Best insurance

Welcome to the forum.

If you move insurance companies then be aware that anything that is on your pets medical record will be deemed an existing condition and will not be covered by your new insurer. It is sensible to get a copy of your pets medical record to assess what would not be covered before moving.

My second point would be you should always have life cover that way the insurer can not get out of paying for an ongoing condition when you get to renewal point each year. There tends to be two types of life cover on market, a set amount for a condition for life or a set amount of money per year regardless of condition.

Obviously the amount of cover you take out will affect premium price.

Sometimes it is worth asking your vet who they have found reliable suppliers of insurance, usually they will say who to avoid or who they deal with a lot.

Watch the small print on policies as what is and what is not covered. Some are limiting what they cover i.e prescription only medication and not supplements (even if vet is supplying it). Some cover dental, others do not. If you are referred to specialist does it have to be one that insurer approves....

Mine are costing me a lot more than yours is. There are many reasons why that is the case

Hello & welcome to the forum

£35 a month does sound quite a lot for a 2.5 year Chihuahua, I only pay a few pounds a month more than that for a 13 year old dog. I know that factors other than age are considered though, like the area you live etc.

I very strongly considered stopping insurance a little while ago and doing what scallywag does, but I am very happy that I did not! Hand on heart I don't think Alfie would be here now had he of not been insured.

In the past year alone, I have claimed much more than I have paid in through premiums over the years and to really put it into perspective, Alfie is currently on a total of 7 different medications - one of these medications is a type of eye drop and what my vet charges for one tube is double the price of my monthly premium! We use two tubes of this medication per month, and also claim for six other types! So as you can imagine, what I am saving is insane. 

I am with Petplan and find them very fair.

Alfie had double cataract surgery last year - this was excluded from my policy and I knew this, he had cataracts developing before I insured him - but anyway, six weeks after the surgery he developed a corneal ulcer. He spent a total of ten nights (two stretches each of five nights) in the Animal Health Trust and had very invasive & aggressive treatment which did not work. He ended up having his right eye removed. Would Alfie had developed the ulcer if he hadn't had the surgery? Possibly. Would the treatment have been more successful if the eye wasn't already so fragile from the surgery? Almost certainly. Petplan could have argued that it was a complication from the cataract surgery but they paid out in full.

I do have to pay 20% per condition per year on top of Alfie's excess now, I think this started when he was 8 or 10 years old. But even so, it's paid for itself over & over. I'm a fan, can you tell  

I know I've moaned about them in the past but I really can't fault them at the moment. What they're paying without quibble is pretty insane. 

I've been looking into changing my insurance company (Tesco) for my 7 cats and 1 dog as my premiums are going up and up every year. I have even thought about not having the cats insured and saving an amount every month to cover any vet fees. I have 2 cats and 1 dog in a block policy and I have renewed this one because it's for Bramble, Kiba-Khan and Kobi, but I phoned Tesco Insurance and got them to drop the £20 per month increase. I don't want to stop the insurance for Bramble as she has an ongoing condition that could flare up again and I wouldn't be covered with another company. I recently had the renewal price through for Toffee and it was increasing to £14+ per month so I went online and found a similar policy with cover for £4,000 and a lifetime cover for £7.28 per month. I phoned Tesco Insurance and the nearest they could get to it was £9.28 after wanting to charge me over £14 (not lifetime) so I cancelled the renewal and changed to Animal Friends. Tesco Insurance said if I go with a new company I won't be able to claim until after 14 days but I'm not daft, I started it straight away, 14 days before the end of the Tesco Insurance policy. I will check around as each policy comes up for renewal.

I cant remember what we paying i think its like 150 euro a year we needed it once when he got a bee sring and afterwords we knew why his paw was all swollen but vet done xrays and all kinda things moonbeam was geand the nezt day but it never stopped him hunting after wasps we just got to watch him but vets bill was i think 170 we had to pay the excess of 70 if we hadnt had him insured would there have been all the xrays etc and the bill would have been prob 50 euro i think insurance is just there to be abused but we still have him insured because if he needed big expensive help well then 70 euro wont go far

   Our vets have just started a scheme like this so I need to read the paperwork and see if it's worth doing.  I'll only *touch wood* being needing the vets for booster vaccinations each year (now that both are neutered & microchipped so no discount for that) and worm & flea treatments so I'll have to work out whether it'll be worth me forking out the cash.