Gundog Training Forum

Insurance is always a gamble. You gamble that you'll need it, they gamble you won't! It's impossible to recommend a policy as eveyones requirements vary from a simple yearly renewal emergency policy to a £10,000 a year lifetime policy! Beware that most policies won't cover third party claims or injury claims sustained while the dog is working as a gundog (or in many other competitive sports). Some seem reasonable at inception but rise steeply with claims or as the dog ages and the excess may also rise with age. Remember also that unlike car insurance it's hard to move dogs from company to company as the new company will exclude any previous health problems, whether you have claimed or not!
For those with multiple dogs it may work better just to insure for third party liability (perhaps as part of business insurance for gundog pro's) and to put money aside, or hold a credit card for dog emergencies. It also helpe whether insured or not to think about how much you are prepared to spend on any given dog. Basic vet treatment has not got more expensive but there are now new techniques, new drugs etc which allow us to fix dogs which we never could before and this has made some bills seem very expensive!

I have always had insurance for my previous dogs and I have never even broken even, so this time I have not bothered I have decided to save a slush fund. I put nearly £4000 into pet plan with my last dog and never claimed a penny whats more they didn't even send me a letter (etc.) of commiserations when I informed them she had died.

My experiences with insurance definately helped make up my mind NOT to take out cover on my latest dog. We previously had a show cocker who, at the age of 4 started fitting and was diagnosed with Epilepsy. As we were insured at the time we thought that at least that was taken care of. He lived until 9 and in that time had all sorts of problems with bronchitis and infections that was not directly connected with the epilepsy but kept us on first name terms with our vets. As he was on permanent meds for his epilepsy this was an ongoing expense.

The problem we found and the reason I chose not to take out a policy for the new dog was that although they offer lifetime cover, most will soon ramp the premiums up to the point where it is simply not worth carrying it on. As mentioned earlier they know that you cannot move as the condition would no longer be included with a different company so I think they do their best to price themselves out of it. We finally cut our losses when he was around 7 and started paying the vets directly ( after making sure the vet knew we were no longer insured). I am not saying all companies would do the same but asking around at the time online and through the vets I came to the conclusion that it was common practice.

Interesting information about 3rd party cover only though as I didn't know about this, might look into it, especially as we have a new puppy arriving in 4 weeks to compliment our 3 year old.