Hello all, after just purchasing an Alaskan husky pup ( third one since early 90’s,we know what’s involved ) Never had pet insurance before, but with astronomical vet fees these days, due I’m sure to vet practices knowing the majority of owners have insurance & they will be picking up the tab thought it might be an idea to arrange insurance, but after looking into it, it’s a total minefield !! Insure yearly? Insure for the life of the animal? Blah blah Go compare just brings up a multitude of policies, with different clauses etc, I have been told that pet plan are the only dedicated pet insurers, would this be a better option? Any advice / help, previous experiences greatly appreciated.
We use Petplan for our cat, 2 dogs and horse, pay monthly and renew annually. They have been excellent in the 4 years since we started with them and that includes two big payouts, £5k and £2k when 2 previous pets were coming to the end of their lives. They paid up almost instantly and no loading of subsequent premiums to try to claw their money back on the younger pets. I checked around when we renewed last year and there were similar quotes for similar cover from well known providers but nothing that made me feel we should change.
From past experience, only advice I could give is to use a pet insurance that the vets recognise. One we had meant we had to pay the bill and then claim it back from them, took months and didn’t get it all back. Also get a life policy, as others only cover a condition for the first year, then you’d have to pay for anything related I think.
With Petplan they continued to cover treatment for the lifetime of one of our pets for a condition that arose while he was insured as long as cover was renewed annually , we didnt have to take a lifetime policy although that may have been a better option. It was a few years ago so I cant recall excatly what was available.
I can’t remember who we were with before, they were surprised when we cancelled it after it took months to get most of our money back. We’re with Petplan now, not sure about different policies but one advantage does seem to be that most vets recognise them and just send the bill to them.
having just been saved a 6k bill i would strongly the insurance provided by https://boughtbymany.com/ have renewed as a consequence of near perfect claims experience and handling. we pay about 30 per month and aside from routine stuff, its pay out without fuss and the online claims submission process is neat you will of course need to do your own homework but in my experience its worked out really well
I've used animal friends for years and made multiple claims and they've been excellent. Dunno if they do huskies though.
Never done any investigation but I'm with PetPlan who I've long suspected are not the cheapest. But after I started with a new vet, they said my dog's teeth were mucky and needed cleaning and she may need an extraction. They did the clean and she had one tooth extracted. I can't remember the bill but I think that it was about £400. New to claiming but PetPlan said that I could and sent me the form. I was sceptical as I thought that PetPlan may try and worm out of it because it was preventative treatment as my dog was quite happy! Anyway, took form to vet as they have to complete it and sign. A few weeks later, the money was in my account (minus a £100 excess, I think it was). So although everybody and their dog (pun intended!) does pet insurance, I was very impressed with how quickly PetPlan paid out with no argument.
Been through all this with my 3 dogs. Been with KC Ins., PetPlan, Tesco ...all OK, but premium high and annual renewal is a rip off. Now been with Legal & General for a while. Been fortunate to have not needed to claim, but my Vet says they're good to deal with if I needed. Check out L&G's 'Lifetime 10000' ...... here.. https://www.legalandgeneral.com/pet-insurance/lifetime/ To give you some idea of the premium to expect (but bear in mind, different breeds attract different risks), each of my young Border Collies are £12.40/month for 'Lifetime 10k' policies. Annual renewal cost hike has been only 1% or 2% (for each of the last 3 renewals). So far, I'm very happy with L&G, although as my girls get older, premium will probably get much higher and the % of total cost I would need to pay for any claim gets higher, so at some point I'll self insure (probably when they each get to 8 or 9 yo).
