Pet Insurance – Is your dog covered for life ?
Did you know that Lloyds TSB & Halifax are both pulling out of the pet insurance market in the UK ?
Pet owners will now have to pay significantly more to arrange alternative cover, and in a lot of cases will not be able to get cover for existing illnesses or injuries.
Some of these owners had paid huge premiums for what they considered “Lifetime” cover, but this will now cease.
The thing is, pet insurance is an annual contract, and if you need to switch companies for one reason or another, it may be difficult to source an new pet insurance company if you have already made numerous claims.
Some policies offer the option of resetting the benefit limits each year, based on previous claims etc, so you have cover for existing conditions, but if the company decides to cease trading in the pet insurance market, you have basically paid an elevated premium for something that you may have been led to believe as lifetime cover for your pet.
These two companies are not the first in the UK to exit the stage re pet insurance, as some have already ceased offering the service after their underwriters pulled out, and if a new underwriter was found more often than not they refused to cover dogs and other pets if they had previous claims on their policy.
An independent financial research company in the UK advises that there are 86 pet insurance service providers in the UK offering over 400 different policy options.
The last few years has seen a few companies withdraw from the market, and spiralling veterinary fees has been quoted as one of the reasons.
How long will it be before insurance companies offering pet cover in Ireland, decide to bail out ?
We have Blogged about Pet insurance here before on Pedigree dogs, but I think the message to be taken from the above is that “Lifetime” cover does not guarantee cover for the life of any pet, and like all insurance make sure you read the small print in relation to policy limits and what isn’t covered, and maybe more importantly what is covered.
(“oh yes!” and Churchill above has nothing at all to do with Lloyds banking)
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