Animal Friends premium rises: what Red Sands has to do with it

If Red Sands turned up on your Animal Friends renewal and you’d never heard the name, here’s the plain answer: Red Sands is the underwriter behind your policy, and Animal Friends is the insurer that sells and runs it. Seeing the underwriter’s name is normal. What’s usually driving the letter is a higher price, and that’s happening across the whole market, Animal Friends included.

Who is Red Sands, and why is the name on my letter?

Red Sands Insurance Company (Europe) Ltd is a Gibraltar-based underwriter. It carries the financial risk on the policy: if a claim is paid, the money ultimately comes from the underwriter’s book. Red Sands underwrites Animal Friends, and it also underwrites Waggel, which is why the same name can appear on documents from two different brands.

The split of roles is standard in insurance. Animal Friends sells the policy, takes your payment, answers the phone and processes your claims. Red Sands sits behind it as the insurer of record. When you get a renewal or a policy schedule, the underwriter has to be named on the paperwork, so the appearance of Red Sands doesn’t mean your policy was sold, moved, or changed in any way. The arrangement predates your renewal; the letter is just the first time many owners read the small print closely.

It’s worth knowing that the underwriter and the brand are different things you’re choosing between. When you pick Animal Friends, you’re picking its tiers, its pricing, its excess options and its claims service. Red Sands sets the risk appetite behind the scenes, but your experience, the phone line, the claims process, the payout, comes from Animal Friends. That’s why two brands sharing an underwriter can still feel very different to deal with. So the practical takeaway is simple: judge the renewal on the price and the cover in front of you, not on the underwriter’s name.

Why has the premium gone up?

The uncomfortable truth is that pet premiums are climbing everywhere, and the main reason is vet-fee inflation. The cost of treatment, drugs, diagnostics and surgery has been rising faster than general prices for years. The Association of British Insurers publishes claims data showing how payouts have grown, and the Competition and Markets Authority has been running a market investigation into veterinary services, partly over pricing and the consolidation of practices into large corporate groups. When claims cost more, premiums follow.

Two things specific to Animal Friends shape how the rise feels. First, it has some of the lowest entry premiums in the market, so a first policy can be very cheap, and the year-two correction back towards a sustainable price can look sharp on paper. Second, on dogs a 15% co-payment is typically added from age 8, so if your dog crossed that line since last year, part of the jump is the co-payment rather than the headline premium. Its service reviews are mixed, and that mix tends to track claim type more than anything else. None of that makes the rise a mistake. It makes it worth understanding before you react.

The co-payment point catches a lot of owners by surprise, so it’s worth spelling out. A co-payment means that once it kicks in, you pay a percentage of each claim on top of your fixed excess. On a £2,000 claim, a 15% co-payment is £300 out of your pocket before the excess is even counted. That isn’t unique to Animal Friends, most insurers add a co-payment on older dogs, but combined with vet-fee inflation it explains why senior renewals climb faster than the price for a young, healthy pet. Knowing the co-payment is age-triggered, not a penalty, helps you plan for it rather than feel blindsided by it.

Your three options at renewal

There’s no single right move here. Which option fits depends mostly on one thing: whether your pet has claimed.

Stay and adjust

The most overlooked option is to keep the policy and lower the cost. Ring Animal Friends before you do anything else and ask what levers exist: a higher excess, a co-payment, or a lower tier all bring the premium down. The established advice on this site is to negotiate before you jump, because these changes keep your existing conditions covered. Cancelling throws that away.

Switch, but only with no claims history

If your pet is young and has never claimed, comparing quotes is entirely reasonable, and you might save real money. This is the one group for whom switching is clean, because there are no conditions to lose. ManyPets is one option worth a look on cover breadth; you can get a ManyPets quote to compare against your renewal. The switching pet insurance guide covers the mechanics, and the Animal Friends vs ManyPets comparison sets the two side by side.

Stay put because you’ve claimed

If you have a claims history, staying put is often the strongest option, not the weakest. A new policy will exclude every condition you’ve already claimed for, so the ongoing lump, allergy or joint problem you’ve been managing would no longer be covered. The pre-existing conditions guide explains exactly how that works. In this case, adjusting your current policy beats chasing a cheaper quote that quietly covers less.

Your situation	Best first move	Why
No claims, young pet	Compare, then decide	Nothing to lose by switching
One or more claims	Adjust the current policy	A new policy excludes claimed conditions
Dog just turned 8	Ask about the co-payment	Part of the rise is the age-8 co-pay
Price feels unaffordable	Call before cancelling	Raising the excess keeps cover intact

The trap in a cheaper quote

The single most expensive mistake at renewal is switching after a claim to chase a lower price.

For the wider picture on where premiums are heading and why, the UK pet insurance premium trends piece pulls the market data together.

The short version

Red Sands is the underwriter behind Animal Friends, its name on your letter is routine, and the price rise reflects vet-fee inflation across the whole market plus, on senior dogs, the age-8 co-payment. If your pet has never claimed, compare and decide. If it has, adjust your existing policy rather than switching into exclusions. Either way, ring Animal Friends first, and use the 2026 rankings to see how any quote stacks up.