But apparently not if you insure pets with More Than. Last year Piipin's premium (3 year old bearded collie) was £326.94. Today we received the annual renewal notice - £823.89!!!!!

OK, she did have an op in the year, but that's over and done but it seems More Than want to get the whole cost back in one year's premium. So why bother insuring if they're going to do that?

Have you got the lifetime insurance. That obviously costs more but they are now looking at the possible liability for the remaining life of your collie. If you had the time limited insurance I would expect no increase. The problem is you can only get lifetime insurance while the dog is young, hence you would have to keep it going no matter what if you want to continue it into older age. My yorkies insurance doubled even though I never claimed. I told them to stuff it and invested the money instead for 7 years. We were lucky really because I didn't realise the incredible costs of continued care if I needed it. Also if you make a claim on lifetime insurance you have to pay the excess for each claim for every year thereafter. If you want to risk it you need to consider what you are prepared to do if the worst happens.

We stopped insuring our boy beardie, Jack, about five years ago because the premiums got silly. We have had to fork out on him recently and he's been diagnosed with Cushings and the medication is £90 per month but we've saved a lot more by not insuring him.

We had the same with Billy our Staffy, as soon as he reached eight the premium more than doubled . It cost more than my car insurance, we decided to stop it and just save the money for any future vet bills.

We stopped insuring our four labs about six years ago when the premiums reached over £750 each. Since then we've had several expensive vet bills but overall we have saved a substantial sum of money.

Well a vet gets presented with more variants on life than a doctor.I mean, horses, goldfish, cows, sheep, dogs, cats, meerkats, parrots, guinea pigs, etc,etc.

Also, a vet can't ask his/her patient what symptoms they are experiencing so making diagnosis more difficult.