Guide to pet insurance
7. Top pet insurance tips
1. Compare and save
- To get the best quote to suit your individual needs and circumstances, you will need to shop around for the best deals
- Often discounts and other incentives offered by insurers can make a great deal even better. If you don’t shop around you won’t have the chance to benefit from these deals
- The cheapest policy will not always be the best, but sometimes it is so be sure to compare like for like when shopping around
- If you need to pay for your cover monthly, the insurance provider will normally charge interest on the amount you owe over the course of the year so be sure to compare the amount of interest each company will charge you
2. Only buy from a reputable insurer
- First things first: check that the pet insurance provider is registered with the Financial Services Association (FSA). If not, do not purchase anything from the unregistered provider
- If the provider is registered, read some reviews on the products they offer to see how others have found them.
- When you do this, bear in mind that often people will only review a product if they have had a bad experience with the product or company
- Recommendations from family and friends will give you a good idea of how good the product or insurance provider really is
3. Consider the policy excess
- The excess is the amount you will have to pay out each time you make a claim for a certain condition from your pet insurance
- Make sure you check how much you will have to pay per claim, because a policy may be cheaper because it has a higher excess
- If this is the case, you are likely to be hit hard if and when it comes to making a claim
- Excesses generally range from £25 to £65
4. Insure from a young age
- Often, insurers will not provide cover for pets who are over a certain age (usually eight years old)
- It is therefore best to insure your pet from as early an age as possible
- If you insure a pet from a young age, the insurer will normally then keep on providing cover for the life of the pet Some pet insurers may not provide full cover for life, but may instead provide time-capped or financially-capped cover, so be sure to check the terms and conditions before you buy
5. Look at how much cover you will receive
- Insurers normally limit the amount you can claim - £6000 is the amount of cover you should expect for each and every illness or injury
- They normally limit the number of claims you make by setting a limit per condition or a limit per year
- Check that the amount of cover is realistic for your needs and circumstances
- Generally speaking, the cheaper the insurance policy, the less cover you will get
- Allocate a top-end budget for your pet insurance policy and try to get as much cover for that price as possible (bearing in mind the excess set by the insurers)
6. Keep your pet’s vaccinations up to date…
- Be sure to keep your pet’s vaccinations up to date
- Insurers are unlikely to cover the cost of treatment for a condition which would have been prevented if the animal had had the correct vaccinations
7. …and keep your pet healthy
- Prevention is better than cure
- Feed your pet the right type and quantity of food, make sure it gets at least the recommended amount of exercise, worm it regularly (where applicable) and take it for annual check-ups
8. Consider other benefits
- Veterinary cover usually forms the fundamental basis of pet insurance policies but other cover is well worth considering
- You may want to consider buying cover to pay for advertising in the event of your pet going missing, or for looking after your pet if you have to go into hospital
- The list of additional benefits is long so look for a policy that combines the additional cover you think you would benefit from having
9. Check the small print carefully
- Pet insurance policies vary quite substantially between insurance providers, and depending on the breed, age and type of the animal
- Check the small print carefully for details on when you can claim, when you can’t claim, restrictions on the treatments provided and exclusions that apply to the policy
- If you renew your policy with your insurer, check to see if the terms and conditions change in any way as your pet gets older
10. Consider 3rd party liability cover
- There is a possibility that your pet could cause damage to someone else or to someone else’s property
- 3rd party cover should cover events such as your dog running in front of a car and causing an accident, if you pet bites or attacks someone or if your pet destroys someone’s garden
- You should expect cover of around £1 million from your pet insurance
Now you have all the information you need, you can start to compare pet insurance
- Previous page: Paying for your pet insurance