Lucy my Westie is 9.  She is insured with Sainsbury's.  About a year ago she was diagnosed with arthritis so I had to make a few claims.  At that time I was paying £20 a month for her and the excess was £50.
However when I renewed the policy last month the premium had risen to £34.50 which is bad enough.  But I had to make a claim recently as she had a bad dose of gastroenteritis which resulted in a trip to the emergency vet and subsequent  treatment from our own vet, cost around £200.  However Sainsbury's have just sent me a cheque for a mere £60 as I am informed that the excess has now risen to £125 - this is in the case of all dogs over 9 years  old (on the renewal schedule this was in such small print that I hadn't noticed!)  The reason for this they told me is that vets' fees have risen so much recently - true I suppose.
Has anyone come across this hike in premiums/excess?

Snowflake

PS Don't know if this is the right board for this ....

I experienced something similar with my old cocker years ago who was 8 at the time. I cant remember what company it was with but come renewal, the premium jumped from £20-odd pounds to £60-odd, the excess went up to about £90 plus they said I would also have to pay 15% of the claim on top of that! I hadn't even ever claimed for him! More recently, when my lot were insured by M&S under the too-good-to-be-true no excess policy, they restructured their policy and the premium for one of my dogs rose from £12 to about £35 and an excess of about £70 was also put in place for them all.

I have been online to look at insurance for when my 6wks free insurance for my pup runs out in Dec so looked at AXA as my other dog is with them. I'm in shock!! The price has gone up by £100 since I renewed in July!! I thought sticking with the same company would get me a bit of reduction obviously I was wrong!

Bo our Rotti is 5 when we first got her the policy (which is with more than) was £24.99 a month, every year is has rose steadily last year the monthly amount was £35.99 i've just got the renewal this morning and it's gone up £10. a month, the excess has changed but it's better now then how they used to do it, I used to pay a percentage which can of course be alot the higher the claim the more the pecentage went up so the more we paid out, now it's £70, at least untill she is 9 then its £70 + 20% of the bill! Fudge our Mastiff x 15 weeks tomorrow insurance will probably set us back abit his free insurance is with pet plan there excess is £60, and it's normally about £16 ish for pups but due to the hefty claim we had I doubt if it will be that cheap, but then regarless if you make a claim or not your premium still goes up! We havn't really noticed a rise in our vet's fees.

> Fudge our Mastiff x 15 weeks tomorrow insurance will probably set us back abit his free insurance is with pet plan there excess is £60, and it's normally about £16 ish for pups but due to the hefty claim we had I doubt if it will be that cheap, but then regarless if you make a claim or not your premium still goes up!

Buster's insured with PetPlan, the first year was just over £35 per month with an £80 excess, I've just had the renewal through and the premiums are now just under £37 per month with the same £80 excess, I claimed last year (about £300), so was pleased that there wasn't a big price hike :)

i said once brie get to 9 and her policey jump high then i will not insure her just put that money away i  a saving account.

> Buster's insured with PetPlan, the first year was just over £35 per month with an £80 excess, I've just had the renewal through and the premiums are now just under £37 per month with the same £80 excess, I claimed last year (about £300), so was pleased that there wasn't a big price hike :-)

Blimey that's great, fingers crossed then I hope we are as lucky :-)

I use NFU and even though I claimed about £1500 just before my renewal the monthly amount went down.  For 3 large breeds (2 x Rottweilers and 1 x Akita) I pay £50 per month and have £50 excess on my policy.  So far in 3 years I have claimed around £3000 and each year the monthly payment goes down and I have not had any problems with them paying out.

reply partly to rjs, just 2 weeks ago, taken out cover with AXA for 15 mth GSD and paid £164 for the year, £13.70 p/month, and my vet approves of the firm as well! I'm in Suffolk so don't know how much difference that makes.
Chris

That's a lot less than I was quoted online! We paid around £130 for my bitch in the summer and was quoted £242 for the pup! I'm in a small costal town south of Aberdeen so I wouldn't have thought that would have put the premium up. I might give them a ring and see what they say.

got mine on line as well, what breed is pup? I would be interested to hear what they say if you ring them.
Chris

I have Field Spaniels.

I phoned AXA and they kept insisting that the cost of the policy varies due to age, gender and breed! I told her that bitch is 17mnths and my dog pup is 9wks, the bitch was £135 and the online quote for the pup was £242 and that I was wondering why there was such a huge difference to which she replied age gender and breed!

I asked her why a dog costs so much more than a bitch and she just kept on telling me that they take into account age, gender & breed. I asked her again why such a difference, she put me on hold and came back saying that they get more claims from dogs than bitches.

I also said that since I already had one policy with them, I thought I would get the 2nd one slightly cheaper rather than £100 more expensive and she told me that because I didn't have the second policy she couldn't look into it. I asked her if she meant that I have to take out the 2nd policy, complaint about and then they will look into she told me that those were my words!! Yet again, quoting age, gender and sex! I didn't lose my temper but told her yet again they were the same breed, different sex and both their ages and said that I would rather find these things out before I take out the policy but she hung up on me! Hmmm

its so frustrating isnt it, talking to these people at insurance companies is like banging your head against a brick wall, the problem is you dont get to speak to the people who know what they are talking about (the underwriters) I wrote a very detailed letter to my insurance company explaining why my vet hadnt completed the form and all I got back was a standard letter asking me to get my vet to complete their section - so I wrote back again with another detailed letter and got the exact same standard letter back !!

I am an underwriter (medical so slightly different) but if we get calls from customers to our helpdesk and the guys cant help them then they get put through to an underwriter.

Very frustrating!

Surely I'm not alone in wanting questions answered before paying up so if they respond to everyone else in the same way, they must lose a lot of business.

Does anyone else pay more to insure their dog than their bitch?

No, my dog and bitch with M and s are the same price, still a lot more than it should be though, particuarly when you look at how muc hthey would quote if you are a new customer!

Slight variation on this. Have just phoned up for a claim form for my cat I was asked to give details of the claim over the phone and a fair amount of deatal including dates and the amount I was claiming and also when taking the form to the vet the vet has to include 3years of past health history as well.
I have been with Loyds for a while now and with more than one animal and in the past they have been brilliant.
Never had to answer any of this over the phone or needed the history. I wonder what they are up to now.
They say a lot do this and it has been like that for ages  (hurumph) Hope we get this sorted I wasnt planning in paying out the whole 300 pounds
Morethan who have my other animals have blank forms available on the net and have been straightforward and so far paid out without a problem including over £700 almost as the policy started due to an accident