Pet Insurance Explained: What We’d Love Every Pet Owner to Know
- 3 hours ago
- 21 min read
Pet insurance is one of those things we often don’t think too deeply about until we suddenly need it.
When you bring home a new puppy or kitten, you’re much more likely to be thinking about beds, toys, food, vaccinations and perhaps how you’re going to persuade them that 4am isn’t breakfast time!
Insurance can easily become something we arrange, tick off the list and then forget about.
But not all pet insurance is the same, and unfortunately, we sometimes see families discover this at the worst possible moment: when their much-loved pet is unwell.
We know insurance can feel like a bit of a minefield. Most of us don’t sit down with a cup of tea and enthusiastically read every page of an insurance policy! But understanding a few important things now really can save a lot of worry later.
At Roundwood Vets, we’re not here to tell you which insurance company to choose. Different policies suit different pets, families and budgets.
What we can do is share what we see from the veterinary side and help you understand the questions worth asking.
For dogs and cats living in London, we generally advise looking for around £7,000–£10,000 of veterinary cover per condition, per policy year.
But the headline figure is only part of the story. Cheap isn’t always better, and the most expensive policy isn’t automatically the best either. What matters is understanding what you’re actually getting for your money.
Contents
Pet insurance and how much cover you may need
Why consider pet insurance?
Modern veterinary medicine allows us to do some remarkable things for our pets.
We now have access to advanced laboratory testing, ultrasound, CT and MRI scans, specialist surgery, intensive hospital care and increasingly sophisticated treatments for long-term illnesses.
That’s wonderful news for our pets.
The downside is that advanced veterinary care can also be expensive, particularly when emergency or specialist treatment is involved.
Imagine your normally bouncy dog suddenly becomes very unwell one evening. They need an emergency consultation, blood tests, imaging and hospitalisation. Further investigations show that specialist treatment or surgery is required.
Or perhaps your cat develops diabetes, kidney disease or another condition requiring medication, blood tests and monitoring for many years.
Nobody wants to make difficult decisions about a much-loved pet based purely on finances.
Insurance can’t remove the worry of having an unwell pet, but appropriate cover can give you more financial breathing room when discussing treatment options with your vet.
How much pet insurance cover do we advise in London?
For dogs and cats living in London, we generally advise considering around £7,000–£10,000 of veterinary cover per condition, per policy year.
That doesn’t mean we expect every pet to need £10,000 of veterinary treatment. Hopefully, yours never will.
But a complicated illness or accident can involve diagnostic tests, hospitalisation, surgery, specialist referral, medication and ongoing monitoring. When several of these are needed together, costs can reach several thousand pounds surprisingly quickly.
Rather than simply asking:
“How much does this insurance cost each month?”
also ask:
“If something significant happened to my pet tomorrow, how much cover would actually be available?”
Why cheap isn’t always better
We completely understand why people shop around.
Household costs matter, and when one policy is noticeably cheaper each month, of course it can be tempting.
But with insurance, the cheapest policy isn’t necessarily the best value.
A cheaper policy might have a lower veterinary fee allowance, one annual pot shared between all conditions, smaller limits for individual conditions, time-limited rather than lifetime cover, higher excesses, percentage co-payments, more exclusions or limited dental cover.
Equally, we’re not suggesting that the most expensive policy is automatically the best.
The important thing is to look at what you’re actually getting for your money.
Ideally, choose a policy you can realistically afford to maintain, with a level of protection you’d feel comfortable relying on if something unexpected happened.
Is your £10,000 cover really £10,000 per condition?
This is one of the most important things to understand when comparing pet insurance policies because the headline figure doesn’t always tell you the whole story.
Imagine two policies both advertise:
“£10,000 veterinary fee cover.”
At first glance, they sound very similar. But the way that £10,000 can be used may be completely different.
One policy may provide a substantial allowance for each eligible condition, each policy year.
Another may provide one £10,000 pot that all of your pet’s eligible conditions share during that policy year.
And there can be another layer to consider. Some policies may have a large overall pot but also place smaller limits on particular conditions or types of treatment.
For example, a policy may advertise £10,000 of veterinary fee cover overall but only allow up to £2,000 for certain orthopaedic, or bone and joint, conditions or treatment.
So although you may see £10,000 written prominently on the policy, it doesn’t necessarily mean the full £10,000 would be available for every condition your pet develops.
Let’s imagine your dog needs £6,000 of eligible treatment for an orthopaedic problem and later in the same policy year develops an unrelated illness requiring another £5,000 of treatment.
Depending on the policy:
Each condition may have its own allowance
Both conditions may have to come from the same £10,000 annual pot
The orthopaedic condition may have its own smaller limit within that £10,000 pot
These differences can have a significant impact when your pet actually needs treatment.
This is why, for dogs and cats living in London, we generally advise looking for around £7,000–£10,000 of veterinary cover per condition, per policy year, rather than focusing on the headline figure alone.
When comparing policies, ask:
“How much cover is available for each individual condition, each policy year?”
“Do all of my pet’s conditions share one overall annual pot?”
“Are there any smaller limits within that cover for particular conditions, investigations or treatments?”
What does lifetime cover actually mean?
“Lifetime cover” sounds wonderfully reassuring, but it doesn’t mean unlimited veterinary treatment for life.
A lifetime policy can provide ongoing cover for eligible conditions, provided you continue renewing the policy and remain within its terms and limits.
This can be particularly valuable if your pet develops a condition requiring treatment year after year.
However, lifetime doesn’t mean unlimited. Annual financial limits, condition limits, excesses, co-payments and exclusions may still apply.
Other policies may offer maximum benefit cover, where a fixed amount is available for a condition. Once that amount has been used, there is no further cover for that condition.
Time-limited policies generally provide cover for a condition for a specified period, often alongside a financial limit.
It’s also worth remembering that a policy year isn’t necessarily January to December. If your insurance renews in May, for example, your annual allowance may renew in May.
Choosing a policy and understanding pre-existing
conditions
Please don’t wait until something happens
It’s very easy to put pet insurance on the “I’ll sort that out next week” list, particularly when you have a happy, healthy puppy or kitten bouncing around the house.
But insurance is something that is best considered while your pet is well.
Once your pet develops a symptom, even if nobody yet knows what is causing it, that symptom may become relevant when an insurer assesses future claims.
Imagine you bring your new puppy home and haven’t quite got around to arranging their insurance. A couple of weeks later, you notice they’ve started limping.
You arrange insurance on Monday and visit your vet later that week.
Unfortunately, taking out the policy after the limp started doesn’t necessarily mean investigations or treatment relating to that problem will be covered. The insurer may consider the symptom to have existed before the policy began.
When does your insurance actually start? Accidents, illnesses and waiting periods
Taking out pet insurance doesn’t necessarily mean your pet is immediately covered for everything from that moment.
There can be an important difference between accidental injury cover and illness cover.
With many policies, accidental injuries may be covered from the policy start date, or have a much shorter waiting period. Illness cover commonly has a waiting period after the policy begins.
The exact rules vary between insurance companies and policies, so always check your own terms rather than assuming cover begins immediately.
Why does this matter?
Imagine you take out insurance for your apparently healthy dog on Monday.
A few days later, during the insurer’s illness waiting period, your dog develops vomiting and diarrhoea and needs veterinary treatment.
Although you now have an insurance policy, that illness may not be covered because the symptoms began during the waiting period.
There can also be a longer-term consequence.
If symptoms or an illness begin during the waiting period, the insurer may subsequently consider that problem, and potentially related problems, to be pre-existing.
For example, if your dog develops itchy skin during the waiting period and is later diagnosed with an allergy, the insurer may look back at when those first symptoms appeared when deciding whether the allergy is covered.
Before choosing a policy, ask:
When does accidental injury cover begin?
How long is the waiting period for illness?
Could those symptoms or related conditions subsequently be considered pre-existing?
This is another reason we encourage owners to arrange insurance while their pet is healthy and as early as possible.
What are pre-existing conditions?
A pre-existing condition isn’t necessarily something that has already been formally diagnosed.
An insurer may also look at previous symptoms, consultations or treatment, even if nobody knew at the time what was causing the problem.
Imagine your dog has visited the vet several times with itchy skin but has never been formally diagnosed with an allergy.
You later take out a new policy or change insurance companies, and your dog is subsequently diagnosed with allergic skin disease.
When assessing a claim, the insurer may review your dog’s full medical history and decide that those earlier episodes of itching were related to the condition now being claimed for.
Depending on the terms of the policy, this could mean the allergy is considered pre-existing and therefore excluded from cover.
This is why it’s important to understand that “not previously diagnosed” doesn’t necessarily mean “not pre-existing”in the eyes of an insurer.
Ask for a medical history review before choosing a policy
If your pet already has a medical history, or you’re considering changing insurers, we recommend asking the prospective insurer to review your pet’s veterinary history before you commit, where they offer this service.
Ask them what, if anything, they would consider pre-existing or exclude from future cover.
And, where possible, ask them to confirm this in writing.
Something you consider insignificant may be viewed differently by an insurance company.
Your dog may have had an episode of limping years ago, an itchy ear or a period of digestive upset that resolved completely. You may quite reasonably assume it’s no longer relevant.
A new insurer may interpret that history differently.
And if you’re changing insurers, don’t cancel your existing policy until you understand exactly what the new company will and won’t cover.
Make sure your insurance details match our veterinary records
This sounds like a small administrative detail, but it’s really important.
The information held by your insurance company should match the information we have on your pet’s medical record.
Check your pet’s:
Name
Breed
Date of birth or age
Sex
Registered owner
Insurance policyholder
Address and contact details
One of the most important things to check is who is named as the owner.
The person holding the insurance policy should also be correctly recorded as the owner on your pet’s veterinary record.
Your dog may very much be a family pet, but if the insurance is in one partner’s name while our records have the other partner registered as the owner, this may need to be clarified during a claim.
The same applies to your pet’s breed and age.
If your details change, remember to update both your veterinary practice and your insurer.
It’s much easier to sort out these little discrepancies now than when you’re worried about an unwell pet.
What pet insurance does and doesn’t usually cover
Pet insurance is generally intended to help with eligible unexpected illness and injury rather than the routine costs involved in keeping your pet healthy.
Routine preventative healthcare usually needs to be budgeted for separately and commonly includes:
Vaccinations and boosters
Routine neutering
Flea and worm prevention
Routine health examinations
Nail clipping
Routine preventative dental care
Think about your car.
Your car insurance doesn’t normally pay for its MOT, servicing, tyres or routine maintenance. Those are expected costs involved in keeping your car properly maintained.
Pets are similar.
Preventative healthcare helps keep your pet well. Insurance helps financially when eligible unexpected illness or injury occurs.
Is a Pet Health Club the same as pet insurance?
No. A Pet Health Club and pet insurance are designed to do different jobs, and one isn’t a substitute for the other.
A Pet Health Club or preventative healthcare plan is generally there to help you spread the cost of your pet’s routine preventative healthcare throughout the year.
Depending on what your veterinary practice’s plan includes, this might help with things such as:
Vaccinations and boosters
Flea, tick and worm prevention
Routine health checks
Other preventative healthcare benefits
These are the regular costs involved in helping to keep your pet healthy, and they are often not covered by pet insurance.
Pet insurance, on the other hand, is primarily there to provide financial support when your pet develops an eligible unexpected illness or injury, subject to the terms and limits of your particular policy.
A simple way to think about it is:
Pet Health Club = helping to budget for routine preventative healthcare
Pet insurance = financial protection for eligible unexpected illness and injury
For many families, the two can therefore work alongside each other rather than instead of each other.
Dental care, ongoing conditions and specialist treatment
What about dental disease?
Dental cover varies considerably between insurers.
Some insurers cover dental disease, including assessment, treatment and dental X-rays where these are clinically required.
Some don’t.
Others may cover accidental dental injuries but not dental disease.
So don’t simply ask:
“Does my policy include dental cover?”
Ask:
“Does it cover dental disease as well as accidental dental injury?”
“Are dental X-rays covered?”
“Are there conditions I need to meet to maintain that cover?”
Following veterinary recommendations can affect your cover
This is one of those bits of small print that can catch people out.
Some insurers require recommended veterinary treatment to be carried out within a particular timeframe.
Dentistry is a good example.
Imagine we examine your dog and recommend dental treatment. Your dog seems perfectly happy, is eating normally and doesn’t appear uncomfortable, so understandably you decide to wait.
Several months later, the dental disease has progressed and treatment becomes necessary.
Depending on your policy, the insurer may decide the treatment is no longer eligible because the original recommendation wasn’t followed within the required period.
And it isn’t necessarily only dentistry.
Some insurance policies have similar requirements relating to other illnesses.
If your vet recommends investigations, treatment, monitoring or follow-up care and you decide to postpone it, ask your insurer whether that could affect future cover.
Sometimes insurers may consider conditions related
Two problems that seem completely separate to you may sometimes be considered related by an insurer.
For example, recurring ear problems could potentially be linked to an underlying allergic skin condition.
You may also come across the term bilateral condition, meaning a problem involving paired parts of the body, such as knees, hips, eyes or ears.
You might reasonably think a problem with the left knee and a later problem with the right knee are completely separate.
Your insurer may assess them differently depending on its policy wording.
Again, it’s the insurer that ultimately decides how conditions are classified under your particular policy.
What about specialist and emergency treatment?
A serious condition might involve hospitalisation, advanced imaging and referral to a specialist.
It’s worth checking whether your policy covers things such as specialist referrals, CT and MRI scans, specialist surgery, hospitalisation, emergency and out-of-hours treatment, ongoing medication, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy or behavioural treatment.
And if your pet is seriously unwell, please don’t delay urgent veterinary treatment while trying to establish whether your insurer will pay.
Your pet’s immediate clinical needs come first.
How pet insurance claims actually work
Why do we have to provide your pet’s full medical history?
This sometimes comes as a surprise to owners.
When an insurance company requests your pet’s clinical records as part of a claim, we have professional and legal responsibilities around providing accurate records with the necessary authority to disclose them.
We cannot remove something from your pet’s history, change what was recorded or deliberately leave out relevant information because it might affect a claim.
The insurer may require records from Roundwood Vets and potentially previous veterinary practices.
This can include previous symptoms, consultations, diagnoses, investigations, medications and treatments.
Something documented several years ago may therefore become relevant to a claim today.
Who decides whether my claim is covered?
We can send your insurer the information they need, explain our clinical findings and answer their questions, but ultimately the decision isn’t ours.
The insurance company’s claims assessor reviews everything alongside the terms and conditions of your policy.
They decide whether a claim is accepted, partially covered or declined.
Sometimes an insurer will come back to us asking for clarification. They may want to know when symptoms started, whether two conditions could be related or why a particular treatment was recommended.
We will review your pet’s medical record and provide an accurate, factual veterinary response.
But we don’t have any sway over the insurer’s final decision.
Your insurance policy is ultimately an agreement between you and your insurance company. We’re very happy to help with the veterinary side of the claims process, but if you need confirmation about whether something is covered, your remaining allowance, excess or policy terms, your insurer is the best person to ask.
One vet visit doesn’t necessarily mean one insurance claim
You may understandably think:
“It was all done during the same visit and it’s all on the same bill, so surely it’s one claim?”
Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t quite work like that.
Claims generally need to relate to the individual medical condition being treated.
Imagine your cat comes to Roundwood Vets for dental treatment.
We carry out pre-anaesthetic blood tests and unexpectedly find changes that lead to a diagnosis of renal, or kidney, disease.
Although everything happened around the same visit, we now have two conditions:
Dental disease
Kidney disease
These are separate medical conditions and would generally need to be submitted as two separate claims.
Depending on your policy, separate excesses may also apply.
We cannot combine unrelated conditions into one claim simply because they happened during the same appointment. The information we submit has to accurately reflect your pet’s medical history and treatment.
Who actually completes your insurance claim?
You might reasonably assume that making a claim simply involves uploading your veterinary invoice and waiting for the money to come back.
Sometimes it is relatively straightforward.
But often, there is much more happening behind the scenes.
Many insurers require information from the veterinary practice before they can fully assess a claim. This may include medical histories, clinical notes, invoices, diagnoses, treatment dates, veterinary declarations and answers to additional questions.
At Roundwood Vets, we spend approximately 8–12 hours every week, on average, dealing with insurance administration on behalf of our clients.
We know how important these claims are to you, and there is often quite a lot of work happening quietly in the background.
Can Roundwood Vets start the claim for me?
With some insurance companies, we can start the claim on your behalf.
If you’d like to make a claim, please let us know:
Which insurance company your pet is insured with
Your policy number
Which condition or treatment you’d like to claim for
Depending on the insurer, we may then be able to initiate the claim and provide the veterinary information they require.
Other insurers may require you to start the claim first, after which they contact us for the veterinary part.
If you’re not sure, just ask us. Let us know who your pet is insured with and have your policy number available, and we can tell you what we’re able to do from our side.
Once we complete a claim, it must go directly to your insurer
There’s another important part of the claims process that can sometimes cause confusion.
When Roundwood Vets completes the veterinary part of an insurance claim, we need to submit the completed claim and supporting veterinary information directly to your insurance company.
This is particularly important if your insurer still uses a paper claim form.
You may bring the form into the practice for us to complete, but once we have completed the veterinary section, we cannot return the completed claim form to you for you to submit yourself. It needs to be sent directly from Roundwood Vets to your insurer.
This helps protect the integrity of the veterinary information we are providing, including your pet’s clinical history, treatment details and the veterinary declaration.
So, if you bring us a paper claim form, please make sure we have:
Your insurance company’s details
Your policy number
The condition you are claiming for
Any sections of the form that your insurer requires you to complete first
Don’t leave your insurance claim too long
If you’re planning to make an insurance claim, let us know as early as possible.
Some insurance companies have a time limit for submitting claims, so leaving it for too long could mean you miss the period in which your insurer will consider the claim.
There’s another important point here.
Once your pet has experienced symptoms, received treatment or had a condition recorded in their medical history, that information remains part of their clinical history whether or not you make an insurance claim for it.
For example, your dog may have been treated for an ear problem and you decide not to claim because the bill was relatively small.
If you later change insurance companies and your dog develops further ear or skin problems, the new insurer may review those earlier clinical notes when deciding whether the new problem relates to a pre-existing condition.
So not claiming for something doesn’t mean it disappears from your pet’s medical history or cannot affect future insurance cover.
Medical history and claims history are not the same thing.
How long does an insurance claim take?
We know that once you’ve asked us to submit an insurance claim, particularly if you’ve already paid a significant veterinary bill, you naturally want it dealt with as quickly as possible.
At Roundwood Vets, once we’ve been notified that you would like to make a claim, we aim to submit the veterinary part within 10 working days.
There may occasionally be times when it takes a little longer, particularly during periods of high administrative demand or where a complicated claim requires additional information.
We really appreciate your patience when this happens.
Once we’ve submitted everything requested from our side, the claim goes to your insurance company for assessment.
Unfortunately, we don’t control how long the insurer takes to assess or pay the claim.
Sometimes they may come back to us requesting additional clinical information or clarification, which can add another stage to the process.
Pre-authorisation and direct claims at Roundwood Vets
What is pre-authorisation?
A pre-authorisation is when an insurer reviews a proposed condition and treatment before planned treatment takes place and provides written confirmation regarding cover.
This can be particularly useful before an expensive procedure, investigation or specialist referral.
However, not every insurance company offers pre-authorisation.
Where it is available, the insurer may ask us to provide your pet’s medical history, details of the proposed treatment and an estimate.
What is a direct claim?
A direct claim is different.
Normally, you pay your veterinary bill and then reclaim the eligible amount from your insurer.
With a direct claim, the veterinary practice agrees for the insurer to pay its eligible contribution directly to the practice.
Although insurers may offer direct payments, your veterinary practice doesn’t have to agree to accept them.
How direct claims work at Roundwood Vets
At Roundwood Vets, we only agree to direct insurance payments when we have written pre-authorisation from the insurer confirming that the condition and proposed treatment are covered.
This helps give both you and us greater clarity before planned treatment takes place.
If your insurer doesn’t provide written pre-authorisation, unfortunately we cannot agree to a direct claim.
You would need to pay Roundwood Vets and then claim the eligible amount back from your insurer.
Even with written pre-authorisation, you remain responsible for anything your policy doesn’t cover, including your excess, co-payment, costs above your policy limit, excluded items or treatment outside the scope of the authorisation.
A simple way to remember the difference is:
Pre-authorisation: Has my insurer confirmed in writing that this condition and proposed treatment are covered?
Direct claim: Has my veterinary practice agreed to receive the insurer’s eligible payment directly?
They aren’t the same thing.
Estimates can change
Veterinary medicine isn’t always predictable.
We may provide an estimate based on what we reasonably expect your pet to need, but sometimes additional findings change the treatment plan.
Your pet might need further investigations, medication or hospitalisation.
A pre-authorisation based on an estimate therefore shouldn’t automatically be interpreted as approval for every additional cost that subsequently arises.
If the treatment plan changes significantly, additional authorisation may sometimes be required.
Don’t forget excesses and co-payments
Your excess is the amount you contribute towards an eligible claim.
Some policies also have a co-payment, meaning you pay a percentage of the remaining eligible veterinary costs.
This can become particularly important as pets get older because some policies change the owner’s contribution with age.
Check whether your excess applies per condition, whether another excess applies when the policy renews and whether your percentage contribution changes as your pet gets older.
Changing insurers and insuring an older pet
Shopping around when your renewal premium increases is completely understandable.
But please be careful if your pet already has a medical history.
Something your existing insurer currently covers could become a pre-existing condition under a new policy.
That’s why we recommend asking a potential new insurer to review your pet’s medical history, where they offer this service, and tell you in writing what they intend to exclude.
And don’t cancel your existing insurance until you understand what the new policy will cover, when the new accident and illness cover begins, and how any existing symptoms or conditions will be treated.
Cheap isn’t always better.
A slightly lower monthly premium may not feel like much of a saving if you subsequently discover that an important condition is excluded.
Insurance premiums will also increase as pets age, and some policies introduce or increase percentage contributions for older pets.
It’s worth thinking about whether your chosen policy is something you’re likely to be able to maintain longer term.
If your pet develops a lifelong condition and you later cancel their policy, obtaining equivalent cover elsewhere may be difficult because that condition could then be considered pre-existing.
Before you need your insurance: a five-minute check
While your pet is hopefully curled up happily beside you, take five minutes to check:
✓ I know which company my pet is insured with
✓ I know where to find my policy number
✓ My pet’s name, breed and date of birth are correct
✓ The policyholder matches the owner recorded on my pet’s veterinary record
✓ My contact details are up to date
✓ I know how much cover I have per condition, per policy year
✓ I know whether conditions share one annual pot
✓ I understand my excess and any co-payment
✓ I know when accident and illness cover begin
✓ I know whether dental disease is covered
✓ I know whether my insurer offers pre-authorisation
✓ I understand any exclusions relating to my pet’s existing medical history
✓ I understand that once Roundwood Vets completes a claim, it will be sent directly to my insurer rather than returned to me for submission.
It’s a simple bit of preparation, but when you’re worried about an unwell pet, having these things sorted can make life that little bit easier.
Our pet insurance checklist
Before choosing, renewing or changing a policy, we’d suggest asking:
How much cover do I have per condition, per policy year?
Is there one shared annual pot?
Are there smaller limits for particular conditions or treatments?
Is this lifetime cover?
When does my policy year renew?
When does accidental injury cover begin?
What is the waiting period for illness?
What happens if my pet develops symptoms during that waiting period?
How does the insurer define a pre-existing condition?
Can they review my pet’s medical history before I commit?
Can they confirm exclusions in writing?
How are related or bilateral conditions handled?
What excess and co-payment will I pay?
Will my contribution change as my pet gets older?
Is dental disease covered, including dental X-rays?
Do veterinary recommendations need to be followed within a particular timeframe?
Are specialist referrals, CT and MRI scans and emergency treatment covered?
Does the insurer offer written pre-authorisation?
Is there a time limit for submitting a claim?
What happens if my pet develops a lifelong condition?
You don’t necessarily need the most expensive policy.
You need one that you understand, can afford and feel comfortable relying on.
What if I don’t want pet insurance?
Insurance isn’t the right financial choice for every family, and some people prefer to self-fund their pet’s veterinary treatment.
If that’s your choice, we’d strongly encourage having a proper plan rather than simply hoping the money will be available if something happens.
One practical option is to open a separate bank or savings account specifically for your pet.
Set up a standing order and put money into it every month. Think of it as paying your own pet premium.
For example, £50 per month would give you £600 after one year and £3,000 after five years, assuming you hadn’t needed to use it.
The difficulty, of course, is that your pet doesn’t know how much is in their savings account!
An emergency could happen six months after you start saving.
If you’re going to self-fund, consider starting with a larger lump sum if you’re able to, then continue contributing each month until you’ve built a healtcreate teh bloghy emergency fund.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be insurance or savings either.
Some families choose insurance and also keep a separate savings pot to help with preventative healthcare, excesses, co-payments and treatments that aren’t covered.
A final thought from us
If you’ve reached the end of this blog thinking, “I had no idea pet insurance could be this complicated,” you’re certainly not alone.
Most people take out insurance because they want to do the right thing for their pet. They quite reasonably hope that if something goes wrong, their policy will be there to help.
And appropriate insurance can be incredibly valuable.
Our aim isn’t to make you worried about insurance or tell you which company to choose. It’s simply to help you ask the right questions before you need to make a claim.
For dogs and cats living in London, at Roundwood Vets we generally advise considering around £7,000–£10,000 of veterinary cover per condition, per policy year.
Look beyond the cheapest monthly premium. Understand whether your allowance is per condition or shared, check your dental cover, look at excesses and co-payments, and understand waiting periods and how pre-existing conditions are handled.
If your pet already has a medical history, where possible ask a prospective insurer to review it before you commit and confirm any exclusions in writing.
Take a few minutes to make sure your pet’s insurance details match the details we hold at Roundwood Vets too, particularly their breed, age and registered owner. And keep your insurer's name and policy number handy.
If you want to claim, please tell us as early as possible. Some insurers have deadlines for submitting claims. With some insurance companies, we can start the claim for you.
Once we’ve been notified that you would like to make a claim, we aim to submit the veterinary part within 10 working days, although occasionally it may take a little longer during periods of high administrative demand.
Remember too that we must provide accurate clinical information when appropriately requested by your insurer. We cannot change your pet’s medical history, and we don’t decide whether your claim is accepted. That decision belongs to your insurer.
And if insurance simply isn’t right for your family, that’s okay too. We’d just encourage you to build a healthy emergency fund for your pet so that you have a financial plan if something unexpected happens.
Ultimately, that’s what all of this is about: being prepared so that when your pet needs you, you can concentrate on them.
If you’re unsure about veterinary terminology in your policy, need your pet’s medical history or want to know what information we need to help with an insurance claim, please speak to the Roundwood Vets team. We’re always happy to help where we can.
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