Best Pet Insurers?

Soldato
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Just wondering if there is a general 'best' pet insurer to use?

Mum and Dad have just bought a Westie puppy and having owned a Westie previously knows the breed has a tendency to develop some ailments through their life.

Ive heard some stories of some insurers only covering for one claim per year, and some will let you claim for as many as you want etc (up to a value), just wondering if there is a widely accepted good insurer to go with or is it all just a case of checking the small print carefully etc?
 
We went with PDSA due to theirs being one of the best value lifetime policies. Avoid per condition or time limit policies if you can afford to.

Rob
 
We get our Husky insured through PetPlan with the complete policy, it's not cheap at £33 a month but it covers him for anything for life up to x amount (cant remember how much exactly) per condition per year.

All the others we looked seemed very restrictive to what and how long they would pay out for, with some only paying out for 12 months after the condition is diagnosed. Leaving you high and dry if it's something that last for the rest of their life/longer than 12 months.
 
We get our Husky insured through PetPlan with the complete policy, it's not cheap at £33 a month but it covers him for anything for life up to x amount (cant remember how much exactly) per condition per year.

All the others we looked seemed very restrictive to what and how long they would pay out for, with some only paying out for 12 months after the condition is diagnosed. Leaving you high and dry if it's something that last for the rest of their life/longer than 12 months.

Yeh this is what ive been getting confused with, some quotes say £X per condition, and some just say £X per year etc, thats why I was after some first hand suggestions off people.

I did check out PetPlan and they are expensive but seems to be a very high level of cover and comes recommended it would seem!

Anyone any idea what the supermarket ones are like? Tesco, ASDA etc? Also seen a John Lewis one which appears to give good levels of cover. I assume the 'lifetime' policies are the best?
 
As above mate, Petplan.

I pay £22 a month for 2 cats, one had urinary issues initital drugs and stuff was about 200 and then another incident involving a 600 odd quid stay at the vet hospital.

My £70 excess covers any occurances of that issue for the entire year :)

One thing to keep in mind is if the animal needs medical petfood they only cover x% for xperiod.

And another thing, if you do need medication/food at any point for your pet please remember you can get stuff online sometimes at HUGE savings altho your insurance may not cover this. Vets wanted £130 for 240 tablets, £55 online, only reason I went with the vets was I ahd already paid that years excess. I did notify the insurance company of this as tbh I felt that was a horrendous mark up and nigh on insurance fraud but they werent bothered.


Ive heard some stories of some insurers only covering for one claim per year, and some will let you claim for as many as you want etc (up to a value), just wondering if there is a widely accepted good insurer to go with or is it all just a case of checking the small print carefully etc?

Yup common unfortunatley, they wont insure "prior conditions" unless you go with a "for life/lifetime" policy which tbh I would very much advise.
 
Direct line, paid out over £3000 when our cat was ill. The only problem we had when we made the claim was with the vet. To cut a very long story short when i told the vets to claim via insurance they said i had to pay for all the treatments first and then claim it back. They told me they would only do it that way if i was with petplan ( basically what they endorse at the surgery ). It wasn't until i refused and told them to put the cat down they backed down. Hash on my behalf i know but we had already paid out over £300 in the space of a week and they wanted nearly another £200 for more treatment. The bill came to over £3000 after 4weeks.
Direct Line had no problem with paying for the treatment direct, only the Vets !
 
Don't bother unless you cannot afford any surprises, I don't get this culture of insuring everything, just insure what you cannot afford to replace/fix/cure etc.
 
Mine are with Direct Line. Costs me £12.50 a month for 2 cats. They're in the process of (hopefully) sorting out my claim for £724 from when one of them was ill recently :)

Definitely worth it for me because there is no way on this earth I could have afforded to pay that.
 
Don't bother unless you cannot afford any surprises, I don't get this culture of insuring everything, just insure what you cannot afford to replace/fix/cure etc.
That really doesn't make sense. Pet insurance is there to cover you against "surprises", why wouldn't you have it?
 
I insured my rabbit with PetPlan. He then needed teeth out due to them growing too long for him to eat and cutting all his gums, I phoned PetPlan and asked them if they would cover him for this, they said yes as long as the teeth were being removed for a medical reason and not cosmetic reasons. Went ahead and got the operation done on him, claimed on the insurance and then got a letter about 2 weeks later to say that I had tried to defraud the company and they were cancelling my insurance and I was lucky they weren't taking me to court. I was like WTFFFFFF
 
Don't bother unless you cannot afford any surprises, I don't get this culture of insuring everything, just insure what you cannot afford to replace/fix/cure etc.

Makes no sense mate.
Thats whats the insurance is for.

No way could I have afforded 600 quid, but no way would I have an animal put down without EXTREMELY good reason. Sorry but 600 quid isn't good enough reason and I would've just ended up in debt.

I'd like to think my £20 a month did me/my cat well :)
 
Going to weigh up the options next week, will possibly go with Petplan!

I know the breeder mentioned we get a months free cover that came with the KC registration documents for the dog.
 
Going to weigh up the options next week, will possibly go with Petplan!

I know the breeder mentioned we get a months free cover that came with the KC registration documents for the dog.

you ll get a months free cover plus when petplan send you through your cover leter they ll send you an offer of acceptance wereby you ll get you 2nd month free also if you sign up with them for the year, sa basically 12 months protection for 10 months payment.
 
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