I am looking at changing my Insurance. Has anyone any experience with Pets Protect or Healthy Pets?
John Lewis has also come in with a reasonable quote but I understand that they really bump the price up on renewal.
A couple of other quotes came up from companies I would never have thought of for pet insurance Argos & Homebase.
Just wondering if others have any experience of the above companies ?
Would like to get the monthly cost down but I am a bit worried about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

No experience of those but I've just changed from kennel club to More Than insurance, also came in cheaper than John Lewis quote. More than quote was £12 /mth cheaper, lower excess and higher annual amount. People were very helpful over the phone with any questions.
Remember if changing to make your start date 2 weeks before your current insurance runs out. That way you are covered for the 10-14 days while your new policy comes into effect. Most new policies only cover for accidents in first 10-14 days.

> Has anyone any experience with Pets Protect or Healthy Pets?

I've used Healthy Pets for years and have no complaints at all about them. I have the cheapest level cover and they have paid out to the maximum amount at return of post. The premiums don't jump too much either year to year. It's by far the cheapest place to have my 12 year old collie insured. I've recently moved the 3 younger dogs to tesco but am seriously considering cancelling and going back to HP as tesco just can't seem to get their cover note correct and that scares me if I need to claim.

Thanks for the replies. It is a minefield. I am considering if for 4 dogs I might be best just putting the money in a separate account, but I am a bit scared that as soon as I did I would end up with massive vets bill.
Do you know if Healthy Pets gives a discount for multiple dogs chaumsong ?

> Do you know if Healthy Pets gives a discount for multiple dogs chaumsong ?

Yes :-)

I was with pet plan and they were very good but I put the money in a separate account now I've got four. I've heard good things about vetsmedicover so they might be worth a try.

Thanks, will look into all the suggestions. Good point about the 14 day lead in on most policies.

It's difficult with multiple dogs - the cost of insuring everyone can be very high so the temptation is to have a savings account, BUT the vet bills can also be extremely high if more than one develops something at once.

Personally, mine are insured - it's the 'what if's that get me.  Often I've thought about doing an account but then in the last 20 months, three have been diagnosed with slipped discs, two of those also with HD, and of those two, one has arthritis and the other has been diagnosed with spondylosis and femur deformities. and one has died suddenly from liver cancer (everything happened inside a week).  MRIs, CT scans, acupuncture, euthanasia... total bills so far are around the £4500 mark and ongoing, and the bulk of that is purely diagnostic.  Remy is currently costing me £60 + £25 diesel every single week for his acupuncture because his insurance aren't paying out.  If any of them were suitable for surgery for their discs it would be around the £1500 mark per dog at least - so within less than two years, that could be another £4500 and then aftercare.  So very quickly, with acupuncture and physio every week for all three it could hit the £10K mark inside of two years.  As it is none of them are suitable but it is something to consider.

For me at least, that more than justifies having insurance - how fast could bills like that wipe out an account, or what if they hit before the account had enough in it?  Ok, they have occurred over nearly a two year period but they have come in chunks - River went through £2000 within a few months, Paige the same.

Even healthy dogs can run up big vet bills because of accidents. One of mine discovered a big hollow bone in the garden and got it stuck on her lower jaw. As it was the vet had to sedate her to get it off, but if that hadn't worked they were going to have to anaesthetise her and remove it with bone cutters. The bill was bad enough as it was, and it could have been a lot worse. If we were just looking at her overall health in the last 11 years she really wouldn't be worth insuring, but when you look at the number of times she has landed herself at the vet just by being a less-than-sensible Golden Retriever it's worth every penny. Those are the things you can't predict, even if you get a really healthy puppy with a good pedigree from a good breeder.

I do agree insurance can be a god send for most people but in my case I'm better off not insuring I have an oldie with liver damage she can never have a GA she has three lots of medication that I get a script for and buy on line every three months out of my normal account pug 1 rescue cost me about £500 three years ago skinny dehydrated no fur on her at all chronic ear infections lived in a cage for five years everything would have been excluded so didn't insure her. Pug 2 weighed over 11kg she cost me £3000 easy she had pyro chronic dry eye took about 18 months to get her healthy that was 2 years ago my boy I had from a pup he was insured with axa but had to many problems not wanting to pay out I gave it up. I put £6000 in a bank account and add £200 a month I've also got a credit card just incase but I've not had to touch any of that yet so it's mounting up nicely. But I can understand my way is not for everyone.

Thanks everyone, I think I need to keep my insurance going just for peace of mind. Just need now to decide which company to go with and the level of cover for each dog.

TBH I think even the ones with lots of exclusions are worth insuring as you just never know - Remy has a list as long as your arm and I thought there wouldn't be anything left to go wrong with him, he's 11 and doesn't do much so I was going to cancel his policy.

The day I was going to do it I forgot to; the very next day, he popped his disc!  Now ok, he hasn't had the same bills as the other two as I won't be getting him MRId but his acupuncture is going to be weekly for a long time yet so it is definitely worth it for him (or at least it will be, once the insurers get their backsides in gear, stop acting like dicks and start paying for it again, and they will).

Level of cover - I'd say, go for £4k minimum.  The three disc dogs all have £2k per year per condition and it hasn't been enough - not so bad if diagnostics can be done by x-ray or the like but if an MRI is needed as it has been for both of them,  you're looking at around £1200+ in one go and then any follow-up treatment can soon eat it up (as it did with River).

Have found More Than and John Lewis to be good recently.

As I understand it as long as you have had no claims (so no exclusions if you take a new policy) it is sometimes better to take out a brand new policy as often new policies are cheaper than renewals.

LV- Liverpool Victoria has given me a good quote their premium lifetime cover for £5000 vet fess works out at £15.83 per month for the youngest dog.

The others were for £4000 or less for a similar premium, or jump up to £20 plus for £7000 vets fees.

Just goes to show its worth shopping around.