How much does pet insurance cost?

Where you live, what kind of pet you own, their age, breed and the level of cover you need all have an impact on the cost of pet insurance. Because each and every pet is unique, there’s no one-size-fits-all price to insure your pet, so it’s important to find out which policy is right for you and your new best friend.

You should also always ask if you will pay more for claiming as sometimes what seems like a 'good deal' in the beginning can change significantly if your pet needs treatment. Petplan's Claims Pricing Guarantee means you'll never pay more for claiming.

At Petplan we design our policies to pay out and use our unrivalled knowledge to price policies accurately for each individual pet. There are a number of factors that impact the price such as the age, breed and location of the pet but with Petplan you won't pay more for claiming. In fact if your pet needs treatment we want you to claim. You can find out more about our Claims Pricing Guarantee.

Premiums increase every year as pets get older and the cost of treating pets increases over time. We pay 97% of all the claims we receive so need to make sure that the cost of policies allows us to meet the cost of claims.

We offer two different types of pet insurance - our Covered For Life® plan provides ongoing help with vet bills and our Essential plan provides short-term help with vet bills.

Our Covered For Life® plan provides a choice of £4k, £7k or £12k every year for vet bills. Your chosen amount refreshes every year when you renew your policy allowing you to continue to claim for the same condition year after year providing there is no break in cover. This plan provides ongoing help with vet bills supporting you with long term conditions such as eczema and diabetes throughout your pets lifetime.

Our Essential plan covers 12 months treatment up to £3,000 per illness/injury. Once you reach either of those limits the condition is no longer covered and you will need to fund any further treatment yourself. You can however still claim for new conditions.

The plan you choose impacts the price of your policy but on both plans you won't pay more for claiming.

There are some things that we don't cover on any of our plans:

• Some pre-existing conditions. Before taking out your pet insurance you must tell us about any prior illnesses or injuries your pet has had. We will then decide whether we can provide cover for this condition or not. Any exclusion from cover placed on your policy will be stated clearly on your Certificate of Insurance.
• An illness that starts in the first 14 days after your policy starts. This only applies in your first policy year and doesn’t apply in future years as long as you renew your policy with us.
• Any illness or injury that lasts for longer or costs more than we’ve said we’ll pay for in your policy.
• Having your pet cremated or buried.
• Charges you might face for supplying supporting documents or claim forms.

Whether you have chosen the Covered For Life® or Essential plan you will receive an annual renewal notice.

If you pay your premium by direct debit, we’ll automatically renew your cover at the end of your policy year. So, if you don’t want to renew, you just need to let us know before that date.

The excess is the amount you need to contribute to the cost of a claim.

If you have our Essential plan your policy covers treatment costs for 12 months up to £3,000 per illness or injury. You would need to pay an excess for each illness/injury.

If you have one of our Covered For Life® plans you can claim up to the Vet Bills amount you chose each year - £4k per year, £7k per year or £12k per year.

You would need to pay an excess for each condition each policy year.

To help keep premiums affordable, as your pet gets older you will need to contribute more towards the cost of your claim. You'll pay 20% of all pet treatments on top of your fixed excess. We’ll remind you of this a year before it happens.

You can check your excesses at any time on your Certificate of Insurance.

If you’re lucky enough to have more than one pet in your life, you can insure them all for less with multi-pet insurance. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a dog, cat or rabbit: for each animal you’ll receive a £12 discount per pet on your premium for as long as you insure multiple pets with us.

For example, if you have a single dog insurance policy, single cat insurance policy and single rabbit insurance policy, you’ll save £36 a year on your insurance.

If you buy your insurance through the Petplan website, you will get at least 10% off online. This is automatically deducted from the premium given and this discount is applicable for the first year only.

Cheap policies can sometimes cost you more in the long run as they have more restrictive cover or charge you more for claiming. Some policies have additional limits within the cover for vet bills which may mean they don't cover the full cost of diagnostics or treating some conditions. In this instance you could find yourself having to fund more of your pet's treatment than expected.

We design our policies to pay out which is why we are able to pay 97% of all the claims we receive, and with Petplan you won't pay more for claiming. You can find out more about our Claims Pricing Guarantee here.