insurance

hi all,
i joined petplan last week and still waiting for my papers to come through but more i think about it the more i think its abit expensive, im gonna be paying £23.00 a month for 2 male rabbits. what does everyone else think? and is it worth it when there still so young and vet has said there in very good health and offered me a complete care plan for £6.00 a month. his covers there vaccinations and worming etc.

The care plan your vet offers won't include treatment of illness, it will just be for the preventative treatments like vaccinations and healthchecks.

Insurance is important because you never know when they are going to get sick and it can cost a bomb. PetPlan is a good choice because if they get sick you can keep claiming every year, as long as you pay the premiums. If you wait until they get sick the insurance won't cover any condition they already head.

Hi!

That does seem a little expensive for 2 rabbits; I only pay £17 a month for my 2 girls. I guess it depends on what breed/size they are though as mine are Mini Rex bunnies which would be cheaper than say a Giant breed.

The cover your vet is offering is only for vaccinations etc and probably is better value as I believe you end up with a discount over the 12 months instead of paying for jabs as they come up. However, it will NOT cover illness.

I would strongly advise you to keep the insurance plans going.

My rabbits are only 3 years old but when Thumper was about 18 months old she had her first bout of gut stasis (potentially life threatening) and has had bouts on and off ever since. The last time she had it was in September this year - and Coco had it too. Between them, in less than one week, their vet bill was £680. I had to pay £100 excess (£50 excess per bun) but the insurance still coughed up the remaining £580. There is no way on this planet I could have afforded that bill, even putting aside £17 per month for 12 months would have only totalled just over £200.

I have claimed several times in the last 18 months for Thumper's gut stasis as no bill has been less than £150 (£100 by the time I paid the excess).

Also, if you claim for the same thing more than once in a particular premium year, you only have to pay one excess fee. So say Thumper had stasis twice between January and December 2014; I'd only have to pay £50 excess once.

Petplan also pay the vet direct if you want them to, or if you have to pay up front they will send you a cheque in the post.

I've never had any problems with Petplan making payment to my vet and I've never actually heard of anyone else having problems with them either.

I would not be without insurance and strongly advise you to keep it.

Insurance is a bit of a gamble, if something goes wrong you'll be very glad you have it - a broken leg can cost hundreds. Even stasis can soon add up. An out of hours vet visit starts at £100 to walk in the door and any treatment is on top. So the question is, if you suddenly had a £500 vet bill tomorrow could you afford to pay it? If the answers no, but you can afford insurance - stick with the insurance. If the answer is ouch, but yes, then it's worth considering putting £25 a month away in a savings account instead.

For the vet schemes, it's worth adding up what you get. Rabbits don't need routine worming, so it's only really vaccinations. See what the cost different is between £6x12 and just paying for the vacc. Again, you can always put the money away monthly.

I thought the same as you and was debating whether or not it was a waste of money... Then one of my girls got sick and cost about £700 in three days :shock: just the payout from that 1 illness is more than it cost me to insure 4 rabbits for 2 years :shock: so I am sticking with petplan!

It was also nice to be able to tell the vet that they could do all the tests and treatment she needed and that money was no object, it means that even though in the end we lost her I know we did absolutely everything for her and at the time I didn't need to worry about costs. I also like petplan because my vets deal directly with them and sent in the claim for me. I didn't have to pay the bill and then try to claim the money back.

Similar story from me, I've owned Skye since Dec 13 and in 10 months I've near enough maxed out my insurance limit (limit £2,000 and I've spent just over £1,800)

You could say that for the other 3 I've never claimed, but just knowing that if I were to be faced with a sick bunny I wouldn't have to worry about the cost (because I would) and I'm able to say to the vets just throw all the treatment at them and the only thing you then worry about is getting them better. It's a massive, massive amount of peace of mind knowing that.

Does sound quite expensive, 2 of mine are with P@H (ok, but wouldn't recommend as they've put the excess up and only reason I can't change is buns are over 5) and that's £8 per mo, the other two are with Help U Cover, who I've had nothing but very positive dealings with claiming all the fees for Skye. I would really recommend them and I pay around £6 per month.

Agree with what the others are saying re having insurance full stop. It's literally saved the lives of my bunnies - without insurance, I would not have been able to pay for some of their treatments which have been in excess of £800, more like £1300.

However, it does seem expensive. I use Helpucover, which is £7something a month (£7.90, I think?) and allocates £2000 a year, same as Petplan I've never had anything but positive experiences with them either.

ok thanks everyone, i think my excess is 250 which i still couldn't afford that but your probably right, cos you never know whats round the corner, thank you.

Maybe get some quotes from elsewhere and then call them up and query the price - they might drop it. I think you've a certain number of days you can cancel within.

dbownes said:

ok thanks everyone, i think my excess is 250 which i still couldn't afford that but your probably right, cos you never know whats round the corner, thank you.

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£250 excess per condition/policy year? That seems extortionate to me! I pay £45 per condition, per policy year! :?

Are you sure you haven't accidentally selected elephant instead of rabbit from the dropdown, it does seem a little expensive for two young healthy bunnies, plus a high excess - usually paying more per month lowers your excess.

dbownes said:

ok thanks everyone, i think my excess is 250 which i still couldn't afford that but your probably right, cos you never know whats round the corner, thank you.

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:shock: How much??!!!! The excess for my horse is only £160!!

With all due respect I think you need to go over your quote and check it as you've got to have done something wrong as that excess is ridiculously high. My excess is £50 per bunny per premium year and my horse is £160, so £250 for one rabbit is seriously over the top.

Stator said:

The care plan your vet offers won't include treatment of illness, it will just be for the preventative treatments like vaccinations and healthchecks.

Insurance is important because you never know when they are going to get sick and it can cost a bomb. PetPlan is a good choice because if they get sick you can keep claiming every year, as long as you pay the premiums. If you wait until they get sick the insurance won't cover any condition they already head.

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Can I jump in and ask a question?!

Lola had one episode of stasis which wasn't really stasis, she went off food because she was grieving for Ralph, but I obviously took her to the vets several times because this went on for weeks, and she had all the medicines and I was syringing her food because she wouldn't eat.

Now she has a new partner so I'm getting them both insured! Can you explain to me about the pre-existing conditions etc? Would they not pay out if she had any GI problem??

I've tried reading the T and C but it's not clear to me.

I phoned Petplan today about Bramble, I already have Willow insured with them. they are insuring him for £11.77 pm, excess £55.00.. Including a multipet discount.

Both of them £22 .00 per month. Last month, when Smudge was ill... they paid out £200.00 more than his annual premium.. It os worth it,,,

Fee x

I just got a quote for a 2 year old rabbit in my area of London, from Petplan. It was £27.27 for ONE rabbit, with an £80 excess.

This is quite a hefty price, I feel. Going to look into Helpucover ... :shock:

This includes the 10% online discount for 1st year only - so it would be above £30 next year without it :shock::shock:

Last time I had insurance I went through Pets at Home, it was about £6.90 per bun. The excess was £75 and considering I'd had the insurance 1 month, and then my Bun Domino became unwell and I was landed with a bill of around £600, it was definitely worth having!! I had no problems claiming, everything was dealt with efficiently.

If you have just taken out the insurance you have a 14 day cooling off period I believe, If it were me I would do some more comparisons and switch out of the one you have signed up to!!

runhardlivelong said:

Can I jump in and ask a question?!

Lola had one episode of stasis which wasn't really stasis, she went off food because she was grieving for Ralph, but I obviously took her to the vets several times because this went on for weeks, and she had all the medicines and I was syringing her food because she wouldn't eat.

Now she has a new partner so I'm getting them both insured! Can you explain to me about the pre-existing conditions etc? Would they not pay out if she had any GI problem??

I've tried reading the T and C but it's not clear to me.

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You should tell them about the problem and they will decide if it counts as a pre-existing condition or not. Sometimes they will say that if it doesn't happen again in a year or two they will ignore it. They may ask you to send them the complete medical history, so you would get the vets to print it out for you and send it off.