Pet Insurance: I'm shopping around

27-08-2010 5:11pm #1

Just thought I'd share this. My two year old microchipped Cav has been insured with Allianz for almost two years now and I've noticed the premium creeping up. I got a letter this morning with the premium for a new year as well as an updated policy on excess which would ultimately result in higher payments on my part if I was to make a claim.

The two biggest items for me when it comes to pet insurance is veterinary cover as the result of an accident and third party liability in the case of my dog causing an accident or damaging someone else's property.

I know there are a few threads on here asking about different insurance providers so I just want to share the premium I have with Allianz verses the one I'm considering with Petinsure.ie just so people can have a look if they're comparing themselves. I'm not in anyway connected with either company.

The quotes are for a 2 year old female, PB Cavalier King Charles who has been microchipped.

Allianz
Item covered/Amount

Veterinary Fees/€4000
Training Aids/€50
Advertising and Reward for lost dog/€500
Boarding Kennel (in case of hospitalisation of owner)/€1000
Daily rate (to get some in as above instead of kennel)/€4 per day
Theft or Straying/€1000
Death from Injury/€1000
Death from Illness/€1000
Holiday cancellation/€1000
Third party damage liability/€250k

Excesses: Standard is €100. Excess on Third party damage is €350.

There are no discounts for microchipping etc. as this would be my third year with Allianz.

Petinsure.ie
Item covered/Amount

Veterinary Fees/€3500
Training Aids/Not covered
Advertising and Reward for lost dog/€500
Boarding Kennel (in case of hospitalisation of owner)/€800
Daily rate (to get some in as above instead of kennel)/€5 per day
Theft or Straying/€800
Death from Injury/€800
Death from Illness/€800
Holiday cancellation/€800
Third party damage liability/€250k

Excesses: Standard is €60. Excess on Third party damage is also €60.

They're giving me a €20 discount for buying online and another €15 because the dog's microchipped. These are once-off introductory discounts

Annual Premiums
Allianz- €258.93
Petinsure- €170. This is after the discounts as outlined above. Premium for the following year will be €210.

Per month, this boils down to €21.58 with Allianz and €14.58 with Petinsure.ie.

The reason I went with Allianz day one is that they work directly with my vet in case of a claim but I had Petinsure talk me through their claims procedure and it seems fairly straight-forward.

Anyway, I'm still shopping around and will ring a few more places on Monday to see how they compare.

As I said, the most important things for me are the vet fees and third party. My theory behind this is that anything up to €1000 I could probably come up with myself but anything over that and I'll be very grateful for the insurance. If a lower premium and excess means a lower pay-out, I'm happy to consider it on the grounds that the short-fall will be manageable for me financially.

I'm also open to hearing from anyone with experience of Petinsure.ie; good or bad.

Knine · 27-08-2010 5:42pm

Hya thanks for your comparsion. I too compared prices and just could not justify the extra outlay for allianz. So I went with petinsure.ie. I liked the fact that the excess was less for petinsure. I had a claim earlier in the year and once my vet sent on the dogs past history, the claim was sorted out between them and the vets.

I look forward to the replies on this thread.

TanyaT · 28-08-2010 7:21pm

Hi, Im also with Allianz and have been for 3 years but this year i shopped around for cheaper Ins but im afraid i had to stay put as a new insurer will not insure any exsisting illness. Just something for u to bare in mind

tk123 · 28-08-2010 10:42pm

TanyaT wrote: »

Hi, Im also with Allianz and have been for 3 years but this year i shopped around for cheaper Ins but im afraid i had to stay put as a new insurer will not insure any exsisting illness. Just something for u to bare in mind

I don't have a choice either for the same reason. Our guy is 13 months and I reckon our claims this year came to around 1k so I can only imagine what the renewal will be! If we don't claim next year I wonder if the renewal will go down? :pac:

kiersm · 28-08-2010 10:57pm

I'm with Allianz as well and also have a Cav, its my 2nd yr with them and I have to say I've found them great cos we had loads of probs with the dog when we got him 1st, we were in & out to the vets for at least 6months with him. Every claim we made was sorted immediately and no probs. We got a 2nd dog this year and put him on the insurance as well so will have to wait and see how we got with him. The only thing i wasn't happy bout was that we don't get a discount for insuring two dogs has to be three or more!! Was kinda surprised at that cos that wasnt the impression you get on all the flyers etc.

Our excess is only €75 tho, I did think bout going with Petinsure but the fact that they won't insure existing illness will be a prob from me.

tk123 · 28-08-2010 11:40pm

You're right kiersm it's so easy with Allianz - just sign the form and the vets do the rest!

boomerang · 29-08-2010 12:09am

How does your vet handle your claims? Some will only ask you to pay the excess and then get the cheque from Allianz made out to them directly, having sent in the claim form for you. My old vets used to work this way and it was great.

My current vet makes me pay for everything up front and then claim it back, which is difficult for me as I am extremely broke at the moment and have to put it all on my Visa card. The settlement cheque from Allianz can take up to a month to arrive!

tk123 · 29-08-2010 12:24am

I just pay the excess and sign the form and they submit it.

29-08-2010 2:12am

kiersm wrote: »

I'm with Allianz... Our excess is only €75 tho

So was mine and it's gone up to €100 this year :mad: That's for a dog with no existing conditions, or condition of any type come to think of it and we've never once made a claim. I think that's what sent me over the edge and finally made me get my ass into gear and shop around. I know it's not easy for everyone to pay upfront and then wait for the claim cheque to come in but I think it's something I could work around if I needed to. Like everyone else in the country, I don't have as much cash floating around these days so a smaller premium is a major plus for me.

kiersm · 29-08-2010 11:12am

Well I was v surprised our premium didnt jump this yr cos my Cav had about 3 or 4 claims on his ins, and it was great to have it cos it would have been very hard for us to come up with the money to pay for all the trips we had with him. We were v unlucky with him cos he was vv ill for a while.

All our vets do is make us pay the excess and then sign the form and they claim the rest I only know the claim has been paid when i get the letter from Allianz telling us.

tatli_lokma · 30-08-2010 2:21pm

Just saw that Argos are doing pet insurance now - not sure who its underwritten by...any one got any info?

antomagoo · 30-08-2010 5:04pm

Cincikchick wrote: »

Just saw that Argos are doing pet insurance now - not sure who its underwritten by...any one got any info?

They dont quote for any dog on the RB list as far as I can see, this might have to do with them being an English setup and the dogs on our RB list are the equivalent to Dangerous Dogs over there and they wont insure them. Open to correction:)

TaraR · 30-08-2010 6:55pm

Are there any pet insurance company's that insure Pitbulls? Im able to insure my 3 Staffys but not sure about my Pitty

tk123 · 30-08-2010 9:34pm

Our renewal came today - €248 and €100 excess. Very very releaved because I thought I'd be way more after all the claims!

andreac · 01-09-2010 6:38pm

Got my renewal today with Allianz, last year it was 292, its gone up to 375 with excess of 100 now!! Not a chance they are getting that off me so going to ring petinsure and see what story is with them.

Does anyone know if you can pay monthly with petinsure?

01-09-2010 8:46pm

andreac wrote: »

Does anyone know if you can pay monthly with petinsure?

You can via direct debit which is what we had with Allianz anyway.

Need to ring Allianz tomorrow and cancel my policy and get sorted with Petinsure.

falabo · 02-09-2010 9:34am

Hi andrea

yes you can pay monthly, my girsl are with pet insure. it works out €14.58 for each dog

Glad I took up the insurance as the leg injury has already cost me €288 and thats just the start. I will only have to pay the excess (€60 which is the lowest on the market)

Wisco · 02-09-2010 3:34pm

Have heard of more and more people going to petinsure, but I personally have less experience with them. All Allianz excesses have increased to €100, although I don't know if they actually notified all policy holders.
Also, with regard to payment to vets, it's up to the practice whether they accept direct payments from the insurance company (some places won't as they end up never getting paid if the claim is invalid for some reason) or whether you pay the cost up front and then get refunded from insurance.

ABajaninCork · 06-09-2010 8:31pm

I've been following this thread with interest as my dog's insured with Allianz.

Got my renewal through this morning and it was for the same E258.93!!:eek: My dog is an 18 month old Shih Tzu who is fully vaccinated and microchipped. We've never claimed and I think the amount is outrageous!!:mad:

Called Allianz and asked why the premium jumped by 19%. They then got the quote down to E233 which is what we've been paying.

I've checked out Pet Insure and just got a quote for E175! You can pay by DD and there's no extra charge for this. However, the discounts I got were 'one-offs' i.e. E20 online discount, and more off for the microchip. Dunno how much the premium will be next year, but I'm willing to take the chance with Pet Insure. The excess is far lower too at just E60.

tatli_lokma · 07-09-2010 9:57am

Just got quotes for our kitten as follows:

123.ie: €46.52 for accident only or €99.70 full cover, with excess on both of €69 (extra 15% if cat is over 8 yrs)

Argos: €58.78 for silver cover, €65.37 for gold. €75 excess.

Pet insure: €94 for the care plus plan with €100 excess

Allianz: €118.11 with €100 excess.

Are allianz taking the Pi$$ or what? she is a 3 mth old, moggie kitten, spayed, will be microchipped.

Argos Gold package is better than either petinsure or allianz - up to €5000 vet fees. Even the silver isn't bad TBH, with €2500 vet fees.

Think that is where I'll be going!

moving_home · 07-09-2010 10:19am

Can someone give me a link for Argos pet insurance for Ireland? everytime I got to get a quote I seem to be doing it on the UK site.

thanks.

antomagoo · 07-09-2010 3:17pm

moving_home wrote: »

Can someone give me a link for Argos pet insurance for Ireland? everytime I got to get a quote I seem to be doing it on the UK site.

thanks.

It's a UK company AFAIK. Clicking on the link for the .ie site just redirects to the .uk site

tatli_lokma · 07-09-2010 3:41pm

argos

its a UK company, but the cover is for Ireland. It is open to Ireland, I have seen the leaflets in the Dublin stores. Prices are in Euro and the area's on the drop down are Irish.

CamillaRhodes · 09-09-2010 9:31pm

Big thanks for doing the shopping around for me, Cincikchick! I've been meaning to get insurance for my two moggies for some time, just bought Argos gold cover for both of them on your recommendation. Very happy with the level of cover they offer, and for 60-odd euro a year (per cat) it's well worth it for the peace of mind.

Now I just hope that money is down the drain and I never have to claim on it!

tatli_lokma · 10-09-2010 10:18am

CamillaRhodes wrote: »

Big thanks for doing the shopping around for me, Cincikchick! I've

glad to be of service!

Molberts · 10-09-2010 11:29am

would have been going into my 8th year with allianz his month. Got the letter with the higher premium and excess (I have 3 mixed breed dogs who thankfully have never been seriously ill) so went to petinsure instead.

Cheaper than even the old allianz rate, lower excess, and I've heard the money for claims is processed a lot quicker too, I've waited months for allianz cheques before for the odd little claim weve had.

woohoo!

funkyjebus · 10-09-2010 2:27pm

yeah, got my renewal letter from allianz a few days ago, i couldnt believe the increase in both premium and deductable. got my quote from petinsure and now im off to allianz to tell them to cop on or they will be loosing alot of business.

cheers to the petinsure heaps up.

maisling · 04-11-2010 8:01pm

I was interested in the last post as my fella is 7 yrs old now, have been with Alliance since a pup and thought the cost was well worth it. However got my renewal notice today and couldn't believe that it has gone up from €14 to €26 per month.......scandalous ! Was checking out forums here re petinsurance.ie and the age thing was about to put me off until I found this on their website

''If my pet becomes very old or very ill, will you still offer to insure him or her?
Dogs can be accepted up to the age of 8, cats up to 8 and rabbits up
to 8. Once insured you may continue your pet's cover for life with annual
renewals so that no matter how ill your pet becomes or however many claims you make, your maximum benefit will be fully reinstated when you renew your policy''

Maybe I misunderstood previous post ?

EraseAndRewind · 04-11-2010 8:36pm

im with petinsure.ie and i pay monthly by direct debit

found them to be the most reasonable

suraheg · 04-11-2010 9:52pm

Hey guys,

Am a vet nurse and have had a good few people recently asking which ones i recommend. I usually go with the two most people are using and have found good at settling claims. Allianz and Petinsure.ie. I know theres more (petinsurance.ie, argos and 123.ie) I've had a few people come into me with 123.ie but they are very choosey with what they do and dont cover, and most people dont realise until they have a big bill that needs paying. About 95% of the claims i process are Allianz and I rarely have problems with them. Sometimes they are a bit slow but they tend to pay up once called. And same with petinsure.ie, I have never had one problem with them. Personally my dog is with Allianz, i think it works out about 13euro a month! I know now theyve put up all the excesses to 100euro and age limits etc.

Let me know what you guys think

funkyjebus · 05-11-2010 10:28am

maisling wrote: »

I was interested in the last post as my fella is 7 yrs old now, have been with Alliance since a pup and thought the cost was well worth it. However got my renewal notice today and couldn't believe that it has gone up from €14 to €26 per month.......scandalous ! Was checking out forums here re petinsurance.ie and the age thing was about to put me off until I found this on their website

''If my pet becomes very old or very ill, will you still offer to insure him or her?
Dogs can be accepted up to the age of 8, cats up to 8 and rabbits up
to 8. Once insured you may continue your pet's cover for life with annual
renewals so that no matter how ill your pet becomes or however many claims you make, your maximum benefit will be fully reinstated when you renew your policy''

Maybe I misunderstood previous post ?

perhaps i should have given it more than a quick glance. if that is whats stated then it would appear that cover continues until death once incepted before the eight birthday. might have to give it another look

Pet Insurance: I'm shopping around

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