Which Pet Insurance?

Hi all,
Im new to being a dog owner. Only had my dog 3 weeks and not had a dog in about 16 years.
I was thining of getting Blue insured.
Do you have dog insurance? and if so what one? and why did you choose that company?

you want to get him insured mate, i should of got my 2 insured but i will cost me 3/4 times more now my xena got bad front legs & my sam had an big op on his back right leg it cost me over £2000 to get it fixed he had an bone growing in his join

ouch poor thing that sounds very painful.
You have any good suggestions on the company I should look at for insuring my dog.
I know I can search the web but people who have used insurance are the best guides. That's when you find out which one's don't pay out and are always referring to their small print

i dont know which is the best one because i cant get any without costing an bomb i think my sister is with asda but there may be better out there.

Dont know why but when taking my insureance out on memphis my blu staffy i was asked if he was a irish or standard staff becouse thay would not touch irish staffs which i find crazy as all dogs need to be ableed to be covered.

as i was typing this i have been informed off a freind that is sumting to do with the companys classing irish staffs as pit bulls.????and daft if true

also when you find a policy make sure its for life polucy not yearly as thay wwill only pay out once for any condition and if its someting that needs lifetime treatment vwhen you go to get a renewal they will not cover you for that condition untill its been clear for i beleive it is three years

Hi, mines insured with "Animal friends" (animalfriends.org.uk) I found them online, but they also have a phone number so I called them and did it over the phone. I picked them, and if I'm honest, because they where one of the cheapest (I'm not made of money!), off the top of head I can't remember the exact amount of cover they give but it certainly does cover all the basics ie accidents, illness etc. Not saying they are the best and I've never had to make a claim yet so if it does happpen how easy it is to get them to pay out I don't know yet but I think its better to have some cover rather than none at all.
x x x

i have my pet insurance with a company called axa

my memphis is also with animal freinds and they came highly recomended only thing is they wont insure irish staffs

generally irish staff is street slang for pitbull , there is no irish staff that i know of , of course there are staffys bred and live in ireland but no irish staffy my dog shady has irish dogs in his line .

i also beleive this to be true and the name was just given by a pit bull breeder who set up his own kennel club not sure if its the ikc or if that is a genuin one

over here in Ireland they call big breed staffys with long legs Irish Stafford bull terriers these dogs can be from 18 inches all the way up to 28 inches sometimes even bigger but these dogs are not recgonised by the Irish kennel club

That's what I think Blue is. Googled Irish Blue Staffordshire Bull Terrier and loads look like him. Longer legs and longer nose than the staffordshire bull terrier. What do you think

Cairo is insured with Pet Plan

mines an "irish staff" and we had no problems. She's classed as a long legged staff x

Ok I have filled a few forms in. Any suggestions which one?


Tesco Extra. £9.27 / Month
Vet Fees Up to £4,000 no time limit
£2m Third Party Liability



Sainsbury Option 2 £12.19 / month
Personal Liability £2m
Vet Fees £7,500 per condition
Advertising costs £1,000


Animal Friends Superior £11.82 / Month
Lifetime condition Limit £20,000
Annual Condition Limit £2,000
£1.5m Puplic Liability

the third one what iv got its the only one there that will carry on paying every year for a longstanding condition the other two wont cover you for a condition that your dog had in the previous year so your better gettin your forlife cover now

Also with Animal Friends

Nice one im rubbish with small prints. Plus I have flu and am rough as. So hope im better tomorrow.
What cover do you 2 have?
They have
Basic £7.62
Prime £10.31
Prime Plus £11.93
Superior £11.82
Superior Plus £16.18
Prestige £22.59

I only have the basic. I'll be honest, at the moment I can't afford anything more, it doesn't cover a lot (what I'm happy with) but would help if anything drastic did happen.

My first Staff had an all dancing, all singing insurance and it cost £37 a month with pets plan, recommended by my vet, and although I'm sure they are fine I must have been unlucky and ended up paying for a treatment which cost £3000 myself as they managed to wangle themselves out of it. I may have just been unlucky.

I now pay my insurance more for liability damage and put the rest away myself. It just feels slightly more reassuring to have one than not, so it covers what I want it too, BUT not a lot.

Do read all the smallprint, and cheaper certainly isn't always better.

Cheers Janey. Hey you might only have Basic but you have more than 50% of dog owners including me

iv got the superiar plus with the lower excess

Nice one wazza
The 2 im looking at now are the superior and the superior plus with the lower excess of £69

Just eventually got my backside in gear and insured Blue.
I went with Animal Friends Insurance Superior Plan at £15.58 a month
A big thank you to all who helped answer some of my questions and pass on their advice

Check the small print and the excess you have to pay, I've gone with Petplan as they seemed to have the most comprehensive cover, also a vetinary nurse friend said that they find them the best to deal with. Petplan paid out for Digby's crutiate surgery, medication and hydrotherapy without any problem or queries and are just about to pay out again for the same operation on the other leg. Cost each time 51/2 K.

We have ours insured with either more than or Sainsburys.
Never had to claim on more than so can't really comment as you never know how good they are till you make a claim.
We have made a claim for around £1400 on Sainsburys when one of our Bitches had anemia last year and needed blood transfusion and stay in pet hospital ,they were superb ,settled really quickly plus when we gave the receptionist in pet hospital form to fill in she commented that Sainsburys are one of the best for paying out .

All I do is put £50 quid into a separate account every few months.
If I don't have enough money in the account at the time I'll get a bank loan.

Heard of t0o many story's of insurance not paying out or cancelling the policy.

I was with Tesco for our last dog and they paid up no problem after her cruciate operation, couldn't fault them. When we got Sky though I went with Sainsburys as the cover was higher at £7500 per ilness or injury and Tesco was £4000. Bearing in mind the op our other dog had was £3000 we thought the extra cover would be a good idea. £12 a month we pay now

Staffy wrote:All I do is put £50 quid into a separate account every few months.
If I don't have enough money in the account at the time I'll get a bank loan.

Heard of t0o many story's of insurance not paying out or cancelling the policy.

The only problem with that is the third party liability. If your dog is involved in an accident etc & you are sued, you could be facing thousands of £s in compensation.

Caryll wrote:

Staffy wrote:All I do is put £50 quid into a separate account every few months.
If I don't have enough money in the account at the time I'll get a bank loan.

Heard of t0o many story's of insurance not paying out or cancelling the policy.

The only problem with that is the third party liability. If your dog is involved in an accident etc & you are sued, you could be facing thousands of £s in compensation.

I agree, I think all dog owners should have 3rd party liability insurance at least

Caryll wrote:

Staffy wrote:All I do is put £50 quid into a separate account every few months.
If I don't have enough money in the account at the time I'll get a bank loan.

Heard of t0o many story's of insurance not paying out or cancelling the policy.

The only problem with that is the third party liability. If your dog is involved in an accident etc & you are sued, you could be facing thousands of £s in compensation.

Sue me for what lol?I don't have anything of Material Value.
Never, ever heard of someone demanding compensation for a dogs actions.

If you dog for instance bite someone they are able to sue you for compensation. Its liability cover.

Staffy wrote:Sue me for what lol?I don't have anything of Material Value.
Never, ever heard of someone demanding compensation for a dogs actions.

If your dog were to bite someone, or if they got away from you & caused an accident, or even damaged somebody's property, you as the owner are responsible & liable under law. You could be sued for £thousands!

I am looking at animal friends for insurance for bruno, which access is best £69 or £99? reason i haven't insured him before is because i have been waiting for other half to help out ,seeing as it's his money

Excess is totally up to you, the more excess the lower the premium usually!

ok thank you

I use MORETHAN for our 3 dogs found them very helpful & have a 24 hour vet saved me a fortune with Merlot our Staff with epilepsy problems & didn't screw me when renewed this year prices are very reasonable.

i use John Lewis for Lola, less than £15 a month for decent cover, and having used it in the past with another dog they are great to deal with , and a £70 excess. worth a look

I have Pet Plan insurance for my Staffie and my two crossbreeds. Although other insurances are just as good Pet Plan is the only insurance company my vets will deal with directly, so if Cruz's bill is expensive I don't have to fork out a load of money, I just pay the £75 excess and the vets claim the money back to themselves.
I have also had no bother getting money from pet plan, once they have the form you usually receive a cheque within 4 weeks.
Cruz has had a lot of problems with his legs and skin and an incident with a bone and Petplan have always paid out no questions asked. I have found them to be a very reliable company.

I've got insurance with More Than which includes life time cover, they pay the vets directly and a whole other list of benefits. Currently paying £13 a month

I got a really good 1 from John Lewis £10000 vets cover per year, lifetime cover, got everything in it,covers diagnostic tests vet recommends etc. £20.78 a month.

I'm personally with pets at home for both of them, as much as i hate their stores, their insurance has a really good cover.

I pay £15 a month for harv and about £9.50 for Chance. It is best to look round and get quotes though

I want a good one for 2 dogs (good discount on 2nd animal) any ideas , Direct Line don't seem that interested so this means they lose Tilly as well

We have insured Rocky with Argos Pet Insurance on a Lifetime policy. The premium is £15.24 per month.

We were previously with PetPlan who wanted £22.50 per month for the same cover.

With Argos we went for the Platinum Policy which should pay out £7,000 in vet fees, £2 Million in 3rd Party Liability and with £65 excess per incident.

Hope this helps.

davemck3834 wrote:I want a good one for 2 dogs (good discount on 2nd animal) any ideas , Direct Line don't seem that interested so this means they lose Tilly as well

I got a 15% discount for insuring both with pets at home, plus 2 vouchers

ella wrote:

davemck3834 wrote:I want a good one for 2 dogs (good discount on 2nd animal) any ideas , Direct Line don't seem that interested so this means they lose Tilly as well

I got a 15% discount for insuring both with pets at home, plus 2 vouchers

ooh vouchers !! since you don't like the shop , send them to me

Did you get the insurance off their website (I'm being lazy and don't want to leave the forum to find out)

davemck3834 wrote:

ella wrote:

davemck3834 wrote:I want a good one for 2 dogs (good discount on 2nd animal) any ideas , Direct Line don't seem that interested so this means they lose Tilly as well

I got a 15% discount for insuring both with pets at home, plus 2 vouchers

ooh vouchers !! since you don't like the shop , send them to me

Did you get the insurance off their website (I'm being lazy and don't want to leave the forum to find out)

Oh i spent the vouchers down to the last penny so i didn't spend of my hard earned money

Yes I did, once i added Chance i rang them up to add Chance on to make sure i got the discount

We had a renewal for Dempsey a couple of weeks ago - Sainsbury's have doubled the monthly premium from £17 to £34, mainly (I thought) because we's claimed.

So I've been looking around & I can only assume that the cost of insuring an EBT has skyrocketed! To get the equivalent cover with most of the other insurers would cost me over £40! There was one at £20, but the cover was nowhere near as good.

So I'm sticking with Sainsbury's!

Lola isnt insured and I'm not sure whether to insure her.
We've had her for 9 months now and shes not been insured.

Caryll wrote:We had a renewal for Dempsey a couple of weeks ago - Sainsbury's have doubled the monthly premium from £17 to £34, mainly (I thought) because we's claimed.

So I've been looking around & I can only assume that the cost of insuring an EBT has skyrocketed! To get the equivalent cover with most of the other insurers would cost me over £40! There was one at £20, but the cover was nowhere near as good.

So I'm sticking with Sainsbury's!

Have you tried Pets at Home insurance Caryll , I've just cancelled Tilly's Direct Line policy and gone to them , just over 40 for both of them and each policy is 9K total vets fees per year for the life of the condition (Lifetime Extra I think its called)

http://www.petsathome.com/petinsurance