First Time Pet Owners – Pet Insurance

When you buy a pet for the first time there is an awful lot of responsibility that comes with your new furry family member. You will have to account for the extra ‘mouth to feed’, maintain patience and perseverance to properly train your cat or dog and allocate time to ensure a happy and healthy pet. Another very important topic that you will have to get to grips with is insuring your new companion. This article will discuss why pet insurance is so vital, what kind of policy you should be looking for and where to look for it.

The primary purpose of buying pet insurance is to make sure that you are prepared for the unexpected. Once you have brought home your new friend it will quickly become apparent that he or she is now a part of your family and as such you will want to protect and care for them in the same manner you would for any other member of your family. There is only a certain amount of control, as a pet owner, that you can exercise over your companion’s well-being. Taking out a policy will ensure that your friend is covered should he or she fall ill or come to harm and you need to pay the vet’s fees. In addition to covering emergencies, a lot of pet insurance policies cover on-going medical conditions that your pet may develop and suffer from throughout their life. Having pet insurance for either of these scenarios will reduce the stress and worry that comes when facing ever-looming vet fees.

With the pet insurance business rapidly growing there are more than sixty providers to choose from. It can be a perplexing process when comparing a certain provider’s policies to another’s. The crucial thing to take note of is that each policy will include different benefits. Most company’s policies will provide a level of cover for veterinarian fees but what else should you look out for to make sure you get the best deal and also the best cover?

An imperative part of the policy you must decide upon is whether to take out a lifetime policy or a time limited policy. This is essential as time limited policies (usually lasting for 12 months) will only cover your cat or dog for that specific period of time. So if during those 12 months your pet developed an on-going condition such as arthritis or diabetes, then when that limited time was up you would no longer be covered by the insurance provider. Lifetime polices are there to ensure that your cat or dog is covered for on-going illnesses as well as any immediate injuries.

Equally important is whether a policy has public liability cover. People opt out of purchasing pet insurance with the reasoning of putting money by each month rather than paying a monthly premium. What they don’t realise is that if their dog was to cause an accident or injure someone then they would be liable for all the costs incurred. This can sometimes be thousands of pounds and having a pet insurance policy with public liability cover will ensure that you don’t have to pay the compensation yourself.

Other questions that will need to be answered when deciding on a policy include:

1. Can you pay for your premium by direct debit over the space of 12 months with 0% APR?

2. Will making a claim automatically increase the premium amount you pay?

3. Will the insurance provider cover your pet for life or only to a certain age such as 8 or 10?

4. Is a discount available for you if you take out a policy for more than one pet?

5. Does paying for a cheap introductory rate mean that the premiums will stay low in your second year or will they rapidly increase?

There are two ways in which you can purchase pet insurance. The first is buying direct from a provider through their website or on the phone. The second is using comparison websites such as compare the market, go compare, money super market and confused. There is no right or wrong way to purchase your policy but the comparison markets are great at getting you a good deal as they compare all of the different policies from the individual providers and apply them to your specific criteria.

As mentioned earlier on in the article, each competing pet insurance company will have a certain set of benefits that come with a policy. Be sure to keep checking back with this blog as there will be an article outlining our policy benefits in detail coming very soon.

To see our fantastic policies and more, head to our website that is shown below every quote we make online we’ll donate 50p to an animal charity with the goal of donating a million pound to animal charities by the end of 2012.