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Pet-insurance.co.uk provides two cover levels: Standard, a 12 month policy with £4,000 per condition for 12 months and Lifetime, with £4,000 per year. Policies are underwritten by E&L and start from £3.65 for cats and £7.07 for dogs.
I took out the best insurance on offer with this company (life time cover) which also covered death benefit for the price of my puppy.
Ruby became ill at 8 months old. She was, of course, taken to the vet who carried out x-rays and then an exploratory operation where they took biopsies of all her organs. Two days later she died on 25th August 2011 before the vets even had the pathology report back.
When the report came through she had numerous things wrong, swollen spleen and liver, enteritis and probable leukaemia. She had no chance of surviving.
The insurance company (still haven’t paid the vets to date) refused to pay out for her death because the vet did not give a conclusive cause of death. This was because the vet said that any one of her ailments could have caused death so they were unable to specify. Even if they had done a post mortem, they still would not have been able to say for definite. Even though the vets contacted the insurance company to explain, they would not change their minds.
Even at post-mortem, cause of death cannot always be established and a very good example of this was on the TV quite recently where they were carrying out a post mortem on a turtle which had been killed by a speedboat. The lung had been sliced through but they could not tell at post mortem whether it died of blood loss or suffocation.
The loss of our puppy was very traumatic for us, losing our puppy so young and in pain – the insurance company just made matters so much worse.
I would definitely not recommend this company. You only know a good company when you make a claim, so don’t make the same mistake.
Perhaps they are right in the letter of the law but certainly not morally.
Having read some very worrying reviews on the internet about this company and their parent company, Equine & Livestock, I was beside myself after our Springer Spaniel left us with a vet bill of £2345, costs are ongoing as I write.
Vet does not do direct claims with E&L and so we had no choice but to pay the fees, and hope that the insurance company paid out.
Our dog ate a ‘linear foreign body’ (we did not realise this, obviously!) requiring an operation to remove the foreign body and also stitch up her intestines as these had started to rot away. She had an X-ray, various medications, was on a drip, hospitalised at the vets for a week and we were very lucky that she pulled through okay. She also had pancreatitis, which now seems to be ongoing so we are unsure as to whether this was a pre-existing condition or is as a result of eating something she really wasn’t supposed to eat!
First visit to vets was 14 Oct 2011, 7 weeks later the cheque from pet-insurance.co.uk was banked and cleared for the amount of £2112. (Not covered were the prescription diet, excess less 10% excess discount and they only cover 90% of hospitalisation fees.)
Since having her stitches removed she has had two blood test for the pancreatitis and I have spoken to the insurance company today, the last continuation of claim form was sent on the 14 Nov and the payment was authorised on the 24 Nov for the full amount of just under £170. At least two more blood tests will need to be claimed for and I have no doubt that pet-insurance.co.uk will cover these.
After almost convincing myself that the company would find a reason not to pay our claim, I am over the moon with both their customer service and speed of payout. I would recommend that you opt for the lifetime cover as I was assured today that no restrictions will be placed on our policy. We pay approx £25 per lunar month for our two Spaniels and cover is £5000 per lunar month, no other company I have found can come close to that either in terms of premium or cover.
The only real downside is that, as far as I am aware, a vet who will do a direct claim with this company is a real rarity – which means you do have to pay yourself then wait for the settlement. And of course with that goes the worry of ‘what if they don’t pay?’
Apart from that pet-insurance.co.uk have been absolutely fantastic and I would have no hesitation in recommending them, as I say just make sure you go for the top level/lifetime cover.