To expect my vet to claim their money through my pet insurance?

[Runnerduck34]

My labrador had an accident and dislocated her hip and needs an operation to have it pinned. Total vet bill is likely around 4k and maybe more.
I have pet insurance, never claimed before and mistakenly thought that having pet insurance would take all the worry and stress out of vets bills, how wrong was I!
Despite my insurers accepting claims direct from vets, my vets are refusing to do this and need payment immediately up front and I will need to claim the money back myself from insurers.
I asked the vet if they would please complete insurance form immediately so i could claim money back asap they said they had a back log and my form wouldn't be completed for at least 2 weeks!!
This is a huge bill and we are struggling to pay it using savings/credit card and I wonder what would happen if you couldn't pay up front- the insurance wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on! I would be happy to pay a deposit and sign an agreement promising to pay if insurers didn't pay out but expecting full immediate payment seems unfair.
If I had a car accident I wouldn't be expected to fork out thousands up front, so aibu expecting vets to claim direct from insurers?

I guess your vet doesn’t want to be left out of pocket and having to chase you for the money if your insurers refuse to pay. It’s a tough situation though. Hopefully they won’t dilly dally in sending off the forms.

I would think this is just general knock on of CV.

If the insurers aren’t paying out as quickly due to CV- they may have been closed during lockdown- the vets will have huge bills as most have stayed open at least for emergencies. How will they pay for equipment, drugs, staff wages etc...

I’d be giving your insurers grief rather than your vet. See if you can come to some arrangement with the vet, but if everyone is in the same boat they simply can’t pay staff.

My vet has always claimed from my insurers and they've always paid up with no quibble, even for expensive and ongoing claims. However, not all vets do this, and some insurers expect the client to pay the vet bill and then claim from them.

Also, you will have signed an agreement to pay any fees due in the event that the insurer doesn't pay out, whether you read that agreement or not. It sounds like you have some savings and a credit card available, so you'll just have to use those. Chances are you might get some or all of the money refunded before the credit card bill is due and if not, you'll just have to suck up the interest or try and transfer the balance onto an interest free card to pay off as you are able to.

If they have a backlog, why do you think your form should be completed before those further up the queue than you? They could be in just the same or worse financial situation.

And you do often have to pay up front if you have a car accident. You often have to pay the excess and the VAT, which can add up to hundreds of pounds.

If it's petplan your vets are being unreasonable, any other company then I understand.

Not all insurance companies have arrangements to pay vets directly, I know petplan does but for me their insurance is about twice the cost of other companies, I guess it's one of the benefits you pay for if you aren't able to pay then wait to reclaim.

You are only reasonable if your insurer originally said they would do it and now refuse.

Unfortunately, vets have been burnt by slow insurance companies in the past. I know that Petplan is genuinely the vets' preferred one because they DO actually pay out. We have John Lewis and our vet has also always been happy to claim directly for bigger bills as they've had good experiences. But most of the others are really shite.

Having said that, no vet should be surprised you can't find this cash up front. Can you suggest a payment plan? Ours offers this for situations where insurance doesn't cover?

Having said all that, the vet is being totally unreasonable not to prioritise filling in the claim form to help you get payment asap. Ours, for normal claims, usually takes a couple of weeks but for a big one they prioritise it as they know their customers can't afford to be sitting on large out of pocket expenses.

I’ve worked in the finance department of a people private medicine practice & there are some insurers who are notorious for being nightmares when it came to payment, we had aged debt of £250k for one insurer alone not to mention the man hours spent chasing each claim. It got to the point where the practice would only invoices two insurers directly & everyone else had to pay & reclaim. I imagine it’s the same for veterinary practices & even harder to sustain if they’re a smaller practice as it will directly impact on their cash flow.

You seem to think that if the insurer doesn’t pay you then you won’t pay the vet? I don’t think that’s how it works!

When I got sick on holiday, I had to pay the hospital upfront and then claim on my insurance but no idea if it’s the same for pet insurance.

Hello, I'm an RVN.
My practice expect payment at time of treatment, there are signs all over the practice to indicate this. In exceptional circumstances we would allow a direct claim (i.e wait for payment from the insurance company) but in general, we get payment from the client who then claims their money back from the insurance company. It's pretty standard.
There has been a massive backlog of insurance claims due to Covid19, initially because we were seeing emergencies only and so there were not staff to process the claims as we were literally seeing life or death cases only and many staff were furloughed. A large backlog is now being worked through so unfortunately that does mean that people will be waiting longer than usual for their claim to be processed. And I'm sure it's the same at the insurance company end too.
Unfortunately vets are running a business and must usually have payment at time of treatment as they have their own bills to pay. If the insurer decided not to pay out for whatever reason, that would mean a bill of potentially thousands of pounds going unpaid. I know it's difficult but unfortunately this is the way a lot of pet insurance and vets work.
Can you come to some private arrangement with the vets to pay in installments until your claim is dealt with?

It does sound harsh that they won't sort out the insurer form for 2 weeks but wont claim direct either, its them that's putting you in a bad position I think. I'd call the insurer and see what they say and if there is anything they can think of to help you.

It's not great for you. But I can see why vets do this. But they should have told you in advance.

Most vets only claim direct from some insurers, some don’t do it with any...

How are vets supposed to know what your policy covers? it’s not like car insurance where everyone has to have the right cover, some people have insurance that excludes certain conditions, there are annual and lifetime covers, different amounts

It’s also pretty clear from your insurance documents that you have to ask your vet if they’ll claim direct... and most vets have signs up saying whether they do or not.

@ lifesalongsong- My insurers do accept claims direct from vets, There is space on the form for this and I also phoned my insurers to check, they are happy to pay vet direct.

@ Cadent- not all all, I realise the bill is my responsibility and would be happy to sign an agreement to be liable to pay bill myself if insurers didnt pay out.

@ BarbaraofSeville, I have only ever had to pay my excess when claiming on my car insurance which is normally about £250, I have never paid out thousands up front to a garage, just don't understand why pet insurance is different! Also I dont expect my form to jump the queue but can't see why the vets practice isnt more efficient at processing the insurance forms after all they charge a fee me a fee for them to fill it out, personally i think they'd fill them out quicker if they had to wait for the money!

Some insurers are notorious for not paying and the paperwork is unreal. So unless it is petplan (who practically always pay out) then your vet is being perfectly reasonable.

This happened to me. I collected my dog up from surgery, bill was around £3k, they knew I was insured before taking him in and I'd been with the vets for years. Went to take dog home, he had no bark left from crying all night in their kennel, diarrhea like you wouldn't believe, I was in pieces at the state of him and the really aggressive receptionist kept saying I wasn't allowed to leave the premises until I paid in full. I picked up my 30kg dog, poo running down my arms, carried him out and said they had my insurance details, the claim form was filled in and signed so I was off. Their issue was that I wasn't insured with their preferred insurer. They were paid by my insurer within 24 hours.

looks like youre going to have to do it this time but maybe take your business elsewhere after this if this is their way of claiming

Vets vary in the way they deal with this. Some will make the claim directly others ask you to pay but will complete the paperwork for the insurers. On one occasion when we were facing I long stint of ongoing treatment the vet rang the insurers in my presence to get authorisation for the work. As others have said with such a large amount they risk being out of pocket.

I have always paid out upfront then claimed from my insurers. I have had to claim twice during lockdown from Petplan. No forms at all. It is all online and super easy. Both times a very, very fast turn round on the payout.

For those of your are saying that this is unfair, what do you expect the vet practices to do?
At the beginning of lockdown advice was to cancel all appointments many closed completely some stayed open for emergencies only. Staff were put on furlough. All the regular work (and income) stopped.
Now they have spent money on making their practices Covid secure and are having to adopt new procedures such as VN helping with consultations as the owners have to remain outside of the premises.
On top of this you would now like them to treat your pet at their expense and then complete paperwork and submit to one of many insurers and then wait for payment or as is more often the case to chase and resubmit details until they finally get paid.
Motor insurance is different, here there is an agreement with the repair place direct with the insurer.

YABU to expect your vet to claim from your insurers.
Vets have agreements with many good insurers but as there are so many pet insurance policies available nowadays, some are good and some are not worth the paper they are written on.
Your contract is between you and your insurer so if your vet does not want to deal with them then they don't have to.

We have pet plan and had to pay out and claim back off pet plan during lockdown. It took less than 5 days to get most if the money back ( it was minus excess)

Depends on your insurance company

Our vets (equine and dog) will do direct claims, but they have a list of insurance companies who they will accept

Our dog insurance is with Petplan and the pony is with NFU - one of the main reasons that we went with those insurance companies is because I knew both vets would accept direct claims with them. There’s no way I could front up £6k should the pony colic, for example.

Our vets have had their fingers burned with some insurance companies taking forever to pay out/not paying out at all so I don’t blame them tbh

I had a very unlucky cat, and we made 3 claims for her in the space of a year, pre covid. All times we paid upfront and then claimed back off the pet insurance. The money came through before the credit card payment was required. The vets won't want to be out of pocket and then risk not being paid if your claim isn't accepted. Unfortunately, being a pet owner is expensive.

With car insurance claims, the insurance company asks you to take the car to a garage of their choosing. The garage will definitely be willing to take payment from the insurance company in order to keep getting their custom!

We've never had the vet claim directly from the insurer; we have always paid and then claimed.

I can see your point of view OP but perhaps the vets can't suck up the cash flow issues and yes, some insurers are notorious for paying slowly, finding any way to hold up a claim or not pay at all. And that was before Covid. Claim from your insurer and keep on at them to make sure you're paid; vets don't necessarily have the time and resources to do that.

Our vets have always been really good about accepting direct from insurers. We are a low income household and vets are aware of our circs.
We are with bought by many and they are absolutely fab with claims, fast payouts and really just a brilliant insurance company to deal with (I promise, I’m not employed by them!)
At one point, with a big claim our vets asked insurance to send confirmation that the condition being claimed for would be paid out, boughtbymany sent over an email to them directly stating if it wasn’t a preexisting condition then they would pay out once they had received all paperwork from vets. They took this quite happily, sent off confirmation it was a new condition, filled out paperwork and were paid within a week.
When pet was pts they did the same and paid before I got ashes back.