Hello,

This is my first posting on this forum, so please forgive any breach of etiquette. Also, I have searched the forums but can find nothing on this topic.

I'm planning on travelling around northern Europe in my motorhome from May onwards for about 3 months. I would welcome recommendations for a good and cost-effective policy to cover my pet Staffie bitch while she and I are away. She's already covered in the UK by Tesco (i.e. UK Insurance Ltd) but they won't give overseas cover for more than 30 days.

I'd prefer supplementary cover but am willing to take out a new UK + overseas policy if that's best. There's still 6 months to run on the Tesco policy but I pay monthly, so should be able to cancel it easily.

Jenny is a 4-year-old spayed bitch and she has a brand-new Pet Passport. I'm planning to visit the Benelux countries, Scandinavia and Finland.

Thanks in anticipation,

Roger Whitehead

Think Churchill does, but don't know if it's any good.

Thanks. I've had a look at their Web site and it looks as though they do travel insurance and pet insurance but not the two combined. I'll give them a call.

Roger

virgin do

Thanks, Tanya. I've had a look at their Web site but they also appear to limit cover to 30 days. I'll give them a ring, too.

Have you had insurance from them for longer than that?

Roger

Never used the abroad insurance before sorry

They don't do it for that length of time, I've found out, neither do Churchill.

Churchill would consider an endorsement to their normal policy but only if my dog had travelled there before, was registered with a vet "in northern Europe" and I stayed at one place. Going all out to help, then.  8-)

Roger

Would it be possible to insure your dog with a European insurance company? Not sure that they have dog insurance in other European countries but it might be worth checking out? They may be willing to insure you - but a home address may be a problem as that would be back in the UK. Just thinking out loud here :-)

There are some posters on this forum who live/have lived in other European countries and they may be able to advise you.

How about NFU ? Im sure you can have travel cover as an add on to usual pet insurance.

I'm Finnish...
I have only traveled across Europe on such short trips our normal insurance (UK or Finnish) has covered us.
Insurance in Finland is very different to here, top cover being much less(about £1500) than you can get here there are only few companies doing dog insurance, prices not too competitive considering the cover you get ... I doubt you could get insurance in europe from countries you are going, best bet I would think is to try get UK cover.
Sorry not much help really...

Thanks, Harley. Some of the bigger German, Dutch and Swedish insurers already operate in Britain, of course, so I'm in their target zone. The difficulty is finding somebody who'll cover this specialised area. At a friend's suggestion, I tried E&L -- http://www.eandl.co.uk/pet/pet-travel-insurance. They've quoted me £142 for a year's cover. It's dear but is the sort of thing I'm after.

Regards,

Roger

> I doubt you could get insurance in europe from countries you are going, best bet I would think is to try get UK cover. Sorry not much help really...

Thanks, Noora. It's an informed opinion; they're always a help.  8-)

Roger

Please please please don't go with e and l they are the biggest scam about. I've heard way too many horror stories where they have refused to pay out. They refused to pay out for my horse when he severed a tendon until we took them to court. There's a reason they are so cheap.

Infact a year after our horse died they were still charging us monthly cover despite receiving a letter explaining our horse had died... and they replied... yet a year on we finally noticed money was being taken out the account!

> Please please please don't go with e and l...

Many thanks for the warning, Tanya.

Roger

> How about NFU ? Im sure you can have travel cover as an add on to usual pet insurance

Thanks, Clairey. They do indeed and there's an automatic 60-day overseas cover with the policy. However, they won't cover me for more than that. Shame.

Roger

Found this

M&S Premier and Pet plan appear to do cover

> M&S Premier and Pet plan appear to do cover

Thanks for those suggestions. I'm now on a decent Internet connection again, so will have a look this weekend.

Roger

I've at last found what I think is a suitable policy. It's from John Lewis, trading as Greenbee [http://www.greenbee.com/pet-insurance ]. The insurer is AXA and the broker is BDML Connect, in Portsmouth, who handle calls for several companies.

Thanks again, everyone, for your help.

Roger

- - - - -

Other members might find the following helpful.

I've looked at 14 companies so far but found only 4 who would cover me for the period I want. They are John Lewis, Halifax, Argos (Gold and Platinum) and E&L. Halifax are asking roughly twice what John Lewis are, while offering generally lower cover. Argos seem to have a patchy claims record. Based on the evidence from Tanya and elsewhere, E&L are not even that good.

E&L are the only insurer I contacted who provide travel-only cover. All the others give domestic and travel cover combined, so I'll be terminating my existing Tesco policy.

There are at least 2 other insurers who will provide decent cover for foreign travel but for only 90 days. They are Marks & Spencer and PetPlan.

The following companies offer only 30 or 60-day cover -- Direct Line, NFU Mutual, Petguard, Primary Insurance, Tesco (current insurer) and Virgin.

There's also Sainsbury's but they won't cover Staffies, so I didn't investigate further.

Finally, I found two useful listings sites in addition to the one Dakkobear linked to. They are knowyourmoney [http://www.knowyourmoney.co.uk/pet-insurance ] and review centre [http://www.reviewcentre.com/products366.html ] .

[ends]

Just a thought, Roger - which countries do you intend to visit? As I understand it, Germany has banned the SBT (could be wrong), and other countries have breed specific legislation, so you need to check that it would be all right to take your dog into the various countries.

The Benelux countries, Scandinavia and Finland (see the root message). I'm not planning to visit Germany but it's as well to be prepared. Is there a definitive list of countries' quirks anywhere?

Roger

PS The Staffordshire Bull Terrier Breed Council's Web site [http://www.staffords.co.uk/sbtbc/bsl.htm ] says that the position varies among the various German states and with various sites in France (where I'm also not planning to go).