Pet insurance can be a comfusing and overwhelming field, here we have included some information to help you understand insurance a little more before you head out to take out a policy...
A bit of advice:
We advise looking into pet-only insurers as banks and supermarkets can choose to close their pet insurance side if they are not making money from it. If they cancel it can be difficult getting another insurer to take you on if you have already made claims.
There are a few types of pet insurance, it is recommended that you have a look at lifetime insurance, as long as you continue your policy your insurer will cover any conditions that may have cropped up whilst owning the dog and will keep covering them year after year.
Types of Pet Insurance
Condition Limited
Condition limited offers you amounts such as: £1000, £2000, £3000 etc. per condition per year. This means that if a dog gets an eye infection, they have say £2000 to cover that condition, if they get diabetes, the owner gets £2000 to cover that etc.
Once you reach the limit for that condition in a year you will need to pay out the rest yourself.
With long term illnesses such as diabetes, a £2000 limit may not be enough to cover the costs throughout the year. Please bear in mind that some treatment/surgeries and after care can be very expensive and you may run through your capped amount quite quickly.
If you choose condition limited, we advise choosing the highest condition cap you can afford.
Annual Cover
Annual cover gives you a pot of money to use on conditions throughout the year.
They can vary from £1000-£12,000+ depending on the insurer and what you want to cover yourself for. This can cover a range of conditions throughout the year and will be renewed the next year as long as you continue your policy.
Again, please take into account that some treatments can be very expensive, so only covering yourself for £1,000, £2,000 or £3,000 worth of cover per year may run out pretty quickly.
We always advise that you take out the highest cover that you can afford.
Co-Payments
Some insurers require a co-payment with a claim.
Some co-payments can be required from the age of 6, but there are insurers out there that ask for a co-payment from 10 years old.
Co-payments are required as the dog gets older as surgeries can be more risky with an older dog.
This means that if you take out a £1000 claim, you will also be expected to pay 20% towards this as well as your chosen excess.
Some insurance can be very cheap to take out. Although this seems great, please read ALL terms and conditions as they are likely to put your insurance up if you do make a claim. Insurers such as Petplan and Agria [whom we have a rescue partnership with] do not put your premium up if you do take out a claim. They do tend to be more expensive at the forefront, but their cover is of a higher quality. They do not tend to show up on comparison websites.
It is becoming inclreasingly common for insurers to ask for breeds, with Romanian Rescues we can never be sure of what they are crossed with due to their free-raoming backgrounds.
Some insurers will allow you to select mongrel, mixed breed, or cross breed.
If they are adamant on a breed you can loosely choose a breed they resemble x unknown.
Pet insurance providers
We cannot legally recommend an insurer, however we have provided links to some popular pet insurers to make it easier for adopters to access the information they need.
Rescue partnership number: 22427
