If your pet has a medical condition which you’ve already made an insurance claim for, the likelihood is that your premium will go up significantly when the time comes to renew.
Shopping around becomes nearly impossible, because other insurers will see your pet as a high risk, and understandably you can quickly feel backed into a corner.
If you try to switch providers after an illness has been diagnosed or get insurance for the first time, most insurers will not cover the condition your pet received treatment for.
However, at Bought By Many we've launched the first pet insurance that aims to help people in these situations. Our Pre-existing policy will cover most medical conditions, including cancer, as long as your pet hasn't suffered from them in the three months before you buy our policy.
Choosing the right policy to begin with: time limited vs lifetime
If you’ve chosen a time-limited policy, your cover will only pay for treating a condition for a set time, usually a year, after which you will have to foot the bill yourself.
Naturally, with chronic conditions, such as diabetes and arthritis, this can prove costly over the lifetime of the pet.
If you choose a per-condition or lifetime policy the insurer will pay to treat an ongoing condition for as long as required (provided it occurred after you bought the policy and treatment it doesn’t exceed the per condition limit or lifetime limit).
Lifetime (or ‘yearly limit’) insurance covers vet fees up to the stated limit every year. This can be a good option if you worry about your pet developing a long-term or recurring illness. So long as you renew a lifetime policy each year, the level of vet fees will reset to the full stated limits that you started with.
With a lifetime product, it is important to note that your 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 your excess is also likely to increase as your pet gets older. With our lifetime policies, when your pet turns 9, a fixed excess of £69 plus 20% of each claim will apply.
Read more about lifetime policies here
Should you stick with your insurer?
Even when the insurance company is willing to continue to cover an ongoing condition, it usually means you’ll have a big hike in the cost of your premium.
Your pet will be costing the insurance company money, so they want to cover that increased cost. Many people feel it is unfair, as this is what they have been paying for since they took out the policy.
Insurance companies, in turn, claim rising vet fees are forcing them to increase the price of policies. This can be argued both ways, but we believe that we should try to improve the situation.
Find out more about our pet insurance and get a quote here.
So is there another option…?
…for pets with an ongoing condition
The short answer is not yet. We have created cover for pets with pre-existing medical conditions, so you can get a policy if your pet has recently suffered from and accident or illness. However, we do not cover conditions your pet has experienced in the three months before a policy starts.
…for pets who were ill in the past
Check out our Pre-Existing policy that covers conditions your pet has suffered from in the past two years.
Join the group and get a quote for pre-existing medical conditions pet insurance here.
