• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.

Insurance query -conclusion reached, finally

Crunchie

Warren Veteran
We insured JayJay as soon as we adopted him with Pets at Home back in March last year, the monthly payments were quite cheap but we couldn't claim for most of the vet fees we spent on him due them being dentals. However he did suffer from a bout of gut stasis which involved an out of hours appointment and hospitalisation. This came in at about £250 and wasn't found to have anything to do with his teeth.

I got a letter from Pets at Home insurance who have said that they had closed the claim due to the fact they had not received the necessary information from the vet.

I phoned them up today to both ask what I needed to do to re-open the claim but also to cancel the policy given we lost JayJay on the 19th December.

On the phone I was told that I couldn't claim for anything other than JayJay's death if I were to cancel the policy. Basically I've been given two choices:

A: Cancel the policy, pay the remainder of the annual premium and abandon the claim.
B: Ask them to re-open the claim and continue to pay the monthly premiums until the claim is sorted (which they may reject even with necessary info).

Does this sound right? It seems very unfair that I'm being asked to pay the remainder of the years policy when JayJay died a month ago.

Definately not going to bother with insurance from now on. I told them I wasn't paying anything until I had taken advice on the matterbut will aim to ring them back by the end of the week.
 
Last edited:
I would personally cancel the insurance but log a formal complaint. If they still reject it, I would check the policy wording as that should include information what you can do when you want to take it further as they will be regulated.
 
It does sound reasonable that you can't close a policy until the claim has been resolved, but it's very unfair when the delay is not your fault.

You *should* be getting about £200 back so I wouldn't cancel it as it's only about ?£7 a month or so, it would be better to pay this and continue the claim. I see absolutely no reason why they would refuse to pay the claim so it should be worth doing.

Ring the vets - ask them if they have passed the info on, ring P@H, contact everybody until the relevant party admits to having the information. Pester them after a week or ten days or so if they haven't contacted you. I've had to do this once with Pet Plan. The vets HAD sent the paperwork but faxed it again, in my presence. When I got home I rang Pet Plan who had to admit to having received it. It's the only time I've had to work hard for the money out of maybe about 20 claims.
 
I would personally cancel the insurance but log a formal complaint. If they still reject it, I would check the policy wording as that should include information what you can do when you want to take it further as they will be regulated.

If they genuinely haven't received the information they need to settle the claim then the policy is closed at this point, I would strongly suspect they have no legal obligation to see it through. That's just from experience, I haven't read the small print on it.
 
Did you actually establish what information they needed but which hasn't been provided?

Apart from anything else it doesn't seem right that they are able to just close the case without having written to you previously telling you that some information was missing.
 
I would personally cancel the insurance but log a formal complaint. If they still reject it, I would check the policy wording as that should include information what you can do when you want to take it further as they will be regulated.

We're going to cancel both JayJay's and Honey's insurance with P@H. I never really wanted to insure them in any case as I knew fine they'd not actually pay out for anything but my parents thought it was a good idea at the time. :evil:

Also should have mentioned that the first person I spoke to on the phone said that cancelling the policy wouldn't affect the claim. She put me through to someone else who said all of the above and had it confirmed by her manager.
 
Did you actually establish what information they needed but which hasn't been provided?

Apart from anything else it doesn't seem right that they are able to just close the case without having written to you previously telling you that some information was missing.

They require a full medical history which according to them is up to me to provide. :?
 
It is fairly standard practice that if you make a claim during a policy year, you are still obliged to make the remaining payments - because your monthly DD is in reality not a monthly payment, it is spreading the cost of the payment due from the start of the insurance year. So if you had made a one-off payment at the start of the year, you would not be entitled to a refund of the unused policy after the death of a pet if a claim had been made.

If there isn't any reason you can think of why the claim shouldn't be paid out, I would carry on with it and resubmit the claim with the full medical history that they ask for (this is written on the form so your vet should have provided it at the time, it may be that other insurers don't ask for it so they didn't notice that this one does). I made a claim via PAH for my cat back in October and it was all very smooth and quick - in fact they paid up far quicker than any other insurer I have ever been with.
 
If I remember correctly the P@H insurance is done via two companies. The insurance is yearly and so you have to pay for a full year at a time but you don't pay them directly. You pay a financial services company monthly under a credit agreement. Effectively you've borrowed money to pay for the insurance and you will have to continue to pay back the whole years worth.
 
There is a note on the claim for somewhere that says a medical history needs to be included. I think its on the section the vet completes, so they should of done that for you at the time.
 
I didn't think I'd have to go chasing up the vet school for medical information, I'm not sure why the insurance co can't do this? :? Even if the vet school have neglected to attach it surely a phone call from the insurance co to the vet school would have been appropriate in the first instance rather than closing the claim and then blackmailing me into chasing everything up for them. The vet school have a dedicated accounts dept and it's hard to believe this couldn't have been sorted with a simple phone call.

This is all just making me realise that insurance isn't worth having at all. Will just be keeping a savings account in the future I think and avoid all this hassle. :(
 
Last edited:
I didn't think I'd have to go chasing up the vet school for medical information, I'm not sure why the insurance co can't do this? :? Even if the vet school have neglected to attach it surely a phone call from the insurance co to the vet school would have been appropriate in the first instance rather than closing the claim and then blackmailing me into chasing everything up for them. The vet school have a dedicated accounts dept and it's hard to believe this couldn't have been sorted with a simple phone call.

This is all just making me realise that insurance isn't worth having at all. Will just be keeping a savings account in the future I think and avoid all this hassle. :(

I had exactly the same scenario with Pet Plan and Harcourt Brown's. They were saying the vets hadn't provided the information and I was :shock::shock: In my case Pet Plan had written to me about 3 times saying they were chasing the vets for further information, then wrote to me saying they had closed the file as they didn't get the information. I found PP had never contacted the vets for further information at all. The vets sent the medical history again as soon as I explained what was going on. When I ran Pet Plan they realised they had been sending me letters but not my vets :roll::censored: The biggest joke is that as I had already successfully claimed for a stasis episode for Elijah previously they had already got the medical history as they had paid out for the same condition in the past. I nearly gave up too, but I've had about £1,800 worth of claims for him since then so glad I stuck with it!
 
I had exactly the same scenario with Pet Plan and Harcourt Brown's. They were saying the vets hadn't provided the information and I was :shock::shock: In my case Pet Plan had written to me about 3 times saying they were chasing the vets for further information, then wrote to me saying they had closed the file as they didn't get the information. I found PP had never contacted the vets for further information at all. The vets sent the medical history again as soon as I explained what was going on. When I ran Pet Plan they realised they had been sending me letters but not my vets :roll::censored:

Jeezo so PetPlan are equally incompetant. We got 4 weeks worth of free insurance with them when we got Jack from the SSPCA but won't be carrying it on, a credit card and a savings account seem like much less bother.
 
Last edited:
I didn't think I'd have to go chasing up the vet school for medical information, I'm not sure why the insurance co can't do this? :? Even if the vet school have neglected to attach it surely a phone call from the insurance co to the vet school would have been appropriate in the first instance rather than closing the claim and then blackmailing me into chasing everything up for them. The vet school have a dedicated accounts dept and it's hard to believe this couldn't have been sorted with a simple phone call.

This is all just making me realise that insurance isn't worth having at all. Will just be keeping a savings account in the future I think and avoid all this hassle. :(

That is a little of an overreaction - it's not blackmail in any way, and one piece of hassle doesn't automatically mean that insurance isn't worth having. Yes it is annoying, but ultimately it is you making the claim on your insurance, not your vet, and it is therefore your responsibility to make sure that the insurer gets the information they require.

I know it's annoying but they probably actually legally can't go directly back to the vet, as their 'contract' is with you; the vet is simply a third party in your transaction and they won't be allowed to disclose/request additional information, it is you that has to provide it because that implies your consent to do so.
 
That is a little of an overreaction - it's not blackmail in any way,.

They've told me that they're refusing to carry out a service which I have paid for unless I do some of the work for them. I did my part by correctly filling out the form and given the vet school must deal with hundreds of claims then it seems unlikely that they've mucked up.

One piece of hassle doesn't automatically mean that insurance isn't worth having.

It certainly doesn't do much to recommend it either.

Yes it is annoying, but ultimately it is you making the claim on your insurance, not your vet, and it is therefore your responsibility to make sure that the insurer gets the information they require.

I provided all the information that was required from my end so I don't think that statement is correct. A phone call to the vet would maybe have prompted them to send over any info they required and failing that a letter or phone call to myself saying they were having difficulty getting the necessary info and could I please contact the vet school for them.

Instead the first I've heard about the claim is that they've shut the case and if I want it re-opened then I have to do all the chasing up myself.:?
 
Just off the phone to the vet school, they have sent a medical history along with the claims forms back in November. They're sending another copy through today. :roll:
 
Good luck with it! I was going to insure Ludo, got the quote and forgot to do it. Within a week he was ill... so lucky that I didn't send off the insurance as the clain would have been in the first 14 days and therefore not payable! I'd have been stuck with the insurance bill and the vet bill!!
 
Back
Top