Insurance

As a Veterinary Nurse, I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I strongly recommend pet insurance. But I am also a pet owner who benefits greatly from it.

Pet insurance (eg. Pet Plan) is still a fairly new thing, and not all owners may be aware of its benefits. The way it works is that you pay a small monthly sum to the insurance company. Your policy will have a so-called excess of approximately £35 to £50. If you need to make a claim, you will receive a settlement minus this excess. You pay one excess per condition per year. So if you were claiming for an ear infection and a skin condition, there would be two separate excesses to pay. However, if you need to claim for either of these again in the same insurance year, there will no excess deducted.

This is a photo of Mrs Lee with her cat Bisto (click on the picture to enlarge it).

Mrs Lee was very lucky to have her pet insured when her cat was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The initial diagnosis took about 2 months, during which Bisto needed blood tests and an operation. In total, the Vet’s fees came to around £500. Bisto will always need to be kept on a special diet and may need treatment from time to time. When I asked Mrs Lee about the benefits of pet insurance, she said, “Complete peace of mind. If anything goes wrong, I’m only going to have to pay the excess, regardless of what treatment she needs”

When Bisto came in for an operation, Mrs Lee was able to instruct the vet to do whatever needed to be done. She knew that cost would not be a problem. With veterinary medicine becoming increasingly more advanced, the costs can be very high.

If you are interested in taking out pet insurance, do look around. Some insurers, like Pet Plan, offer “cover for life”. This means that if your pet develops a condition that he or she may suffer from throughout their life, they will not exclude this condition when the insurance needs to be renewed. So you will able to keep on claiming for as long as is necessary. Be aware that a lot of insurance companies do not offer “cover for life”, and therefore offer a lower premium.

Please feel free to pop in and ask for some advice when choosing an insurance company, as there are so many on the market.

Making a claim is easy, just bring your claim form into the surgery and we do the rest. Pet Plan try to settle all claims within 3 days of receipt.

Mrs Lee is just one of our clients who has benefited from having her pet insured, but there are many who, in hindsight, wish they had.

Katherine Poole