a warning regarding Insurance!

phew that was close.

we have never had Wilson insured, we always said if anything happened we would just pay out. thankfully he has been very healthy, just a few minor things throughout his life. He had panosteitis when he was growing, but once his growing settled that did too and a couple of years ago he got a haemotoma (excuse the spelling) in his ear, so he had to have that drained.
Anyway now we have a 2nd (emma)St. we decided insurance would probably be a better option. so i plowed through all the different policies and finally settled on a platinum policy with Animal friends.
Acouple of weeks ago I saw a lump on Wilsons face and watched it over a week or so period before deciding I didn't like the look of it and would get it checked out. We went to our vets, who is very very good, but definitely not the cheapest vet i've used. the vet decided it would be best to have it removed along with 3 fatty lumps on his back and a scale and polish on his teeth whilst he is asleep. total cost £750. the vet told us that they would carry out the procedure then put the claim in unless the underwriters of our policy was EandL. Also he didn't know whether they would treat as 1 claim or all seperate claims therefore us having to pay the excess for each part of the procedure.
we came home read the policy. not EandL but Redsands...great, no problem. so I called into the surgery with the paperwork, the nurse looked through it and said Redsands is another name used by EandL aaaggghhh!
On returning home I telephoned Animal Friends and they said they no longer use E and L and they would class all the lumps as one claim. excellent! We now have Wilson booked in for Tuesday morning with the piece of mind that we only have to pay the excess oh and they don't cover cosmetic dental work so we are also paying that part out.
Just goes to show how careful you need to be when taking out insurance policies. don't presume that just because you are paying a good price, when it comes down to making a claim you could still be facing a hefty bill.
now my only worry is that the lumps are all just part of growing old and nothing more sinister.

we dont have any of ours insured, but we have 9!

i hope the ops go well, will the vet be sending the lumps off for testing once removed?

cheri xxx

yes. the 3 on his back i'm not concened about. they've been there for ages. not grown or become nasty looking, almost sure they are something like a subaceauos cyst. the one on his face, appeared suddenly and grew to the size of a 5pence piece. this is the worrying one, but he said not to worry, it could be fine, but nobody knows until the labs have tested it. Its his birthday on the 17th so he should be recovered by then. (hopefully)

wilson had his surgery yesterday and appears to be recovering nicely. he was a bit whoozy after the anesthetic, but seems to be his normal self today. they actually found 4 lumps on his back as well as the one on his face. won't get the results for at least a week, because of the bank holiday weekend, but fingers crossed they are just cysts.

Is it advisable and practical to get a dog insurance? Some say it's just a waste of money.