Pet Insurance ?

[Emperor Fabulous]

I need to be getting my little pug insured, and I've never had pet insurance before. What's the deal then ? Are there policies that cover routine vet visits as well as major problems ? He's got a little rash at the moment and I expect it to be nothing serious, but it will inevitably cost me £25 for the vet's visit plus something similar for whatever medication he prescribes. This will be the fourth time I've taken him to the vet since we had him, and it all tots up.

Any advice please ?

[BlindLemonAde]

Your "little pug", eh? Are we sure it's Pet Insurance you're after?

[Lustycourtier]

The first thing we did when we got Rhodri was get insurance. Its about £12 a month but any pedigree breeds have issues as well as emegencies. Ours is with Animal Friends.

[bertie]

kennel club.


QED


trust me, Im pretty much an expert in this especially over the last 5 or 6 years

our premiums arent cheap - £50 and £58 a month, but the amount of cover (for instance £10k for vets bills p.a) is second to none, and the excess isnt too bad (£75 + 10%)

Franks already on £1800 for his two mast cell ops, Lily is way over £2500 for just the last week and poor old Norm was £9000

there's lots of other stuff in there like, third party liability (£2m I think) euthanasia, repeat prescription, purchase price cover.....

[Emperor Fabulous]

Thanks. I'll have a look at the kennel club now.

[octatonic]

our premiums arent cheap - £50 and £58 a month, but the amount of cover (for instance £10k for vets bills p.a) is second to none, and the excess isnt too bad (£75 + 10%)

We didn't insure Scarlett, our bulldog.
Up until this point we would have had to pay out around £6+k in premiums- there is no way we would have paid more than £1000 in vet bills in the last 6 years.

I'm not arguing here- I totally get why some people want/need insurance- just that with some breeds, esp breeds like bulldogs, it isn't always cost-effective.
Fingers-crossed- we have been very lucky with Scarlett and vet bills.
I am sure that as she heads towards 10 that it might get a bit more expensive and if someone extremely expensive crops up then we will have to eat it.
(The cost, not the dog).

[Lexie1]

Like bertie, we had multiple dogs, at various times this has been averaging out at anywhere from 10 to 13. Years ago, we investigated insurance and found a wonderful Breeders policy which met all our needs. Unfortunately, the company withdrew from the animal market a couple of years after that and we then really struggled to find anything affordable. So we took a gamble. We set up a separate building society account and paid into that every month the same as we had been paying to the insurers. It worked well enough as we didn't have anything major occur and after a while we had a very good cushion sitting there if needed.

I am NOT saying this is for everyone. Look at recent events with bertie's crew, we too have had a horrible time over the last 16 months with a battle against cancer. All of these treatments are costly and they become a far too regular thing. We lost the battle back in January and are still coming to terms with our loss.

As my wife has retired from showing and therefore we no longer breed, we have reduced our numbers significantly and now have just 3 here with us at home. We do now have cover for them as the prices have tumbled comopared to what they were when we first started looking around for insurance. Ironically enough, everything that we now need from our vet, i.e. vacinations, boosters etc always come out just below the Excess level, but isn't that always the way?

[bertie]

its not just about vets bills either, theres a load of other things - and for larger dogs, especially in urban areas, third party liability insurance is pretty key Id imagine..............your dog goes and nips some little charmers finger whos decided its funny to ram an ice cream down its throat, and 4-wheel driving mummy sues the fuck out of you.............