Spec Me Pet Insurance (For a dog)

Bes

Bes

Bes

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,318
Location
Melbourne
Hi,

We are getting a 2 year old German Shepherd rescue dog in a few days, and as anyone who has ever owned a GSD will know, they are wonderful dogs, but they are blighted with ongoing health problems (especially once they reach 9 or 10), due to irresponsible breeding, and so on.

We know he is in good nick now (X-Rayed & no signs of hip dysplacia), so seems like we should get cover now before any conditions show up.

We also live next to a playing field, and sometimes the little scrotes think it is funny to climb over the wall and play chicken with the dog (Luckily by the time our old GSD had actually run to said wall, all he managed to get was a trouser leg, or a trainer from the fleeting youth, but obviously, we could end up being sued so need liability insurance, as this new dog is much younger and faster).

So I am trying to arrange some pet insurance that covers both ongoing health problems and public liability, but all the policies seem to have very different rules, and I have heard all sorts of dodgy stories about certain providers not paying for idiotic reasons, so was wondering if anyone could suggest a good one for us?

Thanks
 
MoreThan?

http://www.morethan.com/Pages/Products/Pet/WhatWeCover.aspx


Up to £7,000 vets fees cover for each and every new accident and illness. What’s more, your pet is covered for as long as they need the treatment, as long as they remain insured with MORE TH>N – many policies limit cover to just the first 12 months of treatment
Cover includes alternative therapies such as acupuncture and homeopathy.

Up to £600 towards advertising and a reward if your pet goes missing.

Up to £600 in boarding fees for your pet if you are hospitalised for more than 4 days.

Up to £600 towards the purchase price of your pet if they go missing, are stolen or fatally hurt in an accident.

Up to £600 towards the purchase price of your pet if you lose them through illness before they reach 9 years old.

Up to £2 million liability insurance if your dog causes an accident or damages someone’s property.

Up to £1,250 pet holiday cover towards the cost of emergency veterinary treatment abroad.

Access to a free Serious Illness and Bereavement counselling line.

95% of claims processed the same day we receive the claim form
Click to expand...
 
Hmm looks good- thanks :)

Hadn't thought of More Than, but it looks a bit more comprehensive than my favourite so far (Direct Line)
 
What used to make me laugh with More Than is that letters came addressed to the cat :D

Tried giving her the bill but she wasn't having any of it :p


they also have daft little things like get well cards when the pet is ill and a "sympathy" card and letter when our cat died, I know it's all automated but seems a nice touch
 
£50 excess is excellent.

However....

More Than do not cover transplants... This might not be a problem for most, but GSDs can get bad hips, and can need hip replacement operations.... As ours has been cleared of any hip problems so far, it might be a non-issue, but is something we need to think about.
 
Bes said:
Hi,

We are getting a 2 year old German Shepherd rescue dog in a few days, and as anyone who has ever owned a GSD will know, they are wonderful dogs, but they are blighted with ongoing health problems (especially once they reach 9 or 10), due to irresponsible breeding, and so on.
Click to expand...

We never had any insurance, but we recently lost our GSD ("Rio") at 11 years of age :(. He was generally as fit as a fiddle throughout his life until his last 3 weeks, when he was diagnosed with a tumor. It cost around £340 for investigative surgery and his cremation, which is probably the only cost we could have claimed through insurance.

We also live next to a playing field, and sometimes the little scrotes think it is funny to climb over the wall and play chicken with the dog (Luckily by the time our old GSD had actually run to said wall, all he managed to get was a trouser leg, or a trainer from the fleeting youth, but obviously, we could end up being sued so need liability insurance, as this new dog is much younger and faster).
Click to expand...

Rio was very territorial around the the house/garden, and I am sure he would have liked to kill the postman/window cleaner given the chance.

We never really considered being sued over him biting someone (maybe we should have?)

My Missus has always had horses though, which are insured yearly (inluding public liability) because the risks, costs are much higher. They where insured through the Farmers Union, which offers very good rates, but I don't know if they deal with insurance for dogs.
 
My Lab's with Direct Line, great cover (Includes Public Liability) and great prices, never had to claim though (Touch wood) so no idea what they're like at paying out, never heard of any problems with them though unlike a few Petplan horror stories through the years.
 
Cambofrog said:
We never had any insurance, but we recently lost our GSD ("Rio") at 11 years of age :(. He was generally as fit as a fiddle throughout his life until his last 3 weeks, when he was diagnosed with a tumor. It cost around £340 for investigative surgery and his cremation, which is probably the only cost we could have claimed through insurance.



Rio was very territorial around the the house/garden, and I am sure he would have liked to kill the postman/window cleaner given the chance.

We never really considered being sued over him biting someone (maybe we should have?)

My Missus has always had horses though, which are insured yearly (inluding public liability) because the risks, costs are much higher. They where insured through the Farmers Union, which offers very good rates, but I don't know if they deal with insurance for dogs.
Click to expand...
Sounds exactly like our GSD, Max, who also died from a tumour a few weeks ago- his tenth birthday would have been last week.
Unfortunately, we had no idea he had a tumour (Showed absolutely no signs of illness, and was even bouncing around the house like a mad thing until about 2 hrs before he got ill).

Basically, a tumour on his spleen ruptured, bleeding into his abdomen. He suddenly got very ill in the middle of the night (Suddenly wanting to lie down and shifting uncomfortably, but didn't look seriously ill for the first 90 minutes or so) and died a couple of hours later before we even realised what was really wrong... It was strange.... no physical signs of bleeding or anything- we knew something was amiss, and planned to take him to the vet in the morning... however, once he started looking bad (Rolling his eyes back, shallow breathing, etc which came on very suddenly), we rushed him down there at 3AM, but it was too late when we got there. Very sad.

Similar costs for investigation & cremation too... We were also discussing whether we would ever need insurance, but really it is worth it just for the liability insurance for us... Some little chavette taking us to court because her idiot kid got bitten whilst trespassing could financially ruin us. GSDs are also very prone to arthritis, and we are hoping we can get the cost of medicine and consultations back, as these cost an arm and a leg.... (Max had been on meds for about 3 years.)
 
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It may be worth checking with your vet to see if they endorse any kind of pet insurance, the reason being is when our cat was ill (we have direct line pet insurance) we had great trouble getting our vets to deal direct with the insurance company - they wanted us to pay up front then claim (£3000 was a bit too much to pay out) however theyre wouldnt have been any problems if we'd had the insurance the our vets endorsed. It would probably be worth your time to speak to your vets and see if they will deal direct with any company you decide to choose. The last thing you want if you should ever need to visit your vets is fight over whose going to pay. I cant fault Direct line they were great so i would recomend them.
 
We're with MoreThan for the girls. Never had a days bother, roughly as what was posted near the start and for £9.50 a month.

The only thing to be careful with MoreThan is that they don't pay for prescriptions. We took Lunar to the vets for dry-eye, consultation was £45, treatment there was £60 and MoreThan paid for this within the week. But the prescription was about £75 and we had to foot that.

If you don't like MoreThan or still want to shop around, be careful with a lot of companies as they won't insure your dog for a repeat condition. My mates dog is a sod for jumping over things, broke his paw last year and the insurance company (I think it was Tesco) paid there and then, but he broke his paw again just after Christmas and they wouldn't foot the bill as it was a repeat condition!
 
our cats are with

http://www.eandl.co.uk/pet-insurance/

they came recommended by the cat rescue people and they donate to the rescue charities, In addition their policy appeared to cover far more than some of the bigger names, mainly the lifetime treatment cover which can "run out" on some of the other ones.

That said not had a claim yet so cant comment on the payout procedure
 
Does anyone here have fully comp insurance or does third party fire and theft usually cover everything.

On a serious note....

We get a new pup the first week in May so I will be shopping around for pet insurance.
 
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