Other pet insurance

M

mrs. joe

Guest
Is it worth my while buying pet insurance? My cat is young and currently healthy, but I have heard of people paying massive bills when their animal gets ill. What I want to know is: Do the insurance companies pay out if/when the animal gets ill or do they apply conditions, as some 'serious illness' policies do for us humans - such as only covering certain illnesses and not others? I don't want to waste money paying for insurance that is going to prove useless when needed. Any experiences/advice out there please?
 
The general rule is that they will not cover any pre-existing conditions, so the time to take out insurance is when the pet is healthy.

I insured one of my cats shortly after I got him (at 12 months old). At the time he was quite healthy. He passed away 7 months later having run up a vet's bill of 2,500 euro - luckily he was covered, so all I paid (apart from the premium) was 2 excess charges of 60 euro. All blood tests, x-rays, and medications were covered without question.

I'm not sure what might have happened at renewal time, if they would still have covered the pet for the particular condition (he didn't live that long).

I was certainly very grateful for insurance for that pet!
 
Thanks for that. I know several companies will pay out for an illness in the year that it occurs, but will not cover for that particular illness in the following years. One company, however, offers lifetime cover even when they have paid out for a recurring illness. What worries me is if they start specifying details of the illness that they won't cover, but your answer is reassuring, many thanks.
 
There are a few previous discussions as far as I can recall on this subject so running the search option in this forum may help.

I think its important to get the insurance while the pet is young as they may not accept it later or the premium may be very high.

As they get older the terms and conditions appear to change with regard to excess and non-payment of full claim.

Having heard it mentioned on TV recently that the average leg breakage in a pet costs around €1,800 I would prefer to have it as I heard of someone recently who did not insure their dog and it broke two legs in a short space of time.

I understand you also need to be careful if you have a claim that you check about moving companies. We had a small claim quite a number of years ago and I was told that if we moved company we would not be able to revert back at a later stage!

There are quite a few companies doing this cover now I think:


http://www.tesco.ie/finance/pet-insurance/
www.petinsure.ie

[broken link removed]
 
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