Puppy insurance for puppies

We can cover puppies from just four weeks old. A lot of other insurance providers will only cover pups aged six to eight weeks, but we want to make sure you have peace of mind as early as possible. You can also choose the start date for your policy, so if you know the date you’ll welcome your puppy home you can sort out your insurance to start as soon as they arrive. Just remember that you can't claim for accidents for in the first 48 hours and illnesses in the first 14 days of your policy.

Puppies are a pretty accident-prone bunch.

Of all the dog insurance claims we received from 1 November 2020 to 31 October 2021, 26% of them were for pups under a year old. Nearly a quarter of those puppy claims were for accidents.

It’s a good idea to take out pet insurance as early in your pet’s life as you can so that more conditions will be covered by your policy. If you wait and take out insurance after your dog has already had treatment your insurer is likely to exclude that issue and related conditions because they’ll be classed as pre-existing.

Your puppy can explore your garden straight away as long as it’s safe (check those fences!), your vet says it’s fine and the garden isn’t used by unvaccinated dogs. But it’s a good idea to wait until a week after their second vaccinations before taking them out for walks.

It’s important to make sure you follow your vet’s advice on vaccinations and taking care of your puppy before they’re fully protected. Diseases like distemper and parvovirus can be devastating in puppies and you could have an insurance claim rejected if your dog catches them before they’ve been vaccinated.

It’s a misconception about puppies and insurance that you won’t have to worry about cover for pre-existing conditions because they’re too young to have been poorly in the past.

Sadly, dogs can develop an illness at any age and some pups will be born with health issues. And as soon as they’re noted by a vet on your puppy’s veterinary records, it’ll become a pre-existing condition for insurance if you don’t already have a policy.

That’s one of the reasons why we cover pups from four weeks old – we want you to have peace of mind from the moment they join your family. 

But if a vet has already noticed a health condition in your pup before you have cover, the good news is we can still cover it in two ways:

1. A Complete, Regular or Value policy, won’t cover the condition until two years after it ends. But as long as your puppy has no signs or symptoms or needs no treatment, medication or advice from a vet for the condition for two years, we’ll cover it in the future just as we would a new condition if it crops up again. 

2. If you’re insuring an older pup who’s had no signs or symptoms, treatment, medication or advice in the previous three months you could get cover with our Pre-existing policy. If your pet has had signs or symptoms, treatment, medication or advice within the last three months, the condition will need to be free from these for three months before you can claim for it. For Pre-existing conditions you'll receive £1,500 in the first two years of cover. That changes to £7,000 from year three if you've not claimed for that condition.

Some breeders and rescues send their pups to new homes with a few weeks’ insurance cover, but check any documents carefully to find out what you’re getting and how long it lasts. If you arrange cover with us as soon as your free puppy insurance expires, you’ll be covered immediately as long as there’s no gap between the two policies.

The cost to insure your puppy depends on things like their breed, size and even where you live. The best way to find out how much insurance will cost for your pup is to get some quotes – it only takes a few minute.

Thankfully, puppy theft is rare, but our Complete policy includes cover for the cost of advertising and reward of lost or stolen dogs as standard and you can add that cover as an optional extra to all our other policies.