Unexpected Vet bills can be expensive and insurance for your dog is highly recommended in the UK but what about when you go abroad?
Scrappy has been insured with Pet Protect since he was a puppy.
Luckily we’ve only had to use it once so far (when he decided to eat something in the garden that he shouldn’t have done…cutting a long story short; his tummy had to be sliced open and stitched back together, it’s now nicely healed and all is well with a scar to prove it!)
We rang Pet Protect to notify them of our plans to go travelling after reading the small print in our documents.
Unfortunately, they are only able to provide up to one months cover abroad. This was far from ideal for us as we planned to be away for months if not years!
After spending hours looking at all the different pet insurances on offer and even looking into foreign pet insurance – I didn’t get anywhere.
No British insurer was able to provide cover abroad for any length of time.
This gave us a bit of a dilemma… do we take the one month of cover allowed then self insure after that, do we leave Scrappy behind in the UK and find him a new home to make sure he is covered in case he gets ill or do we abandon the trip?!
After a lot of discussion, we decided that leaving Scrappy behind was not an option for us – he’s part of our family.
We also didn’t want to abandon our trip as we’d spent years planning and saving so we could live our dream life.
That left us with one option.
Take the one month of cover our insurer allowed abroad and then watch Scrappy like a hawk while also making sure we had some money put aside to pay for any treatment that may be needed in the future!
Once we reached Jersey, we were able to re-insure him again with Pet Protect and due to a change in how they charge, we now pay nearly half the price we used to – result!
I have to admit, I felt a lot happier when we were able to re-insure him even though we’ve only had to use our insurance once so far with Scrappy over the past five years (touch wood!).
It’s kind of like wearing leathers when you go on a motorbike – they’re there if you need them but you hope to God that you don’t!
The search for insurance abroad continues.
Have you managed to find anyone to insure your dog abroad? I’d love to hear if you have so we can get Scrappy insured before we leave the UK again!