Insurance for dog

Well we have a 10 year old Cairn. We are with PDSA, have the premium plan. Last year it was £50pm. We made extensive claims this winter to at least £4K.

It has gone up to £98 from June. But remember he will be 10 in June and has a potential recurring illness (gall bladder issues) so I was expecting a large increase. We have decided to accept it.

You will get as many recommendations as there are companies. Does your vet recommend one? If so, I'd go with that. I believe Pet Plan are good, but expensive. My vet had a leaflet for insurance that seemed good, but at the moment I'm not sure whether I'll ever have another dog. So I'm fostering until the memory of losing my last dog fades. If ever.
USwitch and Compare the market do comparisons - might be a place to start.

This has come up before on GN. There can be so many " if, but & maybe " exclusions, that many people decide to put aside some money each month for vet bills if they arise.

For regular costs, such as wormers or flea treatments, many vets offer an annual subscription scheme, which might be worth looking into.

A lot of work is not covered. Tara my cat had around £700 of dental work carried out last year- extractions, and they were not covered on her insurance.

Very salient point, Charleygirl perhaps chimes with my post earlier?

Compare the market will allow you to put in your parameters and then offer up all the policies that fit those and the relevant prices.

Sam will be 6 this year and up to now we have changed policy yearly taking the best deal.

After the age of 7 policies tend to get dearer and Sam has been very healthy so we have few exclusions which can affect changing company.

We also pay monthly for Healthy Pet Club. That covers his yearly vaccinations and all worm and flea treatment including lung and heart worm and a 6 monthly healthy pet check up . We think it’s worth it.

NanaandGrampy have you ever used your pet insurance? If Sam is fortunate to be a healthy chap, then you might have been better off putting the money aside somewhere, you might have even accrued a pittance of interest!

We use “bought by many” which I switched to after JL increased my costs to over £200 pounds per month for my then 9 year old pug.
They offer cover at several different levels and have been very helpful when I needed to claim.

Phoenix, yes we have used it for an extended period with an eye issue. Our policy resets every September and we’re not penalised for existing conditions .

To be honest I also like the ‘safety net’ in case he does get an expensive illness . I totally get what you’re saying and if I was still working I might have just saved but with no income coming in I like to know I can afford his care.

Fairynuff, NanaandGrampy seems like you've got it working for you, and Sam, of course!

Our dogs have petplan insurance. The older dog had a high prey urge and injured herself chasing rabbits through brambles so we had four claims in four years, (yes she was young, yes we’ve spent hours training and no incidents in five years). I’d long considered doing what Phoenix suggests and simply saving the cash. In the past four months we’ve claimed thousands. Both dogs needed extensive , expensive tests and treatments. Sadly the six year old was put to sleep because of an aggressive, inoperable tumour. The ten year old had scans and surgery which so far stopped the cancer. She’s a fit, healthy happy dog so surgery was the right thing.
PetPlan were great, paid up without quibble and wrote a kind letter on the death of our young dog. Its more than paid for the premiums so I’m thankful I kept it going. I hope I never need to claim for our now twelve month old !

I have a lifetime plan for my dog [and cats] the dogs insurance is just over £6 a month,
I have recenly had to claim as she is being treated for early demtia, although this is only what seems to be the problem ,could turn out to be more than that or worse, but she is showing all the signs of dementia
I have also had to take one of my cats for a scrape and polish, [not covered by insurance] and it has cost me £200
I think insurance is neccesary, but the op who has to pay £200 a month that is just disgusting,
Did you mean to say a month, or a year,? that is daylight robbery, how can anyone afford that
By the way i have had no problems claiming, had to claim for a cat with heart disease, about 2 years ago,
Sadly she only lived another year from diagnosis, but would have cost me £30 a month for tablets if she wasn;t insured

We have animal friends insurance, after JL got to be too expensive. However now she is getting on, they only pay 80 per cent of any claim. The plus is that the premiums are much lower. I would always have an insurance for the public liability cover - you never know these days

I only ever insure my animals for the first year of their life till I get a handle on exactly where they are health wise. Luckily all of mine have been fine health wise so I just keep a credit card exclusively for their use which has a £15,000 credit limit and I have Pugs but my credit card is clear. I last used it a few months ago when my terrier was pts. If they need vet care they get it but my biggest expense has been 2500 for one of my Pugs and 850 for one of m cats which were spread out and paid off quite quickly. So what I'm saying is it really depends on your pets state of health and your ability to pay for their care.

The public liability comes with most insurance - there's always a risk of being sued should your dog cause an accident for instance. I think that it's worth it for the peace of mind.

We too had JL but once dog got to about 6 the premiums really jumped. We now 'self insure' i.e. put aside an amount each month similar to a policy. We also took up a good offer with our Vets practise that lets you pay an annual fixed fee that then covers check-ups and worming/flea treatments.
It works out cheaper than buying it as needed.

as I mentioned previously, the claims we made over the past several months will exceed anything we've paid in over the past 10 years. It's been very unusual, in 40 years of happy dog ownership we've never been faced with the serious health issues leading to those claims. Our old rescue boy cost us nothing other than annual injections, flea/work treatments till he was 16 or 17 - we spent about £1000 in his final year.
Both our current dogs had been very fit until they suddenly weren't. One put to sleep age six because of an aggressive tumour but only after spending significant amounts on various tests. The other had a lump, previously aspirated and ok that went rogue and was found to be cancerous when removed.
The other issue is public liability insurance. We've never needed it but we live in an increasingly letigous society so better safe than sorry. We can afford the insurance but it is very expensive and I suspect for most of us, saving £20 a month instead of insuring may be worth while. Wouldn't have been for us recently though.

I think you can get public liability insurance by joining the dogs trust for about £25 a year.
www.dogstrust.org.uk/get-involved/membership/

Yes Flexible, we have as our dog was adopted from there.

Yes but it's available to everyone who joins no matter where their dogs come from.

Yes - you're right!

Something has happened to my email notifications - this is the second post I've made this week and wondered why I hadn't had a single reply to either of them. Just browsing GN and there they all are! Thank you to everyone who replied, I'll now read through them all.

Does anyone know what to do to get email notifications of replies to posts? I don't know why it's stopped and can't seem to find how to reinstate it.

I would like to know this too, as i miss many replies, but notifications for private messages,so have to scroll through to find them