Pet insurance - anyone found a good bunch?

UndercoverElephant · Master

Pet insurance - anyone found a good bunch?

JanW · Master

Morethan happily paid over £600 to have Ruby's ear fixed, and sent me a letter to say they hope she had a full recovery and please would I recommend them!

It's about £11 a month, and a £70 excess.

Dawn · Guru

UCE

I have been looking into this for Mac and thought that Sainsburys were offering the best deal out of all the ones I had looked at. I have a Personal Insurance policy with them which I had to claim on last year, when I had my hands operated on, and they paid up immediately with absolutley no fuss.

Let me know how you get on, because I need to get this big boy insured asap.

Dawn

Missy · Master

Well I've not had to make a claim just yet but we are with PetPlan.... bit more expensive but should your pooch get a life long illness you are covered whereas the likes of MoreThan and Tesco only cover their illness for the first year or to a maxium value.

Personally I prefer to pay the extra should mine come down with diabetes or something that they will be treated for, for the rest of their lives. The excess is £80.

Monthly premium is about £17 for a greyhound.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Katz

FAJ · Enlightened One

Another wee word in favour of M&S - despite shelling out about £500 for Pearly last year, the monthly premium went down by about 2p! It's £10.65 per month with no excess.

We have Harry insured with them too and already have claimed £175. They've been very good so far.

Forgot to say - it's life cover as well. Very good value.

-- Edited by FAJ at 17:02, 2005-08-25

Carol · Master

We're with Direct Line. They appear to be pretty good although we haven't actually had to make a claim yet as we haven't had any biggies.

They have an excess of £40, which is actually quite annoying because every time I visit the vets, which is very often, my bill comes out just shy of that. This means that every month I end up paying all my vet bills + my insurance premiums.

Still it's handy to have. Hope I never really need it though!!

Calatria · Master

We ditched Pet Plan a few months ago, in favour of M&S. Haven't claimed since changing, so good to know they're reliable. I thought Pet Plan were too expensive (bigger monthly payment AND an excess!), and it also annoyed us when they took an extra £1 off us once a year for charity. Good cause, but I'd like to have been asked first. Cheek!

Dave · Enlightened One

We are also with Direct Line - £81 per month covering 6 dogs and 3 cats, never had to claim for a dog but they've forked out twice in the last 3 years (cat with broken leg & another cat with bad eye injury) totalling about £400. They were really good, very fast with the claim and you get through on the phone very quickly..

UndercoverElephant · Master

Right, went with M & S - of the good ones (More than, Direct Line, M & S), they were the cheapest (£14.21 per month - Blue's getting on y'know, still, that's with no excess). E&L have upped their premium to £13.99, with £65 excess, which is rediculous for a bunch of cheapskates. And they've just tried to attach another Direct Debit to our account without permission - I'll be having words.

M&S' online application was also by far the easiest I've ever used.

Top marks to M & S

-- Edited by UndercoverElephant at 20:24, 2005-08-25

Lesley · Guru

Hi UCE - my two are insured with E&L because they were one of only two companies which would insure a dog over the age of 8 (Suzie nearly 10 when I started looking). I think the other company were MoreThan, but with MUCH more expensive premiums.

E&L have just paid out no problem for Suzie's achilles operation, but given your experience I'd be interested to know why they wouldn't pay out for Blue when you tried. Did they give you a reason?

When Chris adopted Jet I helped her search online for the best quote and M&S came up best then.

Like I say - my choices were very limited because of Suzie's age.

UndercoverElephant · Master

First time, was because the Vet first noticed that one of Blue's trouser potatoes was a bit on the big side just past the 14 days grace for a new condition, and so they wouldn't pay out thinking we probably saw it ourselves within the grace period, really we couldn't prove otherwise, so you take it on the chin.

Second time (Blue nicked a cup out of the dishwasher and cut his ankle to shreds), they managed to take two and a half months of me ringing up almost constantly in order to send out a form, then it took a while to get everything sorted and by the time they received the form it was beyond the three month limit for claims.

Third time (broken toe) they paid out, got a cheque for sixty quid back (after the £65 excess), took them eight weeks to send the cheque after the forms were in.

Pretty poor in total.

FAJ · Enlightened One

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Second time (Blue nicked a cup out of the dishwasher and cut his ankle to shreds), they managed to take two and a half months of me ringing up almost constantly in order to send out a form, then it took a while to get everything sorted and by the time they received the form it was beyond the three month limit for claims..

Phil - there's another good thing about M&S. There's no cut-off date for claims, and you can claim for as many conditions as you need to within any one claim.

Fiona

greyflintstone · Master

We're with E&L and have looked a couple of times to moving elsewhere. However, because we've had a couple of claims with them, we would be penalised moving elsewhere. What has annoyed me about them is the fact that we now have several exclusions on our policy for Freddy. He was being treated for mild epilepsy and problems with his kidneys - they now will not pay out for any further brain or urinary related problems! How crazy is that?!

We've been fortunate in that we've not had to make a big claim - and I hope we never have to! It's one of those things that you think "why am I paying for this", but sods law dictates that as soon as you stopped the policy an accident would arise!!

Teresa · Enlightened One

dave and daisy are insured with direct line and it costs about £18 per month for both dogs. the premiums went down each time we told them the babies had been neutered and micro-chipped.

luckily, we haven't had to claim yet but they were very good at dealing with my motoring claim so i tend to trust them in that respect.

Siouxsie · Enlightened One

I would definitely recommend Marks and Spencers we have both Saska and Zada with them and when Saska wasnt well, i had take her to the emergency vets twice (you can imagine the fees!!!!) and M & S settled very quickly and with NO excess.

I couldnt find anyone that could compare.

Siouxsie

Andy · Old Hand

We have both Coco and Fiddie with Churchill. Very affordable and good cover but (thankfully) we haven't had to make a claim.

carolineasb · Old Hand

Hi all

Just wondered if anyone was with Animal Friends Insurance?

The manageress in my work's charity tea room was telling me she now has insurance with the above company. It is lifetime cover & one of her dogs is 15 & they've accepted him & it seems much more inexpensive than Pet Plan - but just wondered how good they were at paying out?

They also sent her a list of animal charities that they donate to (maybe they're an idea for a "begging" letter from us, Dave/Lorna?)

Caroline

max · Enlightened One

I was with Tesco,but in was not for life cover and it was Fiona and Steve that put me on to M&S and they are great. Both Cas and Sasha were treated at the vets for differrent things at the same time and there was no hassle from them and they paid up right away.

Dave · Enlightened One

After going on about Direct Line in an earlier post here we received our renewal last month, they have changed their policy and now have a list of things they won't pay out on (including emergency trips to the vet) additionally their premiums went up a fair bit (for 6 dogs & 3 cats up from £81 to £120 per month) SO policy duly cancelled.

We tried M&S and I gotta say their policy is very good, none of the silly exclusions that Direct Line had, anyways they quoted me £130 per month for 7 dogs & 3 cats (they had no worries adding 13yr old Suzie to their policy) AND the woman on the phone didn't get peeved at having to take so many pets details!

HOWEVER in a sudden moment of clarity I found myself actually wondering if that amount of money per month was reasonable, stuck in a savings account each month it's a fair sum so M&S Policy also duly cancelled and we now have 10 pets not insured (eek!) and now I've posted this sure as eggs is eggs one of them will do summit daft..

Siouxsie · Enlightened One

I'm with M & S and I can't fault them either. (as mentioned in an earlier posting, no probs paying out on 2 emergencies at New Year) Also cover well on third party, which some policies don't.

weeewelamb · Old Hand

I can see Dave's point about the cost of insuring so many dogs. I have 5 working dogs of my own and have always found it prohibitively expensive to insure them. In the past I've even considered insuring just 1 or 2 of them but which ones do you chose? Sod's law would have it that you would inevitably choose the wrong ones. So life has gone on without any insurance for any of them and paying the odd vet's bill here and there.

HOWEVER I have recently had one of my dogs undergoing treatment from the vet hospital for a brain tumour. Had I agreed to have an MRI scan and spinal tap done on my dog to confirm the other initial tests then the diagnosis alone would have cost in excess £1500. That's without any actual treatment being carried out.

It really scared me how quickly the cost mounted up and, also how vulnerable you are in that situation if you don't have insurance, because never mind how much you love your dogs and how highly you prize them and how often you say "If something goes wrong with them I'll get the money somehow". The truth of the matter is if you don't have the money you can't get the treatment.

It has certainly been a very frightening lesson for me and I am now seriously looking into insurance for my dogs. I have to be in the situation where I can help them when neccessary.

Julie

TAZ · Old Hand

We have tyler insured by virgin. Lita deals with it but after lot of reserch she found that it was the best one.

greyluvver · GAL Membership Co-Ordinator

Must admit I didn't check out M & S as I didn't realise at the time that they did insurance. Plus I haven't had to make a claim from Virgin so can't say how efficient they would be!

C_J · Master

Dave wrote:

HOWEVER in a sudden moment of clarity I found myself actually wondering if that amount of money per month was reasonable, stuck in a savings account each month it's a fair sum so M&S Policy also duly cancelled and we now have 10 pets not insured (eek!) and now I've posted this sure as eggs is eggs one of them will do summit daft..

A breeder at the vets where I work pays a standing order to us every month instead of insuring her dogs. She has found it very beneficial as she can use it for things that the insurance company won't cover for too. It is very expensive to have a number of dogs insured and probably best to just pay it into a bank account every month. The only issue occurs if a dog has to be referred to a specialist, that's when the money starts really adding up. But then a lot of these insurance companies have limits on vet fees per year anyway. A friend of mines dog got parvo (even tho it was vaccinated!) and it spent weeks in the dick vet in edinburgh - she was insured but only on the budget insurance, so she ended up having to pay out a lot once she'd gone over the £4,000 a year vet fees!

I have Casper insured with Petplan - the first thing I did when I got him! Working in a vets I am still shocked at how expensive vet bills can be, and feel so bad for the people who haven't got their pets insured and who have no savings etc - it's heartbreaking sometimes.

Teresa · Enlightened One

insurance was one of the first things we considered when adopting our babies.

i was lucky with my last two, only meg incurred a problem costing lots - she had bladder stones which involved x-rays and an op. luckily she was ok and the cost was only about £200 - i'm going back a few years here !!!!

considering that we were adopting greys with their sensitive skin etc, i felt that insurance was an absolute MUST. direct line give discounts once the dogs are neutered and micro-chipped. my premium has just gone up from £18.79 to £21.00 per month for both dogs and i think that's money well spent - i do love them more than £21 per month !!!

Archie · Old Hand

Keera's "cover for life" insurance with Sainsburys got hiked up so we've changed to Direct Line which is by far the cheapest. Keera is 5 and its costing us £13 a month. Once Bud is chipped we get a discount as Keera already has a policy with them. Tried the lot recently and this was the best quote by a fiver a month. Excess is £65. Don't know if this helps but I spent about a week getting quotes. If you do it online its cheaper.

Carol

Calatria · Master

We made our first claim on our Marks & Spencer insurance last month. The vet forwarded the form on 13th February, and the cheque arrived this morning. No quibbles, no arguments and best of all, no excess. Good old M&S.

Teresa · Enlightened One

further to previous observations, we have now had occasion to claim on our direct line pet insurance.

daisy had her little accident on 24th January and treatment continued for the following three to four weeks. we ended up with two claim forms because she was treated at two surgeries (one for the emergency treatment and our usual surgery for the dressing changes). the claim forms were sent to direct line two weeks ago and i am still waiting for the cheque. they tell me that they settle claims in 10 to 14 working days.

by the way, our excess is £130. i will be shoppng round now.

JENNY · Big Cheese

I now use M&S for the 2 dogs and Jasper the cat. They seem quite competitive with pricing and didn't have an age limit which was the most important thing for ziggy and vernon being 9 and 7. Fingers crossed I won't be claiming!

I have my home contents with direct line and they were great with replacing my laptop when my other one 'blew up'. No experience with the pet insurance.

Alisanpack · Old Hand

Scout and Otis are insured with Tesco but it is not lifelong and as soon as the 12 month period is up on their pre-existing conditions (Scout has hip dysplasia and Otis is hypothyroid) then they will be switched to M&S no excess lifelong policies like Theo. I have found both companies to be really good about settling claims promptly, including hydrotherapy, but obviously the M&S one wins as a lifelong policy.

I would like to know who everyone thinks is the best for oldies though, because I have had an expensive quote for Betty because of her age (she will be 10 in July) and as they are more expensive for pedigrees, and of course the lurchers are insured as crossbreeds...