurance and claim. Reasonable, but I meet lots of pet owners who think they can do this.

Try to ask other pet owners what they think of their insurer. We have had 3 different insurers over the past 20 years, and our current one has been so much better than the previous two in the customer service and claims paying areas. You can't tell this by comparing policies of course, only when you need to claim.

The first time you make a claim, I believe that all the insurers now require a full medical history from your vet. Your vet should know about this, but might not know its your fist claim, so do tell your vet and make sure the history is done and sent to the insurer. Also, if you change vet for any reason, make sure the new vet gets all the history from the previous vet. Again, a decent vet will probably ask you for details of your previous one, but you need to make sure the history has been sent through/received by the new vet.

Finally, I would be a little wary of pet insurance from a supermarket - insurance is not their core business and if the supermarket isn't making enough profit from it, it could discontinue, leaving pet owners with the problem of previous conditions not being covered by a new insurer. I feel a bit happier going through a company whose core business is insurance.

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