Pet Insurance

[shelby-001]

As with any insurance, there are going to be horror stories and dream stories about EVERY company that offers insurance.

Sometimes it comes down to whether or not the person that gets the claim is in a good mood or not when they get the claim info. Unfortunately it doesn't matter what company they are working for, anyone can have a bad day, a bad mood, an I dont care moment or what ever.

If you look far enough you will find that most pet insurances are underwritten by petsure or hollard, the issues generally (not always) lie in the administration of the insurance policy, not the fundamentals of the policy provided ie: processing the claims etc, which unfortunately is determined by the person processing it. This is exactly why one person will tell you company A is fantastic and someone else will tell you company A is horrible to deal with. It's not the company, it's the person working there and we as consumers have no control over that at all.

We know people that have both claimed with the same pet insurance company, for the same issue, one got paid out within a fortnight of submitting their claim, the other took nearly 3 months of toing and frowing with info from vets and eventually got paid out. They were both claiming for hot spots, something you would have thought was common enough and therefore straight forward.

[matilda1]

I am with petPlan and I am also a nurse in an Emergency Centre.

I see lots of claims being processed from emergency surgeries and treatments. petplan consistenly pay out where-as some other insurance companies give owners some grief. And I am talking about some 5-8k bills. Just my experience in Emergency.

How do you get to see (being a vet nurse in an emergency centre) if an insurance company pays out or not? I don't know of any insurance company that pays a vet directly. In my experience, a client pays for all treatment up front and claims from the insurance company (which then takes a week or two for payment to be processed).

When a claim is not paid out usually the client will come back and ask for a more detailed history and we will try and help them with their claim. this has only ever happened with other companies, never with petplan.

[Steve]

VadersMum your puppy already has insurance to cover him for 6 weeks after he came home as I activated it as he was leaving here. By now you should have received papers from Pet plan to offer you the option of taking out further insurance with them.

Julie

[Golden Rules]

As with any insurance, there are going to be horror stories and dream stories about EVERY company that offers insurance.

Sometimes it comes down to whether or not the person that gets the claim is in a good mood or not when they get the claim info. Unfortunately it doesn't matter what company they are working for, anyone can have a bad day, a bad mood, an I dont care moment or what ever.

If you look far enough you will find that most pet insurances are underwritten by petsure or hollard, the issues generally (not always) lie in the administration of the insurance policy, not the fundamentals of the policy provided ie: processing the claims etc, which unfortunately is determined by the person processing it. This is exactly why one person will tell you company A is fantastic and someone else will tell you company A is horrible to deal with. It's not the company, it's the person working there and we as consumers have no control over that at all.

We know people that have both claimed with the same pet insurance company, for the same issue, one got paid out within a fortnight of submitting their claim, the other took nearly 3 months of toing and frowing with info from vets and eventually got paid out. They were both claiming for hot spots, something you would have thought was common enough and therefore straight forward.

Good post, I think you are quite right!

[Kaffy Magee]

Well I got an email response from PIA , regarding the difference in price for my current dogs and the quote for my new dogs. Their prices have gone up. Nearly double, thats disgusting :D . I will be cancelling my policy with them and joining my dogs up with Medibank.

[bianca.a]

I went with Medibank and so far I am not impressed with their service. Molly had a really bad hotspot that resulted in 4 vet visits in 4 days. I had to take her to a different vet for 2 of the visits as my vet wasn't open. So I sent off the claims and waited a month then called them and they said Oh we sent you a letter requesting her full medical records 2 weeks ago. Strangely I later received the letter with a date on it from the same day I called. I then sent off her full records AGAIN two weeks ago and have not heard a thing. Guess they will be getting another phone call

So does anybody know what the policy regarding skin conditions are with other insurer's? Medibank have denied my claims for Molly's hotspot as she had puppy pyoderma when she was 11 weeks old. Apparently that means she has a pre-exisiting skin condition and they treat the skin as "one organ". Isn't pyoderma super common in puppies???? I am so angry I spent nearly $800 on treatments.

[OSoSwift]

Sorry no help on the skin conditions, I have never had any with my guys.

Glad you got an answer Kaffy - not so good it is double, that is a huge jump. Mine went up $40 each per year and I thought that was pushing it!

[lisazkiwi]

Pet Insurance.

I would go PetPlan - you will be able to sleep at night.

One of my dogs is with them (because I could get him out with no pre existing conditions!).

Conditions are covered for life. Yes you have to pay a co-payment as the animal gets older, but it is a known.

The other is with one of the other companies. They are all the same as underwritten by Holland. These companies every policy renewal can write whatever clauses they want in. Often cheaper premiums, but for a reason! I found this out the hard way.

I'd rather be able to sleep at night around policy renewal time - go PETPLAN!!

[CharlieandGus]

I think that is riduculous some pet insurance premiums have gone up by double ... how that can be justified I do not know.

I have two dogs - a golden retriever and a staffy and went with 1300insurance.com.au for both because I got a discount for insuring both at the same time. While I see there is merit keeping money aside yourself, I just dont have the discipline to do it and this was easy to sign up online!

I compared with Medibank Private pet insurance and Pet Insurance Australia and 1300 Insurance offered a better deal on my needs. I have only very clumsy dog and one very street smart dog so this was the most sensible way for me to do it!

[Vader's mum]

Julie yeah we got the papers I was just having a look around at other polices to see if there was another we liked better. We decided to go with petplan as they were the best as far as I was concerned.