Another Insurance Question....

[~Jilly~]

With pet insurance are you penalised for having made a claim as you are with car/home insurance etc?

I was discussing the M&S insurance with hubby and considering the no excess option - does this mean you claim for any medical treatment, even if it was only say £40?? Or is it a case of not claiming if it's only a low amount because you don't want to affect future premiums?

[suki1964]

I have the no excess with M&S and am just putting a claim in today as it happens.

Alfie has had two seperate problems lately that have needed the vet. For his kennel cough and infection Im claiming as he had loads of treatment and a huge bill. For his ears - well the bill was only £20 (consult and treatment) so Im swollowing that one.

I know when I had Gunnar on Pet Plan years ago the insurance went up so much after two claims we had to cancel. Alfie hasnt been with M&S a year yet and this will be the second claim so Im waiting to see what happens come september

Edited to add: Pet Plans premiums were just too high for us to use, having a south london post code is a killer, apparently my dog is more liable to be stolen,need vet treatment etc then a dog in any other part of the city or indeed any other city in the UK  

[Em - Oscar's mum]

Edited to add: Pet Plans premiums were just too high for us to use, having a south london post code is a killer, apparently my dog is more liable to be stolen,need vet treatment etc then a dog in any other part of the city or indeed any other city in the UK 

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We had the same thing living in West Sussex with Pet Plan!  It was sooooo expensive!  

So I have just insured Oscar with Tesco's as our six weeks free insurance runs out on sunday.

[paulb]

has anyone had experience with the kennel club insurance after the free 6 weeks?

[~Jilly~]

I know the pet plan quote was about twice the price of some of the others for us, as was the kennel club one.

I'm not sure what to do, we're not entirely convinced whether to even have insurance or not but we feel we probably ought to to be on the safe side.

More Than have only quoted £10.99 for us and that has a £70 excess or 15% whichever is greater.

M&S have quoted £14.39 with no excess, £13.85 with £60, £12.81 with £70 or £11.77 with £80.

Sainsbury's were £13.35 but I'm not sure what their excess is.

Tesco quoted £13.27 but from what I could gather from their info they only pay up to £2,500 and up to 12 months? so this doesn't seem a very good deal compared to the others.

  Oh, it's tooooo confusing - I thought car insurance was bad! ::

and Bella's 6 weeks ends on Friday..........

[Em - Oscar's mum]

I'm not sure what to do, we're not entirely convinced whether to even have insurance or not but we feel we probably ought to to be on the safe side.

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I was confused as well Jilly with the whole insurance thing as Pet Plan and the Kennel Club seemed very expensive to me so when we last took Oscar to the vets I asked him who he would recommend and he said either Tesco or More Than as I was choosing between Tesco, More Than and M & S.

I definitely think you should insure Bella though as you never know what could happen!

[Cob-Web]

Like all things - you get what you pay for with pet insurance  

The cheapest policies tend to only pay out for each condition for 12 months - not good if your dog suffers from a chronic condition, because 12 months after diagnosis, you're on your own financially  

In-between are the policies that cover conditions for as long as the condition lasts, but "cap" the amount they will pay for each condition, so if you claim the maximum, they won't pay any more for that condition   .

The most expensive policies tend to offer cover for as long as a condition lasts, with no cap, so will pay up regardless

Most companies offer different options of these; and also might offer different levels of excess - the lower the excess, the higher the premium - as you're likely to claim more often  ::

I'm a sad computer geek, and set up a spreadsheet to compare policies when we were shopping for insurance  

[suki1964]

You need to weigh up what you can afford and what is actually being offered.

When Gunnar's insurance went from £7.50 to over £20 a month (10 years ago) we didnt think the payments were justified so cancelled. We just put £10 a month into a bank account to cover vet bills. It worked for us. Gunnar was a pretty healthy dog so most years we only had his vaccinations to cough up for which wouldnt have been covered by insurance anyway. On top of that he probably had four ops to remove grass seeds. his last two years he was ill and the vet bills started to creep up but we still had credit from the years he never needed treatment so we never had to penny pinch ( and to be honest I would have remortgaged the house if there was anything that could have been done)

I have gone with M&S because they were offering a good level of cover against a premium i was prepared to pay. if I get hit with higher premiums I will cancel and go back to the puppy fund.

As an aside when vets have started to list tests etc that are "needed" as soon as I have said Im not insured, the "needed" tests have become not nessecary and the final treatment plan has been the same

[Em - Oscar's mum]

Who did you insure Molo with then?

After reading what you have just said I didn't realise that they paid for the first 12 months only and then you our on your own.  I wonder whether I have done the right thing?  

[Em - Oscar's mum]

We just put £10 a month into a bank account to cover vet bills.

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What a brilliant idea!!!

[Mrs smudge]

I'm with M&S, i pay £10.12 with no excess. We didn't know if we should claim for something it was about £40, so when we phoned for something else we asked them and the lady we spoke to said she has had people claim for about £14 before.

[suki1964]

Sure you should claim, thats why you are paying premiums

[Annette]

has anyone had experience with the kennel club insurance after the free 6 weeks?

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We looked at it, but tbh it seemed pretty poor cover for quite a high premium. We went for Sainsburys in the end because they seem to offer fairly good cover for the price.

Pet Plan was our initial choice, but here in Reading the premiums are way too high.

[~Jilly~]

I'm useless, I still don't know ::

We were originally going to do the £10 a month into a pot plan, that's why we weren't sure about insurance but we figured that you'd only be saving £120 a year so after 10 years you'd still only have £1200 if you'd never used it so if Bella needed something expensive (I'm guessing some things must be or they wouldn't have caps of £6000/7000 on insurance covers) you wouldn't have enough.

Having said that I'm with Suki in that if something needed doing you'd find the money somewhere even if you did have to remortgage.

[Jo & Dennis]

The other thing to consider is that if your dog caused an accident you are covered for that also, my daughters dogs got away and knocked a lady off her bike, she broke her leg and claimed damages off them!!

We use Saga for Holly we have paid £120 for the year it give life cover for any condition which was important to us because our last dog devloped a condition and she needed permanent medication from 3 till she died at 13 it cost us aroun £20-£30 per month, adds upto a lot of money, ofcourse you find it but its hard sometimes. Only draw back with Saga - you have to be 50 !!!!