Insurance -don't make my mistake

[Lorrymum]

I have had 3 dogs over the past 30 odd years and have always insured them.
My current little lady is a 14 month mini schnauzer. Last month she started pawing at her eye. I rang our vet for an appointment but they couldn't fit her in until the following morning. I bathed her eye during the day and she seemed fine. She had an afternoon nap and woke at 5.45pm. My DH shrieked "OMG look at her eye!" Her eyeball was very swollen and I frantically tried to contact my vet who closed at 6 and recorded message referred us to an emergency vet. Also tried several other local vets who closed later but wouldn't see her because not registered (where is James Herriott when you need him!)
Contacted emergency vet and had to pay £319 consultation fee over the phone before they would even see her. After a long drive we arrived and she was examined. The vet was extremely thorough and discovered she had a large grass seed stuck behind her eye. After failed attempts to remove it she decided to keep her in overnight for sedation and removal. This had to be carried out in the early hours because she had eaten.
Thankfully she was fine and made speedy recovery and was soon her usual bouncy self.
I put in my insurance claim of just over a thousand pound which I have paid on my credit card. Almost 2 months later my claim has been rejected. The policy states that emergency treatment can only be claimed if the event is life threatening. Lesson learned, never had to use an emergency vet before and hopefully never will again and will make sure next policy will cover her

Oof a friends dog had a grass seed lodged up his nose and had to be sedated cost £500 - luckily no overnight stay or emergency vet but very expensive! I'm paranoid about grass seeds since then!

That's awful.
Which company?

Life threatening is so subjective though. Our dog was seen when he had a seizure. It's not life threatening but he needs to be seen and insurance have always paid.

VetsMed

Surely the emergency consultation fee should be covered, even if the subsequent treatment was excluded?

the lesson to learn from your experience is keep a contingency fund for your best furry friend even if they are insured.
you wouldn’t have not got treatment would you what ever ?

my dog had an emergency vet visit at new year for what turned out to be a large lymph node infected . No stay but £300 and petplan payed out ( and we had to use pdsa hospital as our vet was full )

You need to dispute the decision - this is plain wrong. Complain in writing, email and tell them you’ll complain to the insurance ombudsman.
this could absolutely have been life threatening: what would have happened has the grass seed been left? Infection, blindness… grass seeds can travel through the system & cause massive damage.

That’s weird….one of my dogs also had a problem with his eye, out of hours on a bank holiday weekend. £900 later (he need an operation) it was sorted and my insurance paid out no questions, even though it wasn’t life threatening?? I think you need to challenge that decision, write to them and make your case, involve the ombudsman if necessary.

Contest it. The subjective nature of life threatening means I wouldn’t accept it in the first instance

Dispute it. How are you, a lay person supposed to diagnose a life threatening issue?

if you’d not taken treatment and it had developed into septicaemia/a retrobulbar abscess it would have been life threatening.

that sounds like a terrible policy.

Thanks, I have decided to appeal and contact the Insurance Ombudsman.

Good luck. I think they have behaved pretty shabbily. It's not like you were getting their nails clipped for fun on a bank holiday weekend!

I’d appeal that, that exclusion used to be common but many of the insurers have now removed it as it was an animal welfare issue.

Thats good to know. Thanks

This was a a read the policy carefully situation 'life threatening' emergencies are only 3% of the cases seen by emergency vets. This is quite a rare exclusion on a policy and I would not have accepted it.

That's a shocking bit of small print. Just looked on their website at the wording of the exclusion and it even seems to exclude the "could have been many things including a life-threatening situation, no way for layperson to know" situations., it says for policy cover to apply the vet has to confirm [retrospectively] that the out of hours consultation was necessary to save the dog's life. That is going to be a small percentage of the time.
I guess it helps them keep their premiums down and charge less than the competition... But as said above, it's a welfare issue, there are many non-immediately-life threatening emergencies where the animal should not be left in pain and distress until morning. Our insurer covers out of hours treatment if essential for life or welfare.

This is why it pays to read the small print as policies and companies differ.

That is a horrible exclusion though and I am so glad all my out of hour claims have been paid even though only a few have been life threatening.

Exactly this - read your policy and understand what you're covered for. Not all insurance is the same.

As I said, lesson learnt, hence the thread title. I have had various dogs and cats in the past 40 years and never had call to use an emergency service. Things have changed over the years and my local vet stopped doing 24 hour cover during Covid.

I really wouldn't have expected that to be a condition of out of hours care. Sure, something to stop people just using it for routine stuff, but eyesight is critical even if not life threatening

The insurance company obviously do not care about animal welfare, there are many ailments that would need emergency care but aren't life threatening. I'd change insurers because of this.

Of course they don't. They're a business.

@Lorrymum just a thought but if the exclusion is for the costs of emergency/out of hours treatment I would be pushing back for them to pay whatever part of the bill represents the costs of treating the problem after 9am the next day ie the bill less the out of hours uplift. They shouldn't be wriggling off the hook for paying out the amount it would have cost them in the normal course for removing the grass seed next day if you'd been willing to leave your dog in distress overnight? Appreciate the out of hours uplift is probably the lion's share of the bill but every little helps.

Thanks for that!