The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Pets & Working Animals => Dogs => Topic started by: gillandtom on April 27, 2009, 06:07:33 pm
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Anyone recommend good insurance for a dog? I have got a 10 month old working Cocker and Petplan is quoting me £24 pcm plus £90 excess. Seems a bit much when tesco etc are half the price for the same cover.
Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks
Gillian
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Gillain. Please be careful, I know the £24 seems expensive but when you read the small print you have to pay the high premiums. The cheaper ones sound great but most of them only cover illness for a year - so if your dog gets diabetes or something that will be life long these cheap companies only pay out for medication for the first year. Also, our vet has a sign on display at the moment to check small print as many of the insureres are not covering hip conditions. I had my 3 girls insured by the Kennel Club and it was about £45 each dog per month but covered almost everything. I cancelled in the end as it was just so expensive, now I just take my chances. I also did hear someone recommend Marks and Spencer's for offering good dog insurance.
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I pay £28 a month with Direct Line.
Thats for a 4 year old Labrador and a 3 year old Jack Russell. That covers them for everything, but I've never claimed on it and its been running since the Lab was 10 weeks.
I'm thinking its dear at that, but too frightened to risk cancelling as my Lab is a great one for jumping fences on our farm and the Jack Russell goes through them!!!
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Hi Gillian, good information and links at this site. www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cut-pet-insurance-costs
Good luck, JD
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Our dogs are insured with Tesco and we pay about £26 per month for the two. We've found them very good but they do only cover for 12 months. Meg has an underactive thyroid and will be on medication for the rest of her life - that's no longer covered. We decided, given that our dogs are to all intents and purposes mongrels, that they were more likely to have an accident than a chronic condition. Tess ruprured both cruciate ligaments - repair? £5,000 roughly.
We insured out cats with Petplan which has lifetime cover because they were all rescue cats and we didn't know their history. Petplan have also been really good but slapped an exclusion on Felix for certain things becasue he has chronic cat flu.
I wouldn't be without it.
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We use Esure for our dogs. I spent a long time 'investigating' the cover on various policies. It is definately something not to be without.
Happy hunting!
:pug:
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I have a slush fund - won't pay them b's for pet insurance - with 4 dogs, 2 cats, and my ducks & chickens, it would cost me £150 a month that I don't have. So I started a separate bank account a long time ago and put a sum in every month. Touch wood, so far I haven't had to use it.
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I pay £28 per month for a 2 yr old gsd and a 6 yr old greyhound with direct line, it pays to shop around each renewal time though, I used to have my horses with petplan but they are always to expensive for my dogs!
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i have recently cancelled my 11 year old whippetx insurance as it went up to £37 a month with MORE THAN, it alweays worries me that the insurance is for more than just illness and injury it covered accidents too , imagine if she ran into the road and someone got killed, that would be many thousands of pounds!!!!! My neighbour has two german pointers 3 weeks ago the younger one got a 2 inch thorn in her foot 2 thousand pounds and many visit s later she is now recovered, the elder dog swallowed something nasty last week they had to open her up that cost another thousand!!!!!!!!!!!! It is worth it but it is expensive.
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I have gone with Marks and Spencers. £17pcm for my Working Cocker. Premium cover. I have 14 days from yesterday for someone to tell me they have had a bad experience with it and I can cancel it foc. So far all have been good.
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I have to say I too have only heard good thing about M & S Pet Insurance
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I have gone with Marks and Spencers. £17pcm for my Working Cocker. Premium cover. I have 14 days from yesterday for someone to tell me they have had a bad experience with it and I can cancel it foc. So far all have been good.
Have you told them your dog is worked? They bump up the price for working dogs - probably more risk of injury in their eyes?
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Have you told them your dog is worked? They bump up the price for working dogs - probably more risk of injury in their eyes?
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No Annie thanks for that I hadnt thought of telling them. It will only be on the odd occasion with my husband but I guess we should tell them. Paperwork not arrived yet so will give them a call once it arrives. Thanks Gill.
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I wouldn't bother telling them if it's only occasionally - the dog could get hurt just out for a walk in the fields in the same way. The only risk would be gunshot and I doubt if your husband would be that careless with your own dog.
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I use animal friends. £15 per month, £49 excess and life time cover. Never had any problems.
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Never heard of them but that sounds very good.
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My Clumber is with kennel club £34 a month, but after one broken leg, dislocated shoulder, strange skin complaint, bad ears and a cyst, insurance has definately paid for itself for years to come, I think it works on the old adage you get what you pay for :chook:
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Both of my chows are with M&S, they've been great, pay up very promptly. Both of my dogs have EPI and Hypothyroidism, so the for life policy is a godsend as I claim almost £300 month on drugs etc. In the last 1 months we've on top of this run up £2000 for MRI, xrays etc for a neck problem my bitch had, £1000 entropian surgery on my dog and £3000 for TPLO surgery on my big boys leg, that alongside a few small claims for UTI's etc. Weve never had any queries to the validity of claim, and were happily offered payment for hydro, physio etc :)
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Goodness, that's sick dogs you have had? What does their breeder say about it? I would hate to think any of my pups had to use as much of their Insurance quotas as that. I know very little about the Chow. Are these fairly standard conditions for the breed? I hope your dogs are better now.
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Hypothyroidism is pretty common in any hairy breed, the amount of hair grown puts a strain on the thyroid, EPI, is Exochrine Pancheatic insufficiency, according to the breed club, it's not a common recognised condition, but both my dogs are from completely different lines, breeders etc, and both have it, frankly as far as I'm concerned that speaks volumes. The neck thing is because of the people I got my girl from as a 2 yr old thought it was funny to rest their feet on her when she stood in front of them so she has been left with two slipped discs :( The ruptured crutiate ligament in my boy that resulted in the TPLO op was because he's a mad lad, that hares about, and put his foot down a hole over stretched the ligament when he was in the dog park!!
However because I have insurance, both of my dogs live VERY healthy happy lifes, they take daily medication, and their conditions are kept completely under control thankfully. THat and having a vet that works with me, rather than simply for me makes the world of difference too ;) I can honestly say if you were to meet my dogs you wouldn't know there was anything wrong with them ;)
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Gosh, just as well they are insured, but they are two lucky dogs having found you. Do you know what other breeds the Hypothyroidism is in. Never heard of it in cockers, springers or the breed I have now Brittanys.
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It's fairly common in things like rough collies, samoyeds, even gsd's hairy mutts basically :)
Here's my big bears :) Benny's the cream, Sisky the red :)
(http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j140/kazschow/Picture047.jpg)
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Brittanies are lovely do you work them?
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I've just started working training my young lad - he's three but I'm a late starter. :o One of my girls was trained by a friend when I was building my house but she got a scare and is gunshy now, she's very good provided you can find someone with a silencer ;); the other girl was owned by a falconer before me (long story sort of rescue but I bought her so got papers) and was forcibly trained not to retrieve and was bullied so been a long road with her. I have friends who run a very small shoot near me - only a few beaters/pickers up and half a dozen guns. Hoping to breed another litter soon.
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This is a very interesting tread. I have been thinking about pet insurance for a wile now and I think I'm going to get them insured when I'm back in work. I’ve been very unlucky with the dogs in the last year, every time they need to see a vet it seems to be out of hours and I end up paying out a small fortune. atb bedrock
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Our Meg has hypothyroidism but her drugs are about £10 a month, with quarterly blood tests. The impact of the drugs was immediate and marvellous - we hadn't realised how down she was until she was better. We put the symptoms - sleeping and weight gain - down to age. It was only when her coat started to drop out that we realised it was something else.
Tess had TPLO on both legs (not at the same time) and the bill would have been £5,000. Like Kaz's, she ran round the side of the house to chase a rabbit and her paw went down a hole. A year later, the other one went too.
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Sisky's symptoms of Hypothyroidism was just a lack of coat, bi lateral baldness.... Benny actually had no symptoms at all, he had bouts of colitis, and my vet though she might as well test for everything Sisky had, we were both gobsmacked when he came back with the same two conditions, on the plus side, he was treated before his condition degenerated, and has never know the suffering my wee Sisky had before we got her, and had her effectively treated :)
Lack of treatment long term have left Sisky with a lot of gastric probs, she has Coelics disease (wheat gluten intolerance) and was fed a high grain diet, so now has IBD, in the form of suspected chrones.... Again all of this is effectively controlled with diet and medication. I've a lot of experience with dogs, but Sisky has been a very steep learning curve, however I'm so glad she came into my life, she's my heart dog :)