Pet Insurance

We, at the Animal Welfare Veterinary Clinic, strongly advise our clients to take out Pet Insurance for their pets. As standards of veterinary care rise and more advanced treatments and techniques to diagnose and treat your pet’s illnesses become available, so unfortunately do the costs involved to provide them.

Typical costs associated with road traffic accidents, abdominal surgery for foreign body removal, Cancer treatment, poisonings and ruptured cruciate ligament surgery can vary anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand euro. Other conditions such as Cardiac Disease, Diabetes Mellitus, Arthritis and Thyroid Illness can incur costs that continue for the lifetime of the animal.

For these reasons we increasingly find that owners are grateful to have taken out pet insurance before problems occur and they seldom regret the decision to insure.

There are currently 3 major insurance providers for pets in Ireland: Allianz, 123 and Petinsure. Each company offers a variety of policies at a variety of costs. Our advice is to do some research to see what policy best suits your needs.

• A policy should cover the costs of diagnosing and treating any accident, illness or injury that occurs to your pet.
• It is important to check what terms and conditions may apply to the policy as there may be an excess payable for each condition and a maximum annual benefit payable.
• Conditions already present when insurance is taken out will usually not be covered. Remember, if you change insurer, a previously covered condition may be deemed pre-existing by the new company and not be covered.
• Some insurers may decline to start insuring your pet if it is above a certain age (usually 8 years). However once insured before this age,they will provide insurance cover for the lifetime of the pet. Thus we advise you to begin insuring your pet when they are young and generally free of any pre-existing conditions.
• Certain things will not be covered as they are considered unavoidable costs associated with pet ownership e.g. vaccination, flea and worm control products, neutering and spaying, routine dental descaling and euthanasia.