Dog Health Insurance - Does anyone have/use it?

[GMX]

With Brandy and for that matter, all the cats, I've paid vets fees as they occurred.  Nobody to date, has required any procedures that has gone into multi £thousands.  so, I've never thought about getting any before. 

Whereas, a mate of mine did get caught out once, with her uninsured labrador.  He got cancer and her vet referred the labrador to a consultant dog oncologist at a referrals clinic (like Supervet but for animals with cancer).  My mate had to find £21K, for his treatment.  She had to remortgage the house  Now whilst Petplan wouldn't have covered the whole £21K (£14K on their ultimate plan), £7K is a lot easier to find than £21K.

Pipper has come with 4 weeks free Petplan cover. I'm wondering whether because she is a true breed rather than a cross, it might make sense to continue that cover or upgrade to one of the more comprehensive policies, particularly where they'll cover breed specific conditions and ailments.

Does anyone here use dog health insurance? 

Have you found it worth it? or have you found you're paying more in premiums: than you used to in vets fees?  

 

[alexp999]

My mum uses petplan for cat and dog.

Lucky she kept it going from Margaret green on the cat as within the year he managed to break his leg.

£3500 bill. Picked up by insurance thank fully.

She won't be without it now.

[Stoney871]

My collie is covered with Animal Friends.

Since he has a long term skin allergy requiring constand steroid and regular antibiotic treatments the insurance covers him under his policy.

The schemes have actually changed since I insured him so that there are now limits to costs per condition whereas his policy covers him for the condition for life, it has saved me loads so far.

He is also covered for up to £1 million for injuries / accidents he may cause.

The other 2 are covered under a public liability policy supplied by D&C Police.

All their treatments are fully funded for life (even after retirement) and the cover also provides for cremation on passing so I can keep them forever.

[GMX]

21 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

My mum uses petplan for cat and dog.

Lucky she kept it going from Margaret green on the cat as within the year he managed to break his leg.

£3500 bill. Picked up by insurance thank fully.

She won't be without it now.

Which policy does she use, essential, classic or ultimate?

5 minutes ago, Stoney871 said:

My collie is covered with Animal Friends.

I'll have a look at their website

[biff55]

i've been a dog owner all my adult life and my experiences are ;

pedigrees are much more likely to have health problems , usually genetically linked , than cross breeds whom tend to be a bit more resilient to many illnesses.

insurance premiums go up substantially with the dogs age.

they are lots of levels of cover and many policy exclusions

a good vet will let you pay in installments for expensive treatment.

 

whether insurance is right for you will be a balanced assessment on the above factors.

my current dog  (a cross breed ) i didnt bother , my previous dog ( a labrador ) i had insurance until she was 9 or 10 then it was getting pricey so stopped the cover , she lived till 14 in the end.

hope this helps

 

[Turvey]

3 minutes ago, biff55 said:

i've been a dog owner all my adult life and my experiences are ;

pedigrees are much more likely to have health problems , usually genetically linked , than cross breeds whom tend to be a bit more resilient to many illnesses.

insurance premiums go up substantially with the dogs age.

they are lots of levels of cover and many policy exclusions

a good vet will let you pay in installments for expensive treatment.

 

whether insurance is right for you will be a balanced assessment on the above factors.

What he says.

 

Petplan, in my eyes anyway, are way overpriced! 

 

We use Healthy Pets for our black Lab and they have been pretty good so far with any claims 

[Ryan_Tango]

Since animals are unfortunately not covered by the NHS :'( I use Pets at Home insurance for my 5 rabbits, with that they're covered up £2k for treatment and for any antibiotics they might need, thank fully I've not had to use yet and hopefully never will, I know a lady that doesn't have cover and she has spent £700 this month alone on treatments and antibiotics for just 2 rabbits even though I said £7.99 is a small price to pay per month compared to what she spends now even if she covered all 25 of them since she spends on average £300 each and every month. I won't go without insurance for a pet :)

[MJNewton]

We've got cats and so the risk profile is obviously different to dogs however they do have the same fact in common that they are our life and we would put their best interests before ours if need be as I'm sure many other animal lovers would too!

In our case we self-insure - not just with the cats but for pretty much everything else i.e. boiler cover, whitegoods cover, car warranties etc. The only exceptions are home and car insurance given the legal obligations. This strategy has paid off insofar that all the money we would have paid out on premiums for these continues to be less than that which we have forked out dealing with insurable incidents across the board.

Something to bear in mind is the risk that having pet insurance means that you might then take a 'money no object' approach. This sounds like nothing but a positive but the negative is that you could end up keeping your loved ones alive for your own benefit and not theirs given that you wouldn't have money concerns as a contributory factor - indeed you might even feel an obligation to throw money at whatever treatments might be available given that's what you bought the insurance for. However, as a vet once told me - 'better to let an animal go a week early than a day too late' - and this is a mantra that I really believe in. If an animal's cards are marked then sometimes the best thing you can do is to let them go - assisted if need be - rather than putting them through treatments that may at best sometimes only lead to an extension to length of life but at the risk of overall quality.

We found ourselves in this position last year with a dear cat of ours, Elmo, who had what was initially assumed to be arthritis but turned out to be a rare bone cancer. We could have put him through chemotherapy etc, despite the high costs, even without insurance but the vet was very clear on the fact that it wouldn't cure him but merely just give him longer to live. We made the difficult decision of putting him to sleep *before* he started to really deteriorate. This was only a difficult decision at the time though; afterwards we knew we'd given him the best gift we could ever done - avoidance of suffering - and that with him 'leaving on a high' as it were it meant he'd had the best life he could ever have done, even if it wasn't the longest.

We are in the fortunate position of being able to spend hundreds, even thousands, on our cats if need be and if the situation warrants it and so perhaps insurance makes less sense for us anyway as a result. For those with less disposable income though I can certainly understand that insurance might be more beneficial if it means less critical illnesses etc can become affordable. You've got to remember with insurance that you'll only know in hindsight if it was the best decision or not and on that basis perhaps there's no right or wrong!

[Micro]

My parents have never held insurance policies for their animals. Our latest endeavour involved the dog being diagnosed with Diabetes (after two consultations and bloods). Luckily the insulin is only £20~ for 400 units, the syringes are not expensive, so costs on average £30ish a month. I remember my mum looking at insurance a number of years ago, and finding few would insure him (now 13), or it was prohibitively expensive.

[GMX]

Thanks Everyone

After weighing it all up, creating 2 different spreadsheets a comparison one and "what would I do if x occurred now"  one I've decided to insure Pipper for the time being, I might return to paying as I incur vet fees when Pipper is older, like I did all the time with Brandy.

For the last two days I've been chatting to the various insurers, getting quotes, followed by some haggling, then getting re-quoted.  In the end, although they were slightly more expensive by £1.56 a month, than the next one down (Animal Friends - Prestige policy) ) I've gone with Petplan's Classic (Insured 4 Life) with an annual £7000 vet fee limit.  Which having chatted to my vet, as to what other springer spaniel patients have, most go for a policy that covers between £6500-7500.

Oddly, if you set up your policy online you get a 10% discount on the first year (which most insurers seem to do); but if you do it over the phone, they give you a free month( 13 months for the price of 12).  The free month is actually a better discount than the 10%: the 10% only equals a free 2½ weeks.

in my insurer search I discovered there are some surprisingly odd companies offering pet insurance, from companies whose core business isn't pets.  Whilst they may have a finance business, and sell relevant insurance and broker loans pertaining to their core business, it was odd to find KwikFit and the AA  offering pet insurance

[Turvey]

Let's hope you never need to use it 

[alexp999]

Apologies for late reply, yes that's what my mum has on the dog, insured for life. The cat is the most basic policy, only a year, 3k limit per condition.

Not sure on the claim limit for the dog policy, I know she wanted to put it up, but not sure what to.

The good thing is that they don't increase the premium no matter how much you claim, it only goes up with age.

[volts]

@GMX another PetPlan Classic user here. Find it expensive but peace of mind and what it covers is the big factor