- We aim for payments to reach vets’ bank accounts 3 working days after receiving claims information
- We offer unique insurance policies, including cover for pre-existing conditions
- We use plain English and have simple procedures, such as no claims forms
What is Bought By Many?
Bought By Many is a free, members-only insurance company that allows people to find cover for the things they care about or that are out of the ordinary.
We are backed by underwriter Great Lakes, which is a subsidiary of Munich Re, and we focus on innovating the insurance industry.
After we launched in 2012 we started to negotiate discounts and offers with other pet insurers but our members continually flagged frustrations with the cover and service available.
So, we decided to create our own products from scratch.
We designed seven pet insurance policies, three with unique features, and built an easy-to-use quote process.
Members often told us they could not understand jargon in pet insurers’ policy documents so we made ours short and simple. Our policy documents were the first to be awarded Fairer Finance’s Clear and Simple Mark for the clarity of our design and wording.
After incorporating feedback from over 40,000 pet owners we launched our pet insurance in February 2017. Since then we’ve sold thousands of policies and received hundreds of positive reviews on Feefo. You see customer testimonials and Feefo reviews here.
Over the years we've won many awards, including two Financial Innovation Awards, the silver prize for best new product or innovation at the 2017 UK Financial Services Experience Awards and we were named the 2015 start-up for the year at the British Insurance Awards.
Bought By Many’s unique policies
We’ve designed policies that meet the needs of pets and their owners.
Check out our products summary or read on to learn more about some of our unique policies. Members can choose between these policies, we don’t offer all unique features under one policy.
- Pre-Existing Conditions – We are the only pet insurer that insures pets with recent pre-existing conditions. We cover any condition as long as the pet has not received treatment or advice for it in the 3 months before a policy starts.
We offer £500 of vet fees cover for all pre-existing conditions in the first year of the policy and £1,000 of cover in the second year, provided no claims were made in the first year.
If the customer hasn’t claimed by the end of the second year, the pre-existing condition is automatically considered a new condition, and the limit for vet fees goes up to £7,000. Any new condition has a £7,000 vet fee limit.
- Fixed for Life – We are the only pet insurer that offers a policy where the premium never increases, even if the owner claims.
It's available for dogs and cats under the age of 2 and once the owner has the policy the price will not increase over the pet's life, as long as they renew each year. The vet fees limit is £7,000 per condition.
- MoneyBack – We know that pet insurance can be costly and that sometimes policyholders end up never having to claim.
Pet owners told us this left them feeling that pet insurance is a waste of money. To cater to such customers, we created the MoneyBack policy. If no claims are made in a policy year, we will give 20% of the premium back. The vet fee limit is £7,000 a year.
Our more standard pet insurance policies:
- Complete – this is the most comprehensive pet insurance on the market. It includes: a vet fee limit of £15,000, dental cover as standard, £6,000 limit if the pet is ever lost or stolen, £6,000 limit for the pet passing away, £2,000 limit for emergency minding, £150 limit for euthanasia and £3m for third-party liability.
- Regular – Our Regular policy offers the choice of a £0 excess. It has a yearly limit of £7,000 for vet fees (many pet insurers like to call this a lifetime limit or a lifetime policy, however, we prefer the term ‘yearly limit’ as it gives our customers a better idea of what the policy offers).
Lifetime (or ‘yearly limit’) insurance covers vet fees up to the stated limit every year. This can be a good option if owners worry about their pet developing a long-term or recurring illness. So long as the policy is renewed each year, the level of vet fees will reset to the full stated limits that the policy started with.
With a lifetime product, it is important to note that premiums will increase each year at renewal. This is different to a “Per Condition” policy, where a particular condition can become excluded once the condition limit is reached. Please note that when pets turn 9, a fixed excess of £69 plus 20% of each claim will apply.
- Value - This is our low-cost, no frills pet insurance. It’s a 12-month time-limited policy. It offers £3,000 of cover for vet fees.
- Liability Only – we’ve created a low-cost liability-only policy that covers our customers if their dog harms somebody or damages their property. It covers public liability claims up to £3m. Annual premiums are £10, £14 or £20, depending on the size of the dog.
What our innovative claims procedure means for vets
We are the first pet insurer to offer online claims submittion with no forms.
Snap Claims asks a handful of questions, including vet contact details. Once we have that information we can get in touch with the vet to find out about the treatment and costs and quickly arrange a payout if the claim is successful. We can pay vets directly.
Customers can access Snap Claim by logging into My Account.
During the claim, they are invited to submit a photo of the vet receipt to speed up the process but if they don’t have any documents it’s not a problem. We do not require vets to fill out a claims form. We’re aware that delays in claims procedures can often cause cashflow problems for vets, which is why we’ve optimised our claims procedure to reduce waiting times.
With direct claims, we aim to pay vets within 3 working days once we’ve received all the information we need.
Customer reviews and press coverage
At the time of writing we had a rating of 4.8 out of 5 from hundreds of customer reviews on Feefo. Check out customer testimonials here.
Have a look at what Vet Surgeon and the Financial Times say about Bought By Many.
We've been featured in many more media outlets, including Wired, the BBC and the Telegraph.
We’d love to hear your thoughts
We are continually trying to improve our services, so if you have any suggestions, advice or questions we’d be grateful to hear them! You can email us at support@boughtbymany.com. We’d love to know:
- Do you recommend insurers to your customers?
- What would it take for you to recommend an insurer?
- What is it that you look for in an insurer?
- Are there any reasons you wouldn’t recommend an insurer?
- We look forward to hearing from you.
