Dachshund insurance is a great way to protect yourself from high vet fees if your Dachshund falls ill or is injured.

At EmeraldPet we provide comprehensive dachshund insurance from when your puppy is just eight weeks old with no upper age limit to start cover. We provide cover for a wide range of medical conditions.

Our four levels of flexible cover start from £1000 of vet fees per year up to £7500. This is a lifetime policy which means that medical conditions that develop as your Dachshund ages are covered providing you keep renewing the cover.

In addition to vet fees we offer complementary treatments such as clinical diets, chiropractic treatments and hydrotherapy.

Optional extras include missing pet advertising and reward costs, emergency daily minding fees if you are hospitalised and holiday cancellation if your Dachshund needs urgent surgery.

We have also recently introduced FirstVet, allowing you to get a free vet video consultation to get any concerns seen to fast without you having to leave home.

If you have multiple Dachshunds, or other pets for that matter, you can benefit from our 10% multi pet discount for owners of multiple pets.

How Healthy Are Dachshunds?

The Dachshund breed is generally quite healthy. However their long backs and short legs leaves them vulnerable to spinal conditions as they get older. In severe cases this could result in  Intervertebral Disk Disease (IDD), which can cause pain, nerve damage, and even paralysis.

As such the average claim for a dachshund’s spinal treatment is around £2000, although it can be as high as £5000 in a single claim.

Other medical conditions a Dachshund is more likely to develop include:

  • Heart disease (miniature varieties).
  • Progressive Retinal Atrophy – gradual loss of sight over several months or years. 

Thankfully if Dachshunds do develop spinal problems these tend to be later in their life. However, most pet insurance providers exclude pre-existing conditions and so it is important to buy good pet insurance when dog is young and healthy. That way if they do develop medical conditions while on the policy they should be covered.

Training and Behavioural Problems

Dachsunds can be very barky, but as they are so intelligent it is possible to train them to be less reactive if you start when they are young.

EmeraldPet includes £200 per year of behavioural training to help with such issues.

How Much Does Dachshund Insurance Cost?

Dachsund’s increased risk of spinal problems does make them a slightly more expensive pet to insure. However, this should not be extortionate for most owners. Other breeds are known to be much more expensive to insure, such as flat-faced dogs like Pugs and French Bulldogs since they are at high risk of breathing issues.

Your pet’s will also have a significant impact on pricing as older dogs are at higher risk of incurring vet fees. Unfortunately this is inevitable even if you originally bought a policy when your dog was young as your renewal fees will most likely increase each year.

Another big factor is your location as vet fees – and therefore the cost of any claims – will vary across the country.

Nevertheless, pet insurance is designed to be a good value product that provides a safety net should you find yourself in a situation where your pet needs expensive treatment. With Dachshunds potentially costing thousands of pounds in vet fees, pet insurance could be a valuable purchase. If you went without pet insurance and found your dog was ill, could you afford such vet bills?

In order to get the best price on pet insurance for Dachshunds it is worth comparing quotes from a number of different providers. The above factors of breed, age, location and more will have different weighting with different insurers so you never quite know what you’re going to get until your get quotes.

That might seem like a lot of effort, but don’t forget that it is rare to change pet insurance providers because most pet insurers don’t cover pre-existing conditions and so it is usually worth staying with the same one and renewing each year.

Don’t be tempted to cut corners and jump to a comparison site either – at least not by itself. No comparison site has a full view of the pet insurance market so you may miss better offers. As these rankings are all about price, some of the policies you find may offer what looks like a good price by delivering a trimmed down policy. Make sure to check all your favourite policies for exclusions as well as cost so you know you are getting good quality pet insurance.

Exclusions

Our own exclusions with EmeraldPet are fairly standard and presented clearly in our policy wording. Some of the most important ones are that we don’t cover pre-existing conditions, or a medical condition that shows symptoms within the first 14 days of the policy start date.

Thankfully something you don’t need to worry about with your Dachshund is a lot of pet insurance policies exclude dogs registered under the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act. However, if you were looking for third party liability insurance for your dog then your dog cannot have previously shown aggressive tendancies.

Excesses

Excesses are the financial contribution you make towards any claims.

With EmeraldPet your excess will depend on the age of your pet. This is also common with dog insurance.

Dogs under eight years old have an excess of £100.

Dogs more than eight years old have an excess of £110 plus 15% of the remaining cost of treatment.

These excesses are per condition per year. That means if you have to claim one year and then the next, you will pay the excess twice in total. Similarly if your Dachshund requires treatment for two different conditions in the same year then that will also require two separate excess payments.