Third party liability

You are responsible for the actions of your pet so if your pet was to injure a child or another animal you may be liable for compensation claims. With this very real possibility in mind it makes good sense to consider third party liability as part of your pet insurance scheme.

Excess fees

 Excess fee insurance is typically fairly low cost and will cover all types of insurance excess including pet insurance. Excess fee insurance means that any excess you pay can be recovered. It is often cheaper to have a high excess on your insurance policies and then have the necessary excess insurance - the savings can be significant.

Multiple pets insurance

Many pet lovers have more than one pet and it is likely that you can get cover for all them cheaper than individually.

How do you calculate quotes?

Each insurance company will be different but on the whole you can calculate each of your quotes individually, this is because they will probably look at your pets breed, age and sex and where you live when they calculate your quote. This is a good thing as it means you should be able to get a competitive quote.

What are the age limits?

Again this will vary from policy to policy but in general most policies will take on your pet at 8 weeks of age and from any age from then. You might find with a lot of the policies though as your cat or dog gets older you will no longer be eligible to get money back if they die from illness or natural causes, or has to be put down due to either of the previously mentioned. The age for a dog this will stop when they reach the age of 9 and for a cat from the age of 11, however all of the other benefits should continue.

What does pre-existing condition mean?

This is a phase that you may have notice comes up quite a lot, a pre-existing condition means any medical condition or symptom that has happened/occurred before you start with the policy.

Are pre-existing conditions covered?

Probably not, this is something you will have to enquire about with your individual insurance company but in for a lot of them they don’t cover any conditions or symptoms that your pet had previously.

Changing cover

If you want to change your cover you currently have you will most likely have to wait until the time of renewal. You will have to contact your insurance company to talk through the changes you want.

Are all breeds of dog covered?

In general insurance policies will only cover dog breeds that are registered, in general they also probably won’t cover the following list of breeds, due to being under the Dangerous Dog Act 1991;

• Wolf or Wolf hybrid
• Fighting dogs
• Security or guard dogs
• Racing dogs
• Dogs used for business work
• American bulldogs
• Dogs used for breeding

Some also won’t cover the following cross-breeds;

• Pit Bull Terrier
• Fila Braziliero
• Japanese Tosa
• Dogo Argentino

Are all my vet fees included?

No, insurance policies only tend to be there to cover any unexpected costs for illnesses that have arisen since you have taken out their policy. This means that general checkups, vaccinations, worming, boosters, nail cutting etc aren’t included.