Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:25 pm Post subject: Advice needed please
I have just got my first dog and want to insure her....
but i really dont know what I am looking for. I want to make its a good policy to cover her should she be ill or have an accident but I also need it to be good value for money, being a mum of 4 children.
What ones do you people recommend. I just did an online quote with healthy pets and got this come up
Bronze Silver Gold
£1,000 £3,000 £5,000 Vet's Fees
£50 £50 £50 Vet Fees Excess
Yes Yes Yes Cover for ongoing conditions**
No No £500 Accidental Damage
not covered £250 £750 Death from Illness*
not covered £250 £750 Death from Accident*
not covered £250 £750 Advertising & Reward
not covered £250 £750 Theft or Straying
£1,000,000 £1,000,000 £1,000,000 Third Party Liability & Legal Expenses Dogs Only
not covered £250 £1000 Boarding Kennel Fees
not covered £250 £2,000 Holiday Cancellation
Yes Yes Yes Veterinary Helpline
Yes Yes Yes Bereavement Counselling Helpline
Yes Yes Yes Pet Legal Helpline
Yes Yes Yes Pet Minders Helpline
Yes Yes Yes Pay Vet Direct
30 days 30 days 12 months Overseas Travel
£91.47 £157.88 £187.31 Annual Premium
£7.62 £13.16 £15.61 Monthly Premium
But i really dont understand what it all means. Give me car insurance any day - I can work that out!!
We have Petplan platinum insurance and pay just over £28 per month for each of our two girls, I can def recommend Petplan, they have been brilliant with Indie's insurance claim. I can also recommend the Platinum Insurance, they have paid absolutely everything for Indie's claim except for the £65 excess, and we have complete peace of mind!!!
I've heard from others using healthy pets (not labs though) that they are a pain for paying out but as i say its only hearsay and i've no idea one way or another. Another vote for pet plans top policy though, they have been brilliant and although more expensive I know i'm covered for unlimited amounts for any illness or injury.
Katrina
I have Direct line's advanced policy for all my five girls. They've been no problem to me. I've claimed once so far and they paid out directly to my vets in around 4 weeks. I'm about to claim again, this time to pay directly to me as I've already paid for hydrotherapy for one of them.
Marks and Spencers is good, comes up as a little expensive when you first join but they have a £7,000 cover and you can have a £50 excess, they also cover an illness for the life of the dog so long as you keep renewing the policy.
Thats what you need to be looking for really, life cover in case pup gets something that she`ll need ongoing treatment for throughout her life
Ok will try to explain it a bit and if I am teaching my grandmother I do apologise, I know when I first started looking at insurance I found it a minefield and very confusing....
There are basically 3 types of insurance available
1. 12 month cover - this means that your dog is covered for each illness or accident for 12 months. After that it is an excluded condition - though you do need to be careful - I heard of one company who excluded a condition on renewal even though the first claim had been made 1 month earlier - so that lady only had 1 months cover effectively....
So if your dog got something like diabetes then she would be covered for the first year and then you would have to pay for the treatment yourself..
2. Per illness/condition cover - usually you are covered for a certain amount say £6,000 for each condition. So if in the space of a year your dog got knocked down, got diabetes and liver disease you would have up to £18,000 in vets fees ie £6,000 per condition
But if we stick to diabetes you would be covered for £6,000 worth of vets fees and then you would have to pay. In my dogs case he has had and still does very severe dietary issues so far in almost 4 years I reckon that the fees amount to approx £5,000
3. Life cover which gives you £x per year. This means that each year they will give £x for vets fees.If we stick with £6,000 that is £6,000 per year. So in the example of the accident, diabetes and liver disease that first year you would have £6.000 and when that was used up you would have to pay but in the second year you would get another £6,000 and the same in the third year and so on and so forth for the duration of the dogs life...
The third is the best type - as I say Neo has been covered for his problems for 4 years and will continue to be covered. I am lucky because LLoyds my insurers also cover food so his prescription diet is covered although there is a deduction for the cost of "ordinary" food whereas many policies do not include food at all.
What you ahve got there would appear to be life cover but with three levels giving you varying cover. personally I would go for the one that gives you the most cover in the above example it would be the gold policy. When i took Neos policy out i got £3,000 per year and can remember saying blithely to the agent oh that should be plenty frankly if its going to be more than that there isn;t much hope anyway - wrong! If you talk to some people on here their dogs have had to have major hip operations costing over £7,000 and I did read of one that went to Bristol for heart surgery that cost over £20,000.
You also do need to consider the speed at which they pay out, because although they all say taht they will pay the vets direct, the vets in general hate it. They will refuse to treat on that basis - they all insist on being paid upfront. In fact one vet here that would do a direct claim charges you a non recoverable fee of around £20. i was gobsmacked when presented with a bill of over £2,000 and asked them to do a direct claim when they said taht it would cost me that amount by way of an administration fee.
My dog is insured with Lloyds who are absolutely fantastic I cannot praise them enough. They do not do life time policies anymore which is such a huge shame - because they are just so good - they ahve been consistently good and I ahve submitted many claims to them. I have also spoken to them when I ahve had a problem (I have changed vets a few times) and they ahve been so helpful and understanding.
Not sure if that has helped any or just made the whole thing even worse...! Good luck and I hope you get it sorted because they all ahve at least a 2 week moritorium on claims when you first take out the policy...
I too am looking into insurance and finding it very difficult to decide
The £x per year definately sounds like the best idea... though how do I go about finding companies who offer this? So far I have only found companies offering option 1&2....arghhhhhhhh
The websites should tell you what is on offer but you need to be careful. For example Sainsbury's or More Than (can't remember which) is per condition but when i was looking for the cats insurance at renewal time I nearly got conned into taking out that insurance because I thought it was per year. It was only when i asked M&S if they would price match that I found out and when i went back and had another look I could see that it was in fact per condition.
I think the secret is to look very carefully at the wording and ask - if they mislead you then they are bound by their representations and that is of course when recording telephone conversations comes in very handy...
I know that Pet Plan do life cover but they are very expensive M&S do life cover and I am not sure who else. If you want to chat it over PM me and I'll let you have my phone no
But I would advise that you take the insurance out sooner rather than later because uyou don;t want your dog to be ill in the moritorium period... I have decided that when the new puppy arrives (god knows when!! but one day....) I will ahve insurance taken out before he/she walks in through the front door....
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You cannot download files in this forum
