Marks and Spencer Dog Insurance

[Aspiring]

Just a warning re the above - they have recently changed their underwriters, and my Leonberger's insurance premium has more than doubled this year - to £85 a MONTH! She is now 7 years old, and I changed from Petplan, who I insured my previous dog with (at £24 a month 7 years ago) to M & S, as they offered the same cover for £8 a month. They gradually increased to about £12 a month over the first 5 years, which I thought was reasonable, then 2 years ago, it shot up £24 a month, then last year £42 a month, and this year a whopping £85 a month. This dog has had one claim last year (£120 for treatment for cystitis) but this seems ridiculous! I checked with Petplan, and for the same cover they would have been £45 a month now. (I can not switch back to them, as being a giant breed, you need to take out insurance before the age of 5) but in 7 years, thay have not quite doubled, whereas M & S have gone up by 963%! (102% in the last year)

I have made claims with other dogs in the past, but even the biggest one was only just over £1000, which is less than one year's insurance! I have decided that I am now going to put £85 a month away in a savings account, then if she needs it, I will have it, and if not I will have saved it (if you see what I mean!) The worst thing is that if I had to make a claim, from next year, I would have to pay the first £70 plus 20% of the bill, and they will not cover a lot of things after age 8! So if I had a claim for £1000, I would have to pay £270 anyway!

Have other companies had this kind of price hike?

 

[CAYLA]

We advise petplan insurance and all of our rescues go out with it, but alot of people who have adopted do decide to go cheaper and choose your m&S or tesco e,t,c, as they seem cheaper at the time, but they do seem to increase a heck of alot over the years and they know u are stumped to change when age becomes an issue, also alot of these insurers seems to only insure a condition for 12 months at a time, which is shocking!
If it sounds to good to be true it usually is.

 

[GinaGem]

We're with M&S and ours have gone up a few pounds every year but nothing like that! I've claimed twice through them and they've paid up very quickly which i like and their helpline has been very useful too. My only issue with them is that it costs me more to insure my 4 yr old male lurcher with no claims than it does to insure my 5 yr old female lurcher with two large claims - very odd!