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'I've spent a small fortune on my dogs, but a £700 insurance bill is hard to stomach'
A 60% price hike from my pet insurer has prompted me to rethink how I protect against a hefty vet bill
As a doting servant to two canine masters, I’ve been known to spend a tad frivolously on my faithful friends.
A dog paddling pool they will use for the two days a year when it’s hot enough? Sure. A polka dot bandana for special occasions? Yes please.
Pet insurance, on the other hand, has always been on the ‘boring but necessary’ list of expenses. But I’m reconsidering just how necessary it is after the total cost of insuring both dogs has hit £682 a year. That’s more than our car insurance and home insurance combined.
'I'm paying 60% more than a year ago'
Last year, the monthly premium for Troy, our gangly rescue lurcher, was £24.65, but at renewal in January, it shot up to £39.45 – a 60% increase.
Like most policies, this one doesn’t cover any pre-existing conditions – and in the past 12 months we’d only made one small claim (a payout of £130 once we’d paid the excess) after a bout of zoomies in the park resulted in a wound on his side.
Price hike aside, the policy has treated us well, as the claims we’ve made have been processed promptly and smoothly by the insurer, Waggel. But if annual increases continue at the same rate, by the time Troy turns eight, we’ll be paying £259 a month.
Both Troy and our collie, Peggy, are still young (four) and in good health, so I hadn't expected their insurance bill to be this steep already.
Even though we'd made no claims for Peggy in 2025, the price of her policy went up 9% this year (from £15.92 a month to £17.39 a month).
- Find out more: best pet insurance providers 2026.
Why are pet insurance costs rising?
When I queried the price increase for Troy's policy via Waggel’s chatbot, I was reminded of the usual factors that can influence prices and told – somewhat ironically – that, ‘We apply gradual increases each year rather than sharp jumps at milestone ages.’
A record £1.23bn was paid out in claims in 2024, according to the latest data from the Association of British Insurers (ABI). This reflects a steep rise in vet prices, which the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says increased by 63% between 2016 and 2023.
Following its market investigation into the sector, the CMA has announced measures to improve pricing and transparency. These include a £21 cap on the cost of written prescriptions from vets, and a requirement for vet practices to publish price lists for standard services.
- Find out more: how to find cheap pet insurance.
My options for cutting costs
It's clear I'm not the only pet owner feeling the pinch. In our October 2025 survey of Which? members with pet insurance, 62% said their premium had increased in the past year, and 53% of these thought it had gone up by an unreasonable amount.
Here are the options I'm weighing up to bring down costs:
1. Reduce the level of cover
The maximum we can claim for Troy's vet bills in a year is currently set at £6,000, but halving that to £3,000 would reduce our monthly price from £39.45 to £29.81.
Given that we've never been close to hitting the £6,000 limit, this feels like a sensible move – I'll just need to pray to the pet gods that he doesn't end up needing major surgery. Reducing the cover limit to £2,000 would take the price down further – to £22.22 a month.
- Find out more: different types of pet insurance explained.
2. Increase the excess
The excess on Troy's current policy is a relatively low £100, which has been welcome when we've needed to make a claim, but it's also contributing to the relatively high price we're paying each month. By increasing the excess to £200, the monthly cost would go down from £39.45 to £35.69 (assuming we stick with a £6,000 cover limit).
Halving the cover limit to £3,000 and increasing the excess to £200 would take our monthly cost to a much more manageable £21.64 – a reduction of 45%.
3. Self-insure
Instead of paying hundreds of pounds a year to an insurer, I could tuck this money away in a savings account to build up a fund to cover future vet costs. The risk is that I get hit with a shock bill before I've built up enough to cover it.
The ABI says that the average claim cost is £685, but of course, some vet bills can be much higher. For example, the cost of care needed when a pet eats something they shouldn’t is around £4,000.
- Find out more: is self-insurance ever a good idea?
