After Masons recent op costing me £943 pounds i have been looking at insurance.

Petplan for all 3 would be £178 per month kennelclub 230 per month! both a little steep for me.

I have found an insurer called Animal Friends Pet Insurance, they offer a lifetime cover and rates are good. no upping price one you have claimed and they dont increase by much each year. You can insure from any age and i cant seem to find anything i dont like the sound of. Is anyone with them, has anyone heard any horror stories. it would we £103 for top cover which is only £6000 per year and £40,000 per lifetime but i think thats enough.

Louise

Or open a savings account (although not much intrest at the moment) and save away a set amount each month (what you will put into the insurance or less if need be) and keep that for vet fee's only.

Personally with our dogs this has been the best way for us.  We did have one dog insured for the 9 years of her life and what we spent on insurance didn't cover the one thing we claimed (an emergancy spay due to pyo which was within surgery hours so didn't cost much anyway!)  Most our vet bills wouldn't be coverd by insurance (£40 here, £60 there etc) and having now had 8 dogs the insurance we would of spent on them would have been much more then we have spent (or could have saved!)

My Parents do it this way and not just for vet bills but money goes away for all sorts of things such as doors, windows, boiler...any household item really!

It works for them, and I admit it wont work for everyone but always worth considering.

One friend has a similar dog account where any stud fee's from her males go in or from sale of puppies and it's increaed over time to cover her basic vet fees and lifetime medication...The dogs pay for themselves!  Unfortantly it doesn't pay for food or show entries so she isn't making any money!

Who are the underwriters, Louise?

I was looking as going with Animal Friends, but after a chat with the vet about different insurances I decided to stay away from them, but they were underwritten by Equine & Life then (E&L).

Hi there,

I have my Setter and Border insured with Morethan, and they were brilliant when our Setter became very poorly at 6 months with Metaphyseal Osteopathy.

We pay £11.99 for Dougie and £19.99 for Ruby (Ruby was £15.19 but has gone up slightly), and I think they cover up to £7,000 per condition.

They might not suit everyone but have been brilliant for us, also when you insure one pet you get 15% off of the premuim for the next.

Worth a look I guess.....

Nicki xx

I use pet plan for all my animals.
They are expensive but I have never had a problem making a claim.

My youngster is practically living at the vets at the moment and they have paid all my claims (nearly £8000 so far) without any fuss. Another advantage of pet plan is that my vets are happy to make a direct claim, something they won't do with a lot of companies.

I don't have insurance for my two - prefer to tuck away a little sum each month 'just in case', but my vet tells me that the best two insurance policies  from their point of view are Pet Plan and the Kennel Club. Both pay quickly and without two many quibbles.

I know several people who have had biiig problems with E & L - not with dogs but other sorts of insurance, so personally I'd steer clear of them.

Red sands insurance co. wouldnt touch e & l with a barge pole. But these seem ok.

Excluded breeds: northern inuit, any wolf hybrid, shar pei, racing greyhound, cane corso and presas.

The underwriters are Red Sands.  I made a claim with them end of last year and they settled within a week.

I am with more than too. I have 6 dogs insured ranging from 10 years down to 7 months and i pay just over £100 a month! They are very good paying out also and no limit of the length of time they cover an illness.

mel.x

I think thats sold me then. Thanks

> Another advantage of pet plan is that my vets are happy to make a direct claim, something they won't do with a lot of companies.

Same here :)
I pay £37 per month with petplan for Buster (mastiff) & that gives £6,000 per year vet fees, for life (so it covers the elbow displasia), I've only made 2 small claims with them, but they settled direct to the vets within about 5 days :)

My Leo is with AFI.
Wr had been with them for a month when she had her accident and so far they have paid everything with no questions.
Including Hydro...
our bill has now gone over the £6000/condition/year but can not fault them, paid everything up to that amount.
I have also claimed for another issue, again no problems.
Paid the vet direct and some we have claimed purself, they have been quick to pay back as well.

It was a car accident wasnt it? that was the only thing that concerned me that the max was £6000 per year unlike petplan being 12,000 per year but hopefully it will do. Im not very good with money you see and putting it into a pot would get broken into to buy a car/holiday/puppy/heaven knows. As bloat is the only issue so far i think ill be fine. Ruby has been spayed so not much chance of pyo, aslong as we dont have any major accidents i dont think it will go over that amount. I think this company need more recognition.

Yes, it was a car accident...
They have a clause that you need to tell them if the bill is going to go over £1000...
we only realised to do that few days after and they were very understanding why you would forget(under the stress etc) and paid, they could have said not paying because you did not tell us.
We did call them but never talked about the bill going over £1000 as at that point we did not know what was happening.
But they seemed to understand when your dog is between making it or dying we can forget things like letting the insurance company know the bill will go over certain amount.
Having heard insurance companies trying not to pay and finding any excuse on why they will not pay, I think they were very good and understanding even tho we had not followed "the rules" to the dot.

They have also paid all hydro needed, many companies limit it to certain number of times they will pay for...

We are with tesco for our two. i took out the insurance last august unknown to us that one of our girls had HD at the time of taking out the policy,it cost £21 a month for the two of them on a standard policy of up to 2.500 each a year,as we thought they were both young fit and healthy thats all we needed at the time.
We started claiming last nov for our girl with HD...exrays....hydro...synoquin...pain relieve all still on going.
Tesco have been brilliant,no problems with any claim that has been made,and we have had alot.
Iwould expect a rather large price hike in august,but we certainly had our moneys worth this year.

Is tesco lifetime cover? i thought it was just an anual plan.

Well im hoping to renew in august or im in trouble. my hubby says i just have to renew it and continue as we have been.
She needs a new hip so hope so.
Was going to try to up it,but dont think i will get away with that.

Louise, Tesco do do a lifetime plan, George is insured with it.  I think it's £4k per condition and I pay £19/month for him.  They paid my vets direct and paid for all his hydro and the premium has gone up no more than if I hadn't claimed, it's only gone up as insurance seems to every year.

Thats nice to hear georgepig,i hope it works like that for us.

More Than can get expensive after the dog gets to 6 years old.

I have one who is not yet 8y.o. has existing conditions and my premium costs for her are currently £79.99 per month.
Although this year we will claim more than the premiums we have paid for this years insurance...
I hate to think what they will hike our premium to when it comes up for renewal this year.

I have another insured with them and that's between £38-43 per month can't remember the premium cost.
But it was a £10 hike per month on last years premium and we hadn't claimed at the point when the renewal cost
came in.

I wish that I could have your premiums of 6 dogs insured for just over £100 per month.
As you will see I only get 2 dogs insured for £120 approx per month with More Than :(

For those who 'put a little away' rather than insure, what do you do about 3rd party liability?
In this time of litigation at the drop of a hat, what would you do if your dog caused a car accident or tripped someone up?

My goodness, that is very steep. None of my older dogs have been claimed on, only one of my young girls who ripped a pad and another who was in overnight with gastrointeritis. I would be looking for a new insurer if they went up like that. I must admit that one of my older boys did go up from 17 to 24 a month and i hadn't claimed so i thought that was a bit steep. Will keep a close eye on it as they get older.
mel.x