Pet Insurance

[bilby]

I have Pet Cover with my SGIO Home & Contents policy.

$25 Accident Cover per pet per year.

$100 excess but up to $500 per incident per pet.

I'd had no vet bills for years but thought I might as well add it on.

I had multiple incidents for the next few months .. I think I'm decades ahead in premiums/claims

.. so I'm sorry SGIO ..

but brilliant cover

[brandybaby]

bilby

is this GIO you are referring too.I have cover with them and would be interested to know if thats who you are talking about as then I will do some hunting around.

[Reddii]

I've been really slack with my pet insurance (not claming) and just found that they have a 60 day rule.......oh well lesson learned. (RSPCA). I think that's probably cost me about $200.

That said I've just sent in all my receipts for worming/flea treatment and vaccination that we've accumulated in the last month and received a cheque in the mail for $160 yesterday - no hassle, no fuss, just fill in the claim form and away you go.

Hopefully they are as happy and cheery to pay next time something goes wrong with one of the dogs.

No complaints, just an upper cut for self. I wouldn't be without it, just in case. I'd hate to be in a situation where money made a difference to a decision and we couldn't afford or justify an expense.

Tony

[peigirl]

My problem with pet insurance is the vaccinations. I choose not to vaccinate annually therefore my dog's ineligible for insurance.

[Poodle wrangler]

I think money in a high interest account is a better option.

Lets face it, if the insurers ran at a loss, then none would be in business still. The odds are with them.

There was a thread a while back about how much would you spend on your dog. It's a good idea to think about it.

I did and have a ballpark figure of what I couldn't spend above. OH has agreed.

[koolietas]

My problem with pet insurance is the vaccinations. I choose not to vaccinate annually therefore my dog's ineligible for insurance.

Yes - I had an issue with that too. There's nothing in the policy wording for the insurance company I go through that says they must be vaccinated annually.

[Akitaowner]

mine never asked if they were vacc annually?

they were what i considered the best deal at the time but have since changed their policies on breed specific issues (altho nothing unexpected came up)

It was AFS petmed also last yr they introduced an excess which they didnt have before so i decided not to bother. Bu tin its original format it covered a couple of very expensive vet trips including an $3500+ 'accident' which i was very relieved about!! it was ~$400 a year

Ive since changed jobs and am now in a much better position to pay for any unforescene vet bills

i think it depends greatly on your personal situation and the insurance company policy.

[busterboy]

We are on petplan, www.petplan.com.au at $28.50 per month ( 1 month free )

Covers $8,000 vet fees. Excess $100.00 per claim / $500.00 per calender year kennell fees and Advertising and reward $500.00.

A lot of T&C's in the fine print :-( Even says that they have a right to decline in paying anyone else has a better plan? seems most are similar / or like comparing pears and apples?? quite confusing.

[xiaorose]

I use to have a home insurance with GIO and with a little extra every month, it covered pet insurances. I can't remeber much of the policies, but it does have things not covered,eg yearly vacinations, etc, and covers $3000 in accidents a year. However, after a while they had discontinued the product and I didn't made any claim at all.

After some calulations, I personally think that it's cheaper to pay vet bills when required than insurance over the dog's lifetime. I recently spent approx $5000 for his cataract surgery & approximately $6000 to remove his cancer lumps & go through radio therapy, yes a lot of money but I thingk it's still cheaper then paying insurance and it most likely doesn't cover them and I certainly don't want to be paying insurance and vet bills and get p**s off when finding out that it's not covered and can't claim much.

I'm not against insurance at all, I just think that there're a lot of fine prints and to find a good one and make sure that I do a lot of claims I have to have a very sick dog who have a lot of helath issues to get the insurance worth it, or to be very unlucky with accidents all the time. With accident covers, I also don't think there's much chance for most dogs to survive for claims.

Having 2 dogs, the maintaince, vet & worming bill is quite high, but I also prefer to save up some money in case of emergency and with anything unexpected, eg Manman had cancer half a year after the cataracts sugery, I just have to live a bit tighter, dug more into our savings and put some on credit cards and try to save more again in case if there's something else that come up.

Just my personal opinions and if I do find something great that covers most of the standards vet bill, vacinations, worming, etc, I'll definetly look into pet insurances again and work my sums out.

[Sheridan]

Well, I looked into insurance and my dog is too old.