You would have to declare the vet visit and treatment when you take out the insurance. All insurers have a clever bit of wording in the policy saying they exclude pre-existing conditions AND any conditions which may result or be connected no matter where it occurs on your pet's body. An injury like this may for example exclude future claims to do with arthritis but shouldn't exclude anything unrelated.

If you are in any doubt about the cover, phone and check before you take it out. This is typical wording from the policy document of one company offering 'lifetime cover'

To me this means there is a ceiling per condition. Boring as it may be, you must read the policy document to know what cover is being offered.

Hello,

reading your message i think you should go with petplan, for 3 reasons:

1. your pet has a been taken to the vet while you were insured during your free insurance period. if you move to another insurerm it will be classed as pre existing and nothing will be paid for this.

2. your free insurance runs out in a few days. Generally policies have a 14 days waiting period, meaning that from the time your cover startsm you cannot claim for an illness within the 1st 14 days. if your pet were to develop something new or you would have to claim again on the current condition, it would be excluded. If you upgrade with Petplan, ring them and confirm that there will be continuous cover when you upgrade to a full cover. This means that there will be no waiting period, so no break in cover.

3. Petplan, even though they hassled you, are the number pet insurer in the uk and have a fairly good reputation regarding their quality of cover (even though they have restricted their cover for hydrotherapy lately).

I hope this will be of help to you.

Hi Havoc, where did you get this definition from, which company?

This isnt lifetime cover. True lifetime pet insurance means that you will get a yearly pot of money to spend in vet fees. That pot is replenished every year when you renew. Therefore, once you start claiming on a condition, it will never get excluded provided you stay with the same lifetime provider at renewal.

Lifetime cover gives you a yearly limit, regardless of the number of conditions, but it is fully replenished at renewal, meaning you always have funds to spend.

It was one of the ones on your list but I could have chosen from a fair few, that one was just easy to copy and paste. I thought I'd check a couple out as I researched and wrote a fairly hefty report on this subject a couple of years ago. I was willing to be pleasantly surprised if companies had changed their policies in the interim. Sadly the smoke and mirrors remain, this is why you must read the policy document very carefully and pin them down over the phone if you are in any doubt.

There are very, very few insurers who do true cover for life with the pot being replenished every year for a single condition. Petplan are the obvious ones and I found one other though there may be more now. The vast majority who advertise lifetime or lifelong cover do cap the amount per condition. It doesn't matter how long it takes to reach that ceiling so they will keep paying out year after year until you get there but once you have, that condition is excluded.

Admittedly, for the vast majority of pet owners a £7000 cap is more than sufficient. However, if your animal needs an expensive op followed by a lifetime of ongoing treatment the insurers will stop paying once you've reached the limit. You must also take into account that nasty little clause about related conditions as they'll be excluded too but you won't know about it until you try to claim.

That said, this type of insurance isn't 'wrong' and can be the best value for many people. I simply like the idea that pet owners should know how to compare quotes on a true like for like basis and don't get the shock of their lives when they've continued to pay good money in premiums.

The terms lifetime or lifelong mean whatever the companies choose them to mean I'm afraid. Petplan (as the known example) use the term 'cover for life' and therefore other companies couldn't use it because it would imply they offered the same cover so they invented other terms. They hope customers will think it offers the same as cover for life and bring in custom because their quotes are cheaper. I would say it's been quite a successful marketing strategy.

Yes pet plan are good. I got one months free insurance with them when i put my kitten on the national register. My kitten had an accident and the vet bill was £200 pet plan paid it within 2 weeks, no fuss and i hadnt even paid a premium.

Amen to that

Hi, just want to thank everyone for all there helpful advice, i have just spoke to petplan and Hank is now insured, Thanks.x

Good to hear you got this resolved Elise

__________________
Compare Pet Insurance | Compare Dog Insurance | Compare Cat Insurance