My dog is 4 years old, has been insured with AXA since birth but they have now pulled out the market and we have been transferred to NCI Insurance.
Renewal in and seems hefty at £28.86 per month.
What should I look for in quotes? I seem to remember the vet saying from day one to make sure we picked one with lifetime cover but other than that what else?
Most common differences seem to be
excess
max per condition
max per claim year
accidental only
any pet experts out there? Seems to be a lot of pet insurance companies that I have never heard of (no reason why I should have heard of them), but are there any recommendations from the backroom?
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£30 per month? b***** hell that's a lot.
Dog lives for 10 years; are you really going to get through £3,600 of vets bills? And that's ignoring any excess?
On the other hand, if the dog was injured / ill, how much could you afford to pay?
I think the primary decision is whether or not you should even have insurance.
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Its the old insurance question isn't it - will you ever make a claim?
Have heard a lot of horror stories with folks and their vet bills and I have laughed these off and told the missus if things got too dear the vet would be giving out an injection.
The missus has made it clear that as far as the dog is concerned, she would remortgage the house to pay fees if needbe and the only injection would have me on the receiving end.....
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We had all this to decide a month or two back. In the end my wife signed up for something through Marks and Spencer I think or Sainsburys, one of those anyway.
I did though think afterwards that she could have just put whatever it costs per month if that's how she paid, I don't know, but if she had simply decided to put it in a jar so to speak and leave it there, it'd either be a treat pot or a form of partial self insurance for the dog.
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>>and the only injection would have me on the receiving end.....
Quite clearly its a bargain. Stop balking and pay up.
Your wife is clearly a rational and reasonable woman and you are an unfeeling brute.
(butter / bread / side / know).
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>> £30 per month? b***** hell that's a lot.
>>
>> Dog lives for 10 years; are you really going to get through £3,600 of vets
>> bills?
Easy - possible with one condition or one accident. Vet fees int he UK are now VERY high
Anyway its not 3, 600 quid. The premium goes up each year as the dog ages. At age 10 they will be asking for 50 or 60 quid a month.
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I have gone with pet friends.
Annual limit 7k
max per condition 2k per annum
99 quid excess,
Emergency Kennel fees 750 quid, Holiday Cancelation 1k,
£13.50 month.
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Is that lifetime cover?
In your experience is 2k per condition enough?
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>> Is that lifetime cover?
yes
>> In your experience is 2k per condition enough?
yes just about, it will take the edge off anything major.
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Is it actually called Pet Friends?
Can't find anything like that on google but do find animal friends?
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Just checked my renewal - my current policy gives £7000 pa costs, £90 excess
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I would expect mine to go down a tad when she gets the snip in three months time.
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We've had 2 Retrievers now and apart from the odd visit for this and that with both having a hysterectomy we have spent very little in the grand scheme of things. Maybe been lucky.
Having said that some of you may recall I posted late last Saturday night about having our Milly put to sleep well she came back yesterday in a lovely wooden box. Just shy of £400 for Vet callout and cremation fees - Ouuuch! I'd made a guesstimate around there.
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>> We've had 2 Retrievers now and apart from the odd visit for this and that
>> with both having a hysterectomy we have spent very little in the grand scheme of
>> things. Maybe been lucky.
>> Having said that some of you may recall I posted late last Saturday night about
>> having our Milly put to sleep well she came back yesterday in a lovely wooden
>> box. Just shy of £400 for Vet callout and cremation fees - Ouuuch! I'd made
>> a guesstimate around there.
Ouch, puts my 160 quid in the shade. Mind I never wanted a box or ashes, and I took the dog into the vet she still had half a pork pie to guzzle in the car. Only the stomach was working at the end, I suspect it still is.
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I've only had two dogs of my own for their life, and so I have no idea if they were typical.
But if I exclude travel related stuff (quarantine, jabs, chips, vets exams etc) then they pretty much cost two or three times each at £30 - £50 quid a time or thereabouts over 13 odd years, and of course the final visit.
Still, sine my wife is a vet, we never had to go to vets when we were just worried, we only went when we were sure something was wrong.
Mind you, mine were both male, I expect females cost more for obvious reasons..
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>> But if I exclude travel related stuff (quarantine, jabs, chips, vets exams etc) then they
>> pretty much cost two or three times each at £30 - £50 quid a time
>> or thereabouts over 13 odd years, and of course the final visit.
>> Mind you, mine were both male, I expect females cost more for obvious reasons..
Fifi Mk1 got a tick in her neck, got infected, emergency treatment and surgery, cost £1700 pounds
She also ruptured a ligament, total cost 750 quid.
So in one three year period we had vets bills of about £2.5k
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Damn. Guess I was lucky. Well, me and them.
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In our experience, having had cats for 30 years (nothing special, just mogs), insurance would have been a waste of money. We've currently got the one, and spent €325 on her this year for two separate incidents, but it's the first for a long time. It's the excess that kills the concept really. In our experience, the cost of repairs when they are broken is far less than the insurance cost would be. I keep telling SWMBO, if anything bad happens, it's cheaper to get throw the old one away and get a new one, but she doesn't see it like that for some reason....
Trouble is, they are all different, and you never know. But I would never bother with insurance.
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Some of the policies provide lifetime cover - as long as you renew then they will keep covering existing issues.
However the cynic in me would think that if your dog has a condition that they know is costing a grand a year, then surely the renewal is going to be made to be more than that??
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>> Some of the policies provide lifetime cover - as long as you renew then they
>> will keep covering existing issues.
>>
Yes they will provide lifetime cover, but the cost will obviously go up. All they are saying is that they won't refuse cover based on previous history. Bit like car insurance, protected NCD keeps the NCD percentage the same but the base premium can rise considerably.
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There are restrictions on how much they can raise the premium; that dreaded word "reasonable".
So they probably won't get you back like that. In any case, they don't need to, they get it back across the whole portfolio.
By and large it is not in the interests of the insurer to dodge or restrict claims, its usually counter productive. Consequently, for the most part they do not.
Charging premiums and investing the money before they pay claims is, however.
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The difference is that in Mike's point, the NCD protected/not approach works across their whole portfolio and is not targeted.
Whereas raising your premium because of your claims would be unreasonably and potentially discriminatory.
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Pet Insurance - what to look for? - No FM2R
