Pet insurance: what actually gets excluded

Pet insurance is one of the few purchases where the decision you make in the first fortnight is irreversible. Get it wrong and you find out four years later, in a consulting room, with a five-figure estimate.

The four decisions

1. Lifetime, or not. There are broadly four kinds of policy:

• Accident only. Cheap, and covers almost nothing that actually happens.
• Time limited. Covers a condition for 12 months from first signs, then never again.
• Maximum benefit. Covers a condition up to a fixed sum, with no time limit, then never again.
• Lifetime. A pot that refreshes every year, for the life of the animal.

For anything chronic - arthritis, diabetes, atopic skin disease, epilepsy, most cancers - only lifetime cover is any use, because those conditions do not resolve in twelve months. It costs more and it is the only one worth buying for most people.

2. Insure before anything happens. Every policy excludes pre-existing conditions, and the definition is wider than people expect: anything that showed signs before cover started, or during the waiting period, whether or not it was diagnosed. A limp at ten weeks that the breeder mentioned can exclude that joint for life. Insure the day the animal is yours.

3. Never switch insurers casually. A new insurer treats everything that has happened so far as pre-existing. If your animal has had so much as an ear infection, switching may leave that excluded permanently. Shop hard at the start; after that, expect to stay.

4. Read the excess structure. Many policies charge a fixed excess plus a percentage co-payment once the animal is older, often from eight or nine. A £150 excess with 20% co-payment on a £4,000 cruciate surgery leaves you paying £920.

What is almost always excluded

• Pre-existing conditions.
• Routine and preventative care: vaccinations, worming, flea treatment, nail clips.
• Neutering and spaying.
• Dental, unless it follows an accident. Some policies cover dental disease if you have had annual check-ups; most do not.
• Pregnancy and whelping.
• Behavioural treatment, on cheaper policies.
• Conditions considered conformational - which is the clause that matters if you own a brachycephalic breed, because BOAS surgery is frequently refused on exactly that ground.

The breed effect

Premiums vary enormously by breed and the variation is telling you something. A crossbreed of unremarkable ancestry might be £15 a month. A French Bulldog or an English Bulldog can be £60-£100 and rising steeply with age. A giant breed is expensive because everything about it is expensive.

If a breed's insurance is startling, that is the market pricing its health record, and it is worth reading as information rather than as an obstacle.

The alternative nobody recommends but plenty do

Self-insuring: paying the premium into a savings account instead. It works if you are disciplined and if you would be able to find £6,000 at short notice in year two. Most people are not and could not, which is why insurance exists. If you do self-insure, do it properly - a standing order, a separate account, untouched.

What to do this week

Buy lifetime cover with a per-condition limit you could not cover yourself - £7,000 or more is sensible for a dog. Set it up before you collect. Read the conformational-conditions wording if you are buying a flat-faced breed. Then put the policy number somewhere you will find it at 11pm.