We all want the best for our pets; it's only natural. When our pets are ill, we don't want to worry about how we afford the best of treatment. For this reason we at Ash Veterinary Surgery have always recommended pet insurance to our clients. It gives you the peace of mind to know that those unfortunate happenings in your pet's in life will be taken care of.

However, now we have gone one step further. Following an intensive training session, we have become a Petplan Appointed Representative Veterinary Practice. This means we are registered with the financial services authority to advise on Petplan policies, help your complete your Petplan claim forms and even sort out direct claims. Petplan is the only insurance company which offers this type of support to the veterinary profession. It will make it much easier for us to offer a better service to our Petplan insured clients.

What does this mean for you? Well Petplan insure 45% of the which are insured in the UK, meaning that they are the biggest animal insurance company in the country. Unlike many of the other insurance companies, they only insure animals, meaning that they are interested in your pet.

Since it is far more likely that you will claim on pet insurance than house or car insurance, you want to make sure it will look after you when you need.

As with any insurance, pet plan will charge you an excess each year on each condition. However what they offer, which most insurance companies do not is "cover for life." This means that if your animal if insured before it suffers from that particular problem, you will be covered for that problem for the whole of your animal's life.

Many, cheaper, insurance policies cover you for a year, then exclude anything you have claimed for, meaning that you gradually run out of cover. Others give you only a certain amount of cover for each condition for the whole of your animal's life. If your pet develops a condition like diabetes or heart disease, where your pet will need treatment for the rest of their life, you can find you quickly run out of cover.

With Petplan, your capped amount of up to £12,000 per condition is renewed yearly, meaning much more cover for your pet. (The exact level of cover depends on which policy you take out)

Our staff insure their own animals with Petplan, because we are happy with the cover we receive.

There is a good article about pet insurance on the money website lovemoney.