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Services‎ > ‎Pets‎ > ‎

Pet Insurance

We strongly recommend that all owners consider the benefits of insuring your pet against veterinary fees.  The last thing that most owners want to worry about when their loved pet is unwell is the cost of veterinary treatment.  Like human medical treatments, over recent years advances in veterinary care have led to more pets being able to benefit from treatment options that were not previously available and many more pets are able to return to a good quality of life following illness or injury.  However some of the treatment options available now are expensive, and unfortunately there is no veterinary NHS.
 
Also bear in mind that the old £6.00 prescription tax for human medications is not in any way related to the costs of the medications, and over time, conditions such as arthritis and heart disease can become expensive to treat.
 
To avoid these costs, animals must be insured before they become unwell, and it is important to fully read the small print as policies vary as to how much money they will pay out and for how long they will pay out for.  Please remember cheapest is not always best with insurance. Also remember that if you change your pet insurer, the new insurer will not cover pre-existing conditions whether or not you have claimed for them from your insurance, and they usually will not cover any new medical conditions in the first couple of weeks of the new policy.

 
For various legal reasons we are unable to specifically recommend a specific policy or company, but the following general guidelines should be borne in mind:
  • 'Cover for life' policies should pay out for medication for the entire duration of a problem,not just the first 12 months.
  • Most policies have a fixed excess of about £75.  Some companies allow you to increase this to reduce your premium, but also many policies also have a 15-20% excess where the owner has to pay a fixed percentage of a bill.  This is especially common with older pets.
  • Please be aware that at least one company issues a one year policy which is essentially renewed every year.  At the renewal you are obliged to declare any change in the pets health status, and this will exclude some conditions which overlap the policy year end.  Also if your pet becomes unwell towards the end of the policy year, they will only be covered for that disease until the end of the policy year - this may only be a few days or weeks.
  • A maximum payout of about £2-3000 may be adequate for many pets, especially where we carry out the treatment in our own clinic, and this may reduce the premium.  This sum would cover most conditions, but some cases where referral is required, such as some orthopedic problems (especially spine problems), neurology (brain problems) and some cancer chemotherapy treatments can run towards the £7000 area or higher.  Basically the higher limits will generally raise your premium and the lower limits might limit your ability to fund these high cost treatments.  Try to rationally consider what your opinion would be with regard to undertaking these major treatments with your pet when choosing an insurance policy.  There is no point in insuring your pet for a treatments that you would not want to put your pet through.
  • Be aware that a company who deals in general insurance may decide to stop offering pet insurance.  This has happened with several smaller insurance companies recently and can end up in clients suddenly finding themselves uninsured and unable to re-insure animals with on-going conditions.
Bear in mind you will generally pay for what you get in terms of payouts and customer service - there is a wide range of insurers and policies available to suit a range of consumers.
 
More specific advice may be available from the clinic.  Please pop in for a chat with a member of staff if you have further questions about insurance.
 
Useful Links: (not an exhaustive list of all providers!).  We do not benefit from these links, and under FSA restrictions are unable to recommend specific insurers.

We do not recommend the use of price comparison sites for pet insurance as these do not allow for the multitude of variations in the small print of the polices and the regular changing of policy between providers may leave you uncovered in the event of a sudden new illness around the time of the change over.
 
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