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 work in and own a vets. We do direct claims for some companies and we are generally very quick at getting forms off. Even so this means that we are currently owed £17000 by insurance companies for work that we have already done.

That is a massive risk for a small business to take. We still have to pay staff, rent, electric, rates, equipment hire, training. We never know for sure if the insurance will pay until the money is in our account.

Some insurance companies are great. Some are terrible. You would not believe the time and effort that goes into chasing insurance companies to pay or chasing clients to pay when the insurance hasn’t covered something. In fact we are currently considering employing someone just to deal with insurance claims. That’s a whole salary just to chase insurance companies for money for work we have done.

YAB totally unreasonable to expect a business to take on £4K of debt on your behalf. Think of pet insurance like travel insurance. When I needed my travel insurance I had to pay out up front and then claim it back. Pet insurance is the same.

Agreements to pay if the insurer doesn’t are not worth the paper they are written on. Just because you say you will pay later doesn’t mean you actually will. All vets have been burned by people saying that many times over. Would you work for someone and accept being told that you would get paid 6 weeks later?

Does the practice offer interest free payment through a 3rd party? We have sometimes done that if we will not accept a direct claim.

I hope your dog recovers quickly from surgery

If my vets were expecting me to pay 4k up front,
they would have a long wait, what if you don't have that kind of money
My pet insurance pay straight to my vet
Although i was charged the excess for my dog after only costing £16 for meds,then she died the day after,so i paid £99 for £16 for a dead dog, who needed no more treatment

The vet we use want payment upfront, and then charge £10 to complete the insurance paperwork.

My vets insisted I pay upfront when I was with Argos as they said that Argos are a nightmare to get payment from (that bill was over £2k).

Now I'm with Tesco and they were fine to claim direct from the insurers and i have an ongoing medical claim for medication with no issues.

I see, OP, in that case @Undead76 ‘s post seems to the most helpful response here.

Touch wood I havent had to make a claim yet but when I asked my vet if they could recommend any insurers to avoid and they told me they couldnt recommend or not recommend anyone.
I was a bit baffled as I would much prefer to pay slightly more and know that my pets lives werent going to be on hold while the insurance company was faffing over payment.
I know my vets does do payment plans so hopefully if anything was to happen I could chuck a load on my credit card to get treatment started.
Surely nowadays vets should/could have pets insurance details so a claim could be quickly started and dealt with?

Some vets refuse which is ridiculous. 4K is loads of money.
My vet will allow it if I ring the insurance company to check the claim is covered and how much the excess and so on is.
I'd change vet if I were you. Most will accept payment directly from insurer for a big bill like this.
My cat has racked up a nice bill of 10K for various different conditions so far and there is no way I'd have been able to pay that up front.

I'm with MoreThan and they are brilliant and pay up right away.

My small vet expect the money up front. I’ve never asked otherwise. I’ve also stuck it on a credit card and I’m with Pet Plan so they always pay quickly. I realise I fortunate to have this and it is a worry for many people. I do see both sides. Out of hours, we use a big vet hospital and they claim directly from the insurance, so I’m guessing it’s easier (but not easy) to take the costs when you’re a huge business.m

Sorry to hear about your dog being poorly. Hate it when they’re injured or ill.

My vets charge a small fee to do this about £30. I've always done that but I'm also with Petplan which I know is very popular with vets.

Its difficult because at the end of the day they have to pay their staff etc and vets are struggling because they weren't able to complete routine appointments during lockdown but also couldn't furlough many staff as they were needed for emergency and essential care.

Could you compromise with your vet and pay as much as you can afford and agree to pay the rest once your insurer stumps up.

Car and vet insurance very different. Often vets will allow a payment plan if you can't pay full amount but not if you have insurance for your animal.

Your insurance renewal will also exclude any injuries or arthritis etc. connected to the injured leg going forward.

As I said, very different to car insurance as they don't exclude the right front wheel and associated bodywork if you have an "at fault" prang

The only arrangement my vets accept is immediate payment up front.
I do see why they don't want to chase insurers and leave themselves open for non payment but surely there has to be a better solution for everyone than current situation.
When I took out pet insurance I naively thought it would be like car or house insurance, you pay the excess and the insurers would pay the company direct.
I am fortunate(!?!) that I can put it on a credit card, but for a bill of this amount not everyone would have that option and if you can't pay upfront you could end up having to have your pet put to sleep, despite having pet insurance, which render the insurance pointless.
I know covid has made things worse in all sorts of situations but I think its a bit of a red herring here as vet told me they have always had this policy.
Ultimately, I'm glad my dog is going to be ok but having to pay such a large amount upfront has caused extra stress and pressure that, by having insurance, I thought I would have avoided.

We went with pet plan as were told these seem to be the only ones who they will claim with without you having to pay out in advance.

I was burned years ago with a kitten who had a rare condition where his hip joint rotted away and snapped during the waiting period for insurance to kick in. They had to bring a specialist surgeon down from London and we had to sell our car to pay for it. I do sympathise.

I'm with Tesco pet insurance and they have been really quick with payments to me. Once the initial claim has gone in, I used the online claim form and uploaded the receipts and was paid in 7-10 days

Change vets. I think asking for £4K immediately is not reasonable, unless you’re with a renowned for not paying company (notable one with 2 initials, with a & in the middle.) They will fabrícate ridiculous reasons to not pay-they told a friend their offices had burnt down so all records were lost (hello, internet!).

This doesn’t help you now, but for future bills, I’d be looking at a new vet and ask if they deal direct with the insurance companies and which ones they refuse to deal with.

My equine vet will only claim directly from NFU. This is one of the reasons that I am insured with them even if they are slightly more expensive

I've found that small, independent vets want the money upfront and the chains will agree to claim straight from the insurer. I've also found that small, independent vets are so much better than the chains that I'd still rather use them.

Iwantacookie vets are not allowed to recommend insurance companies by law. It’s against FSA regulations. Believe me we all wish that we could!!

I think all vets have their own policies. My cat has recently had a vet bill of around £900. My vets do go through insurers directly - but only certain ones. They didn’t do it for my insurers so I had to pay out and claim back via the insurers, although the vets did do a lot of the work for me in regards to the claim itself, it’s just my insurer wasn’t on their trusted list and needed payment security.

You are probably insured with a company that are either slow at paying or very good at not paying. Vets are small businesses and don't have the cash flow to do a 4K op and then wait 12 wks to be paid. It's your bill not your vets.

What company is your pet insured with?

I’m with petplan as they are very good, I also chose a vet that I both liked and were willing to do direct claims with me just paying the excess.

I;ve always paid up front and had to claim back which is fine if you can afford the bill but a big one like4K would be beyond me! I’m now with Bought by Many and the process is really simple and you don’t usually have to wait very long for your money

When you take out pet insurance the contract is between you and your insurer. The vet has no say in which policy a client choses and cannot make recommendations as not FCA regulated. Practices will have experience that some insurers are reliable, some will wriggle out of just about everything, and many others are an unknown quantity but, as I say, the client's choice is not in their control so it is unfair to ask them to take the risk as to the likelihood of payout. It is often easiest therefore to say no to any direct claims.

Not that much use for an emergency situation but some practices will claim direct if pre-authorisation is given (ie the insurance company is contacted and given all details prior to the suggested diagnostic/treatment plan and asked to confirm in advance that this will be covered).

As you say... you made the error, the vets have no obligation to accept direct payment and this is something you should have checked they'd accept before you went with that company/that vets.

I use petplan insurance, and a vets that will accept direct payment, precisely because I know I cannot come up with more than around 1K immediately, in an emergency.

It really isn't your vets fault that you've failed to make yourself aware of all the details and have just assumed something will be ok.

Yanbu.. it’s a huge bill and lots of people don’t have that kind of money upfront. I would be finding a different vet who is more understanding.