Pet insurance guidance
Please find below our guidance on choosing or changing insurance policies.
Please note:
To advise on specific providers and the policies they offer, we would need to be registered with and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
What we can do is give you guidance on types of policy and coverage to look out for.
Types of Policy
What type of policy should I choose?
We would always recommend choosing a "lifetime"-style policy, irrespective of which insurance provider you choose.
Other types of policies are typically cheaper upfront, but may have less utility, and pay out less in the long run.
What is a "lifetime" policy?
A "lifetime" policy may have a different name depending on the insurance provider, but its key features include:
A "pot" of money that refreshes monthly or annually.
Coverage for illnesses, not just for accidents and injuries.
No time limit on how long you can keep claiming for a particular condition.
No limit on how much of the "pot" you can allocate to a condition.
Some policies will have, for example, a £4000 "pot", but you can only use up to £1000 of it for each single condition.
Not ideal if that condition requires more than £1000 of treatment — which can easily be the case with complicated diagnostic work, imaging, or lengthy surgeries!
For more information on policy types, we recommend the guidance of The Association of British Insurers (ABI).
Pre-Existing Conditions
What is a pre-existing condition?
Every provider will define this differently. Broadly, this means an illness or condition that the pet showed signs of prior to the date the policy was bought.
If a policy does not cover pre-existing conditions, these will be excluded from cover. This means the provider will not pay for their treatment.
Insurance providers tend to use very broad definitions here.
For example, if your pet was noted to have mildly weepy eyes during a routine appointment, the insurance provider might choose to exclude everything to do with any kind of eye treatment in the future.
What should I be aware of?
If your pet has a chronic, incurable, lifelong condition (e.g. arthritis, diabetes, allergies), these are generally going to be excluded unless you purchase a specialised policy which covers pre-existing conditions.
Policies with pre-existing condition coverage do exist, but you may need to do some digging to find them.
Where these policies exist, they may have limits on how much coverage they will give for a pre-existing condition.
If your pet has had acute, short-term, curable problems in the past (e.g. a stomach upset, an accidental injury, a one-off infection that went away with treatment), some insurance providers will cover these if they recur again in the future.
The insurance provider might require the pet has been symptom-free for a set period of time (such as 3 months or 6 months).
What if I'm changing to a different insurance provider?
If you're changing provider, often your new policy will not cover treatment for any symptom your pet has displayed while they were covered by a different policy.
A new insurance policy may seem like a better deal up-front, but could end up not providing you with the coverage you need.
None of this is a guarantee. If you have any doubt about coverage for pre-existing conditions, talk to the insurance provider directly before making any decisions.
Checking the Fine Print
Your excess
The excess is the amount of a claim that you have to pay before your insurance provider will begin to issue payment.
Additionally, many providers will charge a percentage excess. This is where you, the policyholder, will always have to pay a set percentage of any charge for treatment, even after you have paid your fixed excess.
Percentage excesses often (but not always) apply to senior animals, who typically require more care, and incur greater expenses.
We advise checking what your excess(es) would be, and if that's an amount of the bill you are happy to cover.
Dental care
Check any wording about dental care in the policy — as pets get older, they very often need dental procedures.
Dental procedures, due in part to the length of the anaesthetic needed, can be some of the more expensive procedures vet clinics offer.
Some insurance providers will offer coverage for dental injury, but not for any kind of dental illness/disease. Dental injury is a relatively rare occurrence, whereas dental disease or illness is very common.
Additionally, even if your pet receives a dental injury, an insurance provider may claim that the damage only occurred because the teeth were already diseased, and thereby exclude coverage for the dental injury.
We would strongly recommend purchasing a policy which covers dental illness/disease.
How to start a claim
Every provider will have a slightly different way for you to submit a claim to them.
Some providers allow the vet clinic to initiate the claim on your behalf. Others may require you to use an online portal, or to fill out a digital (or even paper!) form and email it back to them. Some will allow you to initiate a claim via telephone call.
Different people will prefer different services, so see which one might work for you!
Other Resources
We hope this has been helpful — for any further questions, you may wish to discuss these directly with the insurance company, to get more tailored information!
For anything else, please do let us know, and we’d be happy to help.