Arrgghh! Blipping pet insurance

[Tinkerbelle]

I won't bore you with all the details but having had a claim refused I have taken it to the Financial Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has upheld my complaint. They should have paid out. BUT Petplan have now said that they would have refused the claim for a different reason so the Ombudsman says that's that.

How the hell is that right? I've fought a claim that was refused for one reason. The Ombudsman says they should not have refused on that basis so they get to bring in a substitute reason.

That reason doesn't hold water either as they're now saying the cat didn't have a dental check in the 12 months preceding the initial diagnosis. Well he did because he was diagnosed in 2009 and not 2010 as they're saying but now I've only got 10 days to argue my case.

The original claim was refused because the vet wrote rubbish notes that Petplan chose to interpret to be able to refuse the claim. The vet didn't support me wholeheartedly but I kicked her arse and got the practice to pay me the £900 bill in full because of the part in the whole debacle.

Petplan are a miserable bunch of gits and the Ombudsman service is clearly not quite the unbiased adjudicator I thought. I'm not allowed to change my sodding argument but Petplan can. Grrr!!

 

[SparklyBarbs]

Thats awful, i've hopey insured with Argos, my son's vet says they were the best, and its only £6.00
a month, and ive yet to use it. I think hopey maybe needs a dental check up. She eats that dried
food and got a whiffy breath, but maybe its the dried food. You sound like you can handle them, and
you.ve ten days, so give it your best, it might be good news. They really are a law onto themselves
all insurance companies, pets and everything else

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Whiffy cat breath usually means dental problems especially if Hopey isn't eating wet food. What I've learnt through this whole process is that you MUST have a "paid for" dental check once a year to stand a gnat's chance of getting dental fees paid by Petplan.

My boys have both had extensive dental treatment. Harve's current total stands at £869. Alf comes in at just over £2000. I'm a whole lot tougher than I look and I'm very good at pushing insurance companies to the limit but I'd really rather not. I'll keep going with this because they're wrong

I would check your insurance and make sure you stick to the rules because dental fees are astronomical if a specialist is needed. And you won't know if they need a specialist until they do. If you see what I mean.

 

[SparklyBarbs]

Oh flip i couldn't afford those prices, and she's never had a tooth check up. Not covered now by the insurance either probably.
Would she not be in pain if her teeth were sore. She chews a cardboard box sometimes, but we all know how cats love cardboard
boxes. he he. Will get her a check up this week to be sure i think. There must be nothing worse than a toothache for a cat or
any animal, or person come to that. Good luck with the insurance, blooming awful people i think

 

[Flying Pigs]

There was an article on the Daily Watchdog last week about Pet Insurance. Mostly dog owners complaining but the gist was that Argos for one have had massive price increases as they have merged with another company and if the owners tried to move insurers with a pre existing condition the price would be just as high. One woman dog owner from about £38 per month to over double that. Someone is making vast amounts of dosh from all of this.

 

[janie]

louis was insured with argos before the awful lot i have now. i claimed twice - they were very helpful, no quibbling and paid up quickly. damn well wish i'd stayed with them.

 

[Tinkerbelle]

My boys both had periodontal summatorother. I can't remember the proper name but their jaw bones were being eroded. Alf was in a real pickle with it. He was clearly in pain and miserable. It turned out that Harvey's was actually much worse but he seemed perfectly normal. Harvey's was so bad he had teeth simply fall out!!

But these are extreme cases. Most cats won't need that kind of treatment.

Bizarrely they have paid out on Alf's treatment without so much as a peep but wouldn't pay for Harvey. Same treatment, same diagnosis albeit Alf was diagnosed first and treated first.

The ones making the money are the ****** vets. It's cheaper to have my own teeth treated privately than it is to have the cats done. Alf had one tooth out and it was £600.

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Well I've gone round again. Lodged my objections with the Ombudsman and we wait to hear. I shall have to find a new insurer in a tick as they will refuse to insure me!

 

[piper4]

I hope you have your objections upheld TB, when I got my girls last year they were not insured and for my own folly of being slow to decide which insurer to go with Soks has now got a pre-existing condition and Moet has the same but in a lesser degree, thankfully both are ok for the time being.

My son worked for a pet insurance company about 8 years ago and loved working there but it was very poorly paid and that's why he left. With hindsight I should have just insured them with his old company when I got them but there you go your always wiser after the fact.

piper4

 

[SparklyBarbs]

Well I've gone round again. Lodged my objections with the Ombudsman and we wait to hear. I shall have to find a new insurer in a tick as they will refuse to insure me!

Thats ridiculous they paid out for one and not the other. They really are a law onto themselves. You might have trouble getting
another insurance company, but i hope not. Let us know how it all goes. Taking hopey to vets later this week, she was chewing a
cardboard box earlier, but doesnt look in pain, but best to be sure

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Fingers crossed Hopey is OK. My boys seem healthy for the minute. Except Alf is fat lol. Or rather I'm expecting to be told he's fat.

Piper hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm hugely grateful my two are insured despite this debacle. Not having these particular cats insured would be eyewatering. They're beautiful but a pair of duffers in the health stakes.

 

[SparklyBarbs]

Oh i was reading your posts about him being fat, he looks lovely and a good lot of it is fur. My daughter
calls hopey a sausage roll, cause she's got a tiny face, and a bigger body. Probably she's fat as well, she
loves butter, so im cutting down on it he he. Sure if its not vets its doctors putting illnesses down to
weight. Im doing slimming world, but its getting harder at this time of the year, you feel like eating more
lovely things LOL

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Ah yes the lovely but chubby Alf. He is on my lap right now. He's my darling baby and I love him just as he is. He's a chubby boy but I've never seen a cat with such long hair before. And who knew cats came with curly under coats??

He's the one who gets the insurance claims paid though.

 

[SparklyBarbs]

Hopey is also sitting on my knee and im starving and don't want to disturb her.
Weird cat lover. Used to not be bothered about them, then my son got one , and
i followed. Now its love

 

[janie]

heheee barbs - i'm always sitting here in the dark because it's got dark since louis got on my lap and i can't disturb him to put the lights on

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Alf is ****** bombproof. I just shush him off to go and do whatever I need to and the minute I sit back down he's back. If at all possible I just carry him with me or if I need my hands he trots along behind.

Harvey on the other hand rarely sits on my lap so when he does I don't move. But he only stays for a few minutes so its easy to wait. He is my bedmate though. He sleeps curled up next to me every night. Or if its really cold he sleeps spine to spine with me under the quilt.

 

[SparklyBarbs]

heheee barbs - i'm always sitting here in the dark because it's got dark since louis got on my lap and i can't disturb him to put the lights on

Are we turning into crazy cat women, janie, tink, minim, fp and frazzled, and anyone else i missed. Me sitting up last night while hopey is out nosing around, and today hopey on my knee and me only had 2 weetabix all day and didnt want to disturb her, and you sitting in the dark with louis. Crazy cat women but so funny. We're all mad i think LOL

 

[Disenchanted]

When I was single and temporarily without cats, I cat-sat for a friend at her home while she went away on business for a month. She had three female cats of varying degrees of affection but also a neutered former feral tom who'd never been known to make either eye or physical contact with anyone.

Needless to say, I was rather startled to find him on my lap one night after dinner and was so scared to move in case he hissed and spat and at me - that we sat like that til nearly 4am when he'd had enough.

 

[Tinkerbelle]

Well I have finally accepted defeat on this one. The ombudsman upheld my original claim but allowed Petplan to bring in a substitute reason. I countered that and again the ombudsman upheld my claim but Petplan brought in another reason. And I can't counter that.

They're saying I didn't get his teeth checked annually and I didn't. It was about 13 months between the two. But before I started this whole fecking schmozzle I phoned Petplan who told me that as long as his dental treatment coinciding with his annual injections they COULD be lenient but couldn't guarantee it so just to go ahead and make the claim. I stupidly assumed because they didn't reject the claim on that basis at the time it meant they were going to lenient.

They never had any intention of paying. They are a bunch of time wasters. The only upset though is that I was able toads myself so unpleasant that the vet paid my claim in full to shut me up.

Oh well.

 

[janie]

not sure whether this is good or bad tink - didn't quite understand the bit about toads so the vet paid your bill?? surely it's between you and the insurance company isn't it? puzzled here.....