Insurance

If your dog ever suffers from a back problem, veterinary treatment could be very expensive. For severe cases, most vets will want to carry out some diagnostic imaging (e.g. MRI, CT or Myelogram) and/or refer you to a Specialist. An MRI Scan could cost you £3000. If your dog requires surgery as well, the total cost of treatment could easily be in the range £6000 - £10000.

 

We strongly recommend that you either take out an insurance policy before your dog needs any treatment or ensure you have adequate funds available to pay for treatment if the worst happens.

 

Some Referral Specialists offer payment plans to help you spread the cost of treatment but do not assume this will be possible in every case.

 

If you are considering insuring your Dachshund, do your research into the different types of policy available. According to one survey, 1 in 3 owners had their claims declined because their policy simply didn't provide the cover they thought it would. The Telegraph published this useful Pet Insurance Guide

 

According to This is money, insurance cover costs an average of £261 per year depending on age, breed, and health. Average vet bills for people without insurance were £810, according to their survey.

 

Read the Which? guide to pet insurance.

 

If you decide not to insure your dog, you could consider setting up a monthly savings fund, just in case of an emergency. That's obviously a risk and most people can't have a "spare" £5,ooo, sitting in a bank account, just in case!

 

If you do find yourself facing a large, unexpected vet's bill, it's worth asking your vet if the practice is able to offer any form of payment plan to help you spread the cost. 

 

BoughtByMany claims to be the only insurer that will cover pre-existing conditions.

 

Article: How to choose the right insurance.

 

Read about insurance at www.dachshundhealth.org.uk

Insurance: a common question that comes up in our Facebook Group.

 

EVERYONE with a Dachshund should either have insurance or a way of paying out for at least £8k in the all too common event of an IVDD incident.

 

ANYONE that has insurance checks two clauses. Time and again, people get caught out when faced with the costs of an operation and rehab and find they aren’t covered at all or for only a couple of thousand pounds.
 

  1. Check your policy is for ‘lifetime cover’. This means if your dog gets IVDD when there is a previous vet record of back problems you should be covered.
  2. Make sure you are covered at an absolute minimum for £8k and preferably over £10k. The average cost of surgery and rehabilitation for IVDD is around £4-£5k, but some will cost a lot more.
  3. As with any policy, the devil is in the detail. Check the small print to see whether you are covered for more than one incident in a year - it does happen and the second one could be way more expensive than the first
  4. Is there a maximum pay-out on one incident? If you are only covered for say £2k per claim, you could end up with a big gap in your finances to fill.
  5. Don’t trust to luck and think that you can rely on GoFundMe to pay for it if you don’t insure. The Dachshund community are a caring lot but IVDD is all too common. For that reason, most of the big Dachshund Facebook groups now don’t allow GoFundMe appeals, especially for IVDD.


Please take responsibility for your dog. Financial circumstances can change, which means maintaining insurance premiums becomes impossible but don’t even think of buying a Dachshund if you can’t afford either to put £30+ away each month or have another way of paying for an operation if the worst happens. It’s heart-breaking to have to take a decision to let your dog go when you could have helped it, simply because you can’t afford to do it.

 

Read about insurance at www.dachshundhealth.org.uk

 

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If you have any queries or need more advice, please contact us by e-mail:


info@dachshund-ivdd.uk

 

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