I know, another insurance Q :rolleyes:

Soli is insured with PetPlan, once I've dropped a claim form off for Remy I'm going to finish getting the policy put into my name (it's halfway done at the mo, her old owner has confirmed she's been rehomed).  After a quote from M&S for £27, I'm going to stick with PetPlan, but I'm just wondering what people think of them?

Remy and Opi have only been with More Than and now M&S, the price is better now I'm living away from the South East :rolleyes: but Soli was over £10 more expensive than Rem, hence why I'm not switching her to M&S.  It's because she's had treatment for incontinence I think.

I've been with Pet Plan now for a good few years and I have just received my renewal for 1 dog its gone up to £21.80 a month (and thats with pensioners discount), and this is without any claims at all, :rolleyes:so I will be changing this year, just had a quote for same dog from M & S for £9.86p a month, gosh what a difference, I can now afford to insure 2 of mine. Been looking at other companies as well but think it will be M & S as they have had good reports on this board.

I'm with Petplan for my golden (Ollie) and M&S for my Greyhound/Collie X (izzy)... both have been very good.  Went with M&S because of their nil excess policy.  Only had to claim one but no problems with them at all.

I have claimed many times with Petplan, and only one major problem to do with DAP (Dog Appeasing Pheromone) - basically they paid for around six claims for it (around 18 vials) over the period of 14 months, then out of the blue stopped paying and claimed that I/my vet had misled them on the claims and that I/the vet had only put "anxiety" and not put DAP.  The vet provided documentary evidence to the contrary, anyway they still wouldn't pay.  I ended up going to financial ombudsman who ruled they had to continue paying until my policy renewal (May 07).  Now when I claim they always refuse it before a few calls to their customer (un)helpdesk. 

I would go with M&S, and have recommended them to friends/colleagues.  Price difference is phenomenal.

M&S - around £10 per month, no excess

Petplan - around £27 per month, £80 excess.  (Excess changed from £65 to £80 when I moved home ten miles.. this despite still going to the same vet.  Petplan also claim not to increase policy price based on number of claims, but only on postcode and age of pet etc..

My first years monthly premium with M&S was for around £13 pm for a GR who was 4 months old when the policy was taken out. At renewal the monthly premium has doubled so am wondering if the first years monthly premiums were the spratt to catch a mackerel as everyone I have spoken to had cheap first year premiums and very large increase in the second year - even when no claim has been made. Interesting

I have Molly insured with Direct Line. Her renewal policy lept up the second year. I did a online quote as a new customer & it was much lower, so I called D/L & cancelled the old policy completly & started afresh. This also happened on my house insurance & I saved 50% by becoming a new customer again. D/L had no quarms with this proceedure!

We used Pet Plan for our last golden retriever and made lots of claims and Pet Plan always paid out - I think the subscription was about £16 per month and didn't increase in the 3 years.

When we had our new puppy (another golden) we shopped around and found that Pet Plan had increased it's premiums to £20 plus per month and M&S seemed to offer the same as Pet Plan but for approx £10 per month so we have gone for them! 

Our renewal will be up in June so we will have to see if they increase it as they have done Harley's

MariaC - I rang them to ask why the increase and they told me that the underwriters had advised that a younger dog was more likely to have an accident than an older one so the premiums for young dogs had risen accordingly.

I then asked them why, if that was the case, if you had a dog of 7 or over that you then had to pay the premium plus 15% of the vet's bill for any claim which would indicate to me that they were expecting larger claims from older dogs

He didn't have an answer for that one at all just kept saying they had to go by the underwriters advice.

Does any know if it is possible to have a dog insurance  that just gives cover for liability damage to third parties rather than health insurance for them. I was thinking of saving the equivalent premium amount in a separate account to cover vets bills but would like to have cover for the unfortunate event of being sued by a third party (not that I am anticipating such an event arising but in this day and age it might be wise in view of the sueing mentality that seems to be on the increase in this country). The sort of cover that would be used in the unfortunate event of your dog being involved in a road traffic accident or accidentally tripping someone over ?

I don't know about M&S but we are with Petplan and have found them to be great, on our last claim they even paid for consultation fees which I was very impressed with, we went with them because they will keep paying out on chronic conditions such as treatment for hip dysplasia. Does M&S do this aswell? because they seem like a better bet if they do.

Sarah

Yes they will pay for life as long as you keep paying the premiums. As far as I can remember without checking they cover up to £7000 a year for each condition.

Sounds okay then.  She's on the budget plan at £16.85 a month - but even the top plan works out cheaper than the M&S quote.  It'd probably be better if she hadn't had that treatment before, but I guess they're assuming as she's middle aged and pre-treated (so to speak!) she's more of an insurance liability.  If it goes up drastically at renewals I'll look around again - but it's the cheapest premium I've seen for pretty good cover.

The other two are staying on M&S seeing as both their premiums dropped, despite two claims for Opi.

Harley, you could investigate http://www.healthy-pets.co.uk/index.htm.  Don't think they just do third party cover but they have three different levels of cover - bronze, silver and gold which all have £1M third party cover, so you could choose the bronze which gives the lowest medical cover and therefore has a lower premium and still have as much third party cover as the gold.

If you have any pre existing conditions then it really isn't worth changing. No insurance company will cover for any pre existing conditions, and it doesn't matter whether you had to claim or not. Pet plan are good. M and S seem to be around the same price as m and s, but i am with them because of the no excess policy. (compared to an £80 excess with pet plan!) Both offer cover for life.

I  recently moved to M&S from pet plan, and unfortunately have had to put in a claim for my young  female golden it took 3 weeks for them to pay, now over the New Year my male golden got sick had to have 2 out of hours call out rang for a claim form which received it the other day, and with it was an attached letter they want 2 yrs medical records for my man, this is the 1st claim on him with them not impressed have to say and told them so, I also work with rescue and we are often asked on a daily basis to recommend pet ins told them that wont be recommending them.

Hi Hairy dog, sorry you havent found m&s useful, ive found them really fab so far, and their no excess policy suits me !!

Just a warning, you arent actually allowed to recommend any particular insurance company unless you are qualified to do so (as in financial qualifications) and I think you have to be a registered also or affiliated to someone cant remember off hand.  Bascially laymen arent allowed to recommend, even vets arent allowed to, you could get into trouble for it.

they did this with my brie in nov they wanted two years of notes luckly i have been going to the same vet over 30years.
they do do spot checks.they rang me to say every thing was in order with bries notes.the only reason i thing they did was that brie went with them 3 year go when she was 5 years.the other dogs that i have are with  m/s have been with them from 8 weeks and not had their details check

No we dont recommend as such but if people ask us we tell them our own experiences and its up to them to make up their own mind, I am thinking of moving though....

I'm with Petplan. They've always paid everything very quickly, no quibbles, but my premiums have shot up over the years. I'd probably change if I could, but because Oscar has had so many ongoing health problems I'm stcuk with them.

We were with pet plan for our first two dogs, but last year we were paying £27 a month for one dog and a huge excess. We only stayed with them because the dog was 13 and no one else would cover him at that age. One of our girls is with sainsbury's and the other with M&S (both around £10 a month) cause the premium shot up after the first year with sainsbury's - fully expect that to happen again this summer when the renewal comes in for M&S. She is a Bernese so you can't win it seems - big dog -big premium :-(