A breed apart for vet bills
Why insurance premiums for nation’s next top dog are set to rise by a third
PET LOVERS planning to buy Britain’s most fashionable dogs will have to deal with steep insurance premiums if they want to avoid expensive trips to vets in the future. French bulldogs, which are set to become Britain’s most popular breed, now cost an average of £495 a year to insure.
Premiums for the breed, poised to overtake the labrador as Britain’s favourite according to The Kennel Club, have risen 32 per cent in a year compared with just a 3 per cent rise across all breeds.
The average annual insurance premium for a dog is now £279, with Jack Russells costing £197 to insure and cockapoos – a mixed breed between a cocker spaniel and a poodle – £172.
Rose Howarth, insurance expert at financial comparison website MoneySuperMarket, says: ‘French bulldogs are adorable little dogs, but prone to a lot of health issues, so it requires a hefty premium to insure them.
‘Some breeds attract low premiums and these are the ones that tend to have fewer health issues when older. It is a factor you should consider when buying a dog for your family.’
The cost of insuring pets is rising as new technology, combined with a fondness for pedigree breeds, has made treatments more expensive.
‘Other types of insurance, such as car cover, go up and down in price but pet insurance just seems to go up and up,’ says Howarth.
Some insurers, such as Axa, have pulled out of the market, making it difficult for existing customers whose pets have an ongoing health issue to find alternative cover.
New research from Marks & Spencer indicates that many owners do not insure their pet, leaving them exposed to vets’ bills.
Half of owners do not have insurance despite 40 per cent saying they would not be able to pay the average vet’s bill of around £700.
The most common reason for not having a policy is that insurance is not seen as providing value for money. The survey shows that 39 per cent of dog owners and 62 per cent of cat owners do not have any insurance.
Paul Stokes, head of products at M&S Bank, says: ‘We are a petloving nation, so it is perhaps surprising that less than half of pet owners have insurance.’
Some pet insurance is a source of dissatisfaction. The latest data from the Financial Ombudsman Service indicates a 38 per cent increase in complaints about pet policies in the past year.
Over a quarter of these were upheld, with the Ombudsman saying most centred on insurers refusing to pay out over pre-existing conditions.
Howarth says pet owners need to be careful to buy the right cover. They have a wide choice with lifetime cover being the most comprehensive. This insures a pet for its entire life for any condition.
Cheaper policies cap the amount that is paid out annually for any one condition or may exclude a condition permanently once a financial limit has been reached.
The cheapest policies cover accidents only, not sickness.
Howarth warns that it can be difficult to get insurance for pets that have a pre-existing condition. Pet owners who have already claimed may have no option but to stick with their current insurer, even if premiums are rising.
If switching insurer or covering a pet for the first time, she recommends disclosing every past medical issue.
She adds: ‘Some insurers are quite specific, others less so. For example, if a dog has had a hip problem, some insurers will exclude the other hip from cover while rivals will not.’
Some insurers are trialling new schemes to keep costs down. RSA, which owns the More Than brand of insurance, demands that customers use its own network of preferred vets. By doing this, the group can reduce bills for treatment, resulting in lower premiums.
RSA recently invested in PitPat, a Fitbit-style tracker for dogs. These could be used in future to bring down insurance premiums for dogs with healthy lifestyles, in the same way as telematics-based policies keep down costs for car drivers.