Pet insurance, check the small print

[NorwichMom]

So after my older dog was poorly and had an emergency vet trip I’ve had the claim to the insurance approved. I knew I’d have to pay the excess but assumed as she has 7k worth of cover they’d pay the rest. Well they haven’t.

In the small print there’s a limit for everything. A limit for a consultation fee, limit for a blood test fee, limit for a hospital admission. We went over in so many sections. I’ve had to pay a bit under £800. They’ve paid a bit more than £800.

definitely worth bearing in mind when buying insurance. They’re possibly all similar but guess some may be better than others

I've just done two quotes for my dog, using English and Scottish addresses and the England address was more expensive. Can't see how they can justify capping their charges if they are charging people more based on location.

I’ve found the document of exclusions. It’s actually in a seperate document from the policy document (which I had read). This other document I hadn’t seen before. I think they ought to make 8t more obvious in the actual policy document. The pink top photo is the more hidden document. The other photos are the main policy document.

I think this is something I need to look into also. Paid £420 for a visit and additional pain killers. Not sure what the standard for out of hours vets is but this one was £320 before you even add on any medications. Plus a 20 minute wait to get through to a call centre plus a 30 minute drive there. So not sure what we would have done if there had been a full blown emergency!

Vets' fees have gone up at well over the rate of inflation.
See recent BBC Panorama for why that might be...
(Clue: big corporates.)

Ok, my other dog is insured with Admiral and I’ve scoured his 38 page policy document and no mention of limits other than the expected stuff (12k a year, having to pay excess, etc.). Certainly nothing about only £x per blood test, and £x per hospital admission.

so the main point seems to be don’t use Animal Friends.

lots have prob already said, sorry in a rush but

Don't switch to a cheaper insurer ! It can be galling to feel that you're paying over the odds, and very tempting to switch - but almost all of them will refuse to pay for 'existing conditions'. So if a minor condition becomes something more serious or chronic, you're doomed.
Likewise, it's possible for them to refuse to pay for treatment of an overall condition when a symptom of that condition has previously been treated. Trying to think of an example, but maybe a short term limp which then turns out to be chronic arthritis or other inflammatory disease needing monthly meds?

Yes, so the emergency vet I had to use was something like £340 for the Saturday afternoon appt.

the new vet I’m moving to will be £150 for an out of hours appt. I expect that any treatment, blood tests, etc will be less than the previous emergency vet. Purely due to the fact it’s the normal vet and practice doing their on on call rather than a different company renting the premises at nights and weekends.

@SpanielsGalore insurance pricing is based on a number of factors, eg postcode, breed, vet fee limit, inner cover limits. You're simplifying it too much.

I thought because I always buy a lifetime policy with a good level of cover that it was a good policy. In my mind i wasn’t buying a cheap policy but I appreciate a similar policy with PetPlan would have cost more. Certainly learned a lesson.

but he’s, you can’t see the policy details until after you’ve bought the policy. Though if I’d read all the documents better I guess I could have cancelled.

I know that. But I have just done two quotes with Animal Friends for the same dog. They altered their prices based purely on postcode.
If they are charging people who live in expensive areas more, then they should be covering the more expensive vet fees.

Yes I checked the small print as I do with all insurance companies as they are not the same and I found the cheap ones were often like that having limits within their overall yearly limit. Also some start with co-opt at 8 years of age or have a total amount over the whole ‘life time’ policy.

It’s one of the reasons I went with petplan as their life time yearly cover is just an amount so you can claim for one big claim or lots of little claims for various tests etc. Mine also has a copayment at 10 years of age which was higher than some.

The differences between companies can be stark. Most people say that teeth are not covered for example but my plan does and we have had his teeth cleaned on vet recommendation under insurance but again it is worth checking T&Cs as our policy says his teeth must be checked by a vet once a year as a condition for claiming.

@NorwichMom Those prices are ridiculously low. N was only admitted for a few hours to go on a drip and her bill was over £200. And P's blood test was about £80, not including consultation fee. I'd like to know who's getting one for £21.

I can’t fault how they looked after him and he was off his little face on some pretty heavy painkillers and sedatives by the time they had helped him so was just happy to pay and know he had what he needed. The call centre waiting was a big turn off though. For that sort of money I expect to get straight through and the guy on the phone isn’t going to be able to give advice it’s always going to be you’ll need to go in.

My young dog has been hospitalised twice in the last year as we have dealt with gastric problems. Petplan have been amazing! Paying out in full quickly and without argument. Cannot recommend them highly enough.

Absolutely. My older dog had a blood test last summer, not an emergency. It was around £200. Didn’t bother claiming obviously as my excess was £249. But nobody is getting a blood test for £21. Makes me cross how rubbish the limits are. I’d happily move to a more expensive company now but feel trapped as with any other company this would be a pre existing condition and not covered.

Our blood tests are about £20.

We also don't pay anything extra for emergency appointments or OOH appointments, just the standard consultation fee of £27 for 20 minutes.

My oldest cat has six-monthly blood tests for his arthritis - an appointment, a blood test and over a months' supply of metacam comes to less than £70.

Animal Friends have always been a nightmare to deal with from a vet practice point of view (former receptionist/admin) - where I used to work, they were one of the few companies we wouldn't do direct claims with as they declined so much.
I once had a claim for a leg injury after a patient was hit by car that they kept rejecting as the animal has cut the paw on the opposite leg on broken glass several years before so they kept saying anything for the hind legs was excluded! I got it paid for the owners eventually but it took literally hours of phone calls and escalation.

Bloody hell! I'm moving to where you live!

Is your vets an independent one? Our consultation fee used to be £27, but since they've been bought out by the IVC it's shot up to £50.
And we don't have any OOH vets anymore. We have to travel over an hour to one.

You're completely missing my point, and for that reason I'm out.

@SpanielsGalore yep, we're at an independent farm vets in rural Cumbria - they can't do anything fancy like cruciate surgery but for the basics they're absolutely fantastic.

They do all their own OOH and weekend work so we ring the OOH reception, get a call back within about 5 minutes and they've always managed to see us within the hour, earlier if it's genuinely life-threatening.

They saw our middle cat on NYE once when he had the symptoms of a urinary blockage - he had antibiotics, painkillers and a urine test and they charged us £91.

Wow. I live “up north” in a cheap area so it’s not like I’m paying London prices. Even 5 years ago my cat had a blood test at a different vet and that was £80.

standard consultation fee round here is £50-£55

my dog’s last arthritis appt which was a brief consultation with a brand new qualified vet as nervous as hell and a blood test was over £200.

We're in rural Cumbria with a properly old-school farm vets. Multiple times we've seen the head vet when he's come straight from having his arm up a cow delivering a newborn calf

And my past vet, the current vets and the one I’m moving to are all independent. My last one was a mother and child vet partnership. So very small scale independent.

The Which? review of pet insurance in December 2025 is particularly illuminating. Worth taking out a trial membership for. I found out, for example, that with Petgevity, which scored highly though I'd never heard of it, if you book direct you don't get copays when your pet gets older, but if you book via a comparison site you do. It's a minefield.

Petplan is absolutely the one to go with, you don’t get any of this, they’re brilliant.