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Cover me!- the pitfalls of pet insurance
One of the best things about being a vet is having patients that seem to genuinely like you. This may sound odd but it can be rare for the obvious reason that many animals eye us with at least a little suspicion. However, with changing times, better techniques and good pain relief more and more of our patients enjoy coming to see us especially when they get given treats every time they come in. We are not too proud to indulge in a little bribery!
One patient of ours who is an absolute pleasure to treat and who also always drags his owner gamely through the door is Sam. Sam is one of those fantastically leggy Labradors, full of bounce and the joy of life without a bad bone in his body. Unfortunately for Sam he is also one of the increasing number of Labradors these days that are developing chronic skin disease through multiple allergies, also known as atopic skin disease or atopy. This condition used to be confined to breeds such as the Westie and the basset but we are now seeing it in many more breeds like the Boxer and the Labrador. The road to diagnosis can be long and very expensive and the condition can require lifelong medication and treatment. I always make a point of warning owners of this at the first signs of skin disease because of the expense. Skin disease needs a careful approach and needs to be tackled in a logical way to ensure you rule out all other possible causes of itching. The treatment of the condition can be expensive in any size of dog but in large dogs like Sam it can escalate quickly.
With improvements in veterinary medicine and technology cost is often an issue and we always recommend insurance to our clients and indeed, Pan and Badger are both covered. This may surprise some of you when I can do most of their treatments myself but I want to know that if anything happened and they needed help I couldn’t provide that I could send them to the best place without hesitation over monetary issues. There are some people who believe that vets only recommend it because it allows us to bump up our prices. Believe me, the vast majority of vets recommend insurance because it is invaluable in ensuring that pets get the best treatment available whatever the owners’ circumstances.
Sam’s case really opened my eyes to the issue of insurance and I wanted to share his story. Sam is about two years old now and had been insured since a small puppy with Direct Line. He had a mild bout of itchiness in his feet when he was about a year old but it stopped with treatment very quickly and didn’t warrant further investigation or treatment. All well and good, or so we thought.
The following year Sam started itching again and this time we felt it was time to investigate. To fully work up a skin case can cost several hundred pounds very easily. We found that Sam has multiple allergies as is so often the case and we decided to start him on a regime of immunotherapy. This is where a specific ‘vaccine’ is made that is tailor-made for his allergies. The idea is that you start by injecting very minute amounts of the allergens and gradually over weeks and months increase the amount of the exposure. This acts to desensitise the body and stop the reaction. It works very well for some and not so well for others and we always warn people of this before we start because again, it can be time-consuming and expensive. The initial tests and the first lot of vaccine cost about £400 and we got Sam started on his treatment. A claim was filed to Direct Line which they summarily declined and told his owners he wasn’t covered. This seemed very odd to me because he had been covered with the same company since a puppy and from well before the condition started. I asked Sam’s owners to bring in their policy and I wrote a letter to Direct Line to explain what had happened and that we felt it was certainly a valid claim. I eventually spoke to someone from the company and had the small print explained which is quite incredible. The policy his owners had opted for had a clause in it that says that if the pet receives any treatment for any condition the company must be informed within 3 months, regardless of whether the owner intends to pursue the condition or make a claim.
One of the reasons we are always careful about which policies we recommend is because we know that most companies like the supermarkets and Direct Line will only pay for a condition for a year and won’t cover for life. In Sam’s case we knew he would only be covered for a year but mistakenly assumed this would be from when the condition became worthy of investigation or the treatment went over the amount of the excess and warranted a claim. When I spoke to Direct Line I pointed out that for this policy ever to actually pay out we would have to do full investigations for every condition immediately on presentation. This is clinically unnecessary and would be detrimental to our patients in most instances. I was stunned and said to the woman that I couldn’t believe there was a policy available that was that bad. Obviously she said she couldn’t comment on that.
Sam is now covered by PetPlan. He won’t be able to get cover for his skin from any insurance company now because it is a pre-existing condition but at least he will get decent cover in case he has the misfortune to develop any other illnesses. Direct Line lay the blame at the feet of Sam’s owners because they opted for the cheaper policy and didn’t read the details of the policy but I believe they have been misinformed.
The insurance market is massive and it is a minefield that you need to navigate with caution. I would implore you to speak to your vet and look into all the details before you embark on cover that may be practically useless. The cheaper policies are usually cheaper for good reason. PetPlan and the like may be more expensive per month in some cases but they will pay for life. Also be very careful when a company says the cover is life long because many of them mean they will cover the pet for life but they won’t pay for one condition for life. The wording can be very tricky and sometimes downright misleading so take care out there. I’d hate another owner or vet to make the same mistakes and end up paying a lot of money for a worthless piece of paper.
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