Pet Insurance: Who to use / avoid?

[NickGaters]

I’m not so sure about insurance now. Our dog is now 6 and we’ve had her insured all her life. To date we’ve only ever been able to recover £80 from vet treatment - everything else has been denied.

We’ve also this month had to pay for TPLO surgery after she’s gone lame a few days back. Due to poor timing, we swapped insurance companies back end of last year. This now means that our new insurance company are able to decline our claim for 4K of surgery as it’s now deemed as pre-existing (when a dog gets a cruciate issue it’s normally because of degeneration rather than an injury).

So this little monkey is the cause as to why I’ve needed to flog a watch or two this week. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world though.


On a serious note - I’m just considering putting away money every month and self insuring. 6 years of premiums for just one successful 80 quid claim leaves me about 6K down in total by my quick calcs.


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[casbar]

I’m not so sure about insurance now. Our dog is now 6 and we’ve had her insured all her life. To date we’ve only ever been able to recover £80 from vet treatment - everything else has been denied.

We’ve also this month had to pay for TPLO surgery after she’s gone lame a few days back. Due to poor timing, we swapped insurance companies back end of last year. This now means that our new insurance company are able to decline our claim for 4K of surgery as it’s now deemed as pre-existing (when a dog gets a cruciate issue it’s normally because of degeneration rather than an injury).

So this little monkey is the cause as to why I’ve needed to flog a watch or two this week. Wouldn’t have changed it for the world though.


On a serious note - I’m just considering putting away money every month and self insuring. 6 years of premiums for just one successful 80 quid claim leaves me about 6K down in total by my quick calcs.


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What a gorgeous girl. Hope she gets well soon. Had Retrievers for over 30 years, love them.

[NickGaters]

What a gorgeous girl. Hope she gets well soon. Had Retrievers for over 30 years, love them.

Thank you. Got two more months ahead of us of lead walks for 5 mins x 4 a day, but at least she’s back to wagging her tail and being pleased to see us again.

I’m in the process of reviewing insurance policy T&Cs minutely to check what cover I can possibly have in case this happens to the other leg. My current insurance policy will tell me shortly that I’m not covered so I’m waiting on that final confirmation before I cancel.

It’s definitely a a new pre-existing policy I need, there’s a mix of models they seem to operate: re-occurrence before x years, bilateral coverage excluded e.t.c. I think much research is required now - along with spreadsheet modelling to compare self insuring.

Minefield.


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[casbar]

Thank you. Got two more months ahead of us of lead walks for 5 mins x 4 a day, but at least she’s back to wagging her tail and being pleased to see us again.

I’m in the process of reviewing insurance policy T&Cs minutely to check what cover I can possibly have in case this happens to the other leg. My current insurance policy will tell me shortly that I’m not covered so I’m waiting on that final confirmation before I cancel.

It’s definitely a a new pre-existing policy I need, there’s a mix of models they seem to operate: re-occurrence before x years, bilateral coverage excluded e.t.c. I think much research is required now - along with spreadsheet modelling to compare self insuring.

Minefield.


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Yep, our boy caught meningitis at around 6 months, it took 4 years for him to recover, been clear over a year now. We are with Bought by Many now, they have an exclusion for Meningitis, but if clear of drugs for 2 years, he will be fully covered again. When he was diagnosed, he went under specialist care, we went through around £3k in the first year, which we claimed back. The policy with Pet Plan was up for renewal and it was a massive increase, so we decided to move to Bought by Many. Obviously we couldn't claim anything, but at this stage it was the odd hospital stay and drugs, our vet gave us prescriptions and we bought the drugs online from Viovet which was a good saving. So I am also considering self funding, especially as he gets older. But pet insurance is also about 3rd party liability insurance and the other bits they offer. It is a minefield. The Retriever before the current one, had fits, so that was a MRI scan in the beginning, that was over £2k, what with the price of pups now, it is a very expensive hobby. Yet our son has a 2 year old, not a thing wrong with it, luck of the draw.

[Frankie169]

We have always used Asda Pet Insurance, I know it sounds a cheap route rather than Pet Plan but they have been fantastic when we had a £4000 claim for our cat which got Lymphocytic Cholangiohepatitis, paid the vets direct promptly and further claims for the same condition were again paid quickly, we also have had multiple claims for an eye injury and other aliments which were large claims, again paid without questions and the premiums didnt go up too much, so cant recommend them highly enough :)