Pet insurance claims considerations

Things you may not know about making a pet insurance claim

Before making a claim

Your pet needs you most when they fall ill or get injured - we're here to help

It’s good to know a bit about your cover before you make a claim so we’ve pulled out some key points for you below.

We've highlighted some of the key aspects of your pet's cover - please find the full details in your policy documents.

Start your pet claim

Pre-existing medical conditions

What's covered and what's not when it comes to medical conditions?

Icon of a dog. Next to him is a document with a cross on it.

We want to help your pet on the way to recovery, but we can't provide cover for some pre-existing medical conditions. These include:

Symptoms of illness
Injury
Behavioural problems

When you set up a policy, you'll need to tell us about any injury, illness or symptoms your pet's had so we can advise you if it'll be covered.

We may place exclusions due to something you tell us about. Some exclusions are temporary and can be removed, if you ask us, as long as certain criteria are met.

If you'd like to know if a pre-existing condition will be covered, we're happy to talk to you about it before you set up a policy.

Good to know

There's a 14-day waiting period before illnesses are covered on your policy, and a 48-hour waiting period for accidents.

Related Conditions

Health problems as a result of previous symptoms or conditions

Health conditions can be related when one of a pair (e.g. eyes, ears, knees) is affected by an injury or illness.

Example
Kylie the Labrador ruptures her left knee ligament and 7 months later ruptures her right one. We'd treat this as a single condition.

Time Limited policies

These cover conditions for 12 months from the 1st treatment up to your chosen vet fee limit.

In this example:

You wouldn't have to pay another excess.
You'd have 5 months cover remaining and what's left of your vet fee limit for treatment of her right knee.

Lifetime policies

These cover the cost of all treatments covered (up to your vet fee limit) each policy year and reset when you renew.

In this example:

You wouldn't have to pay a 2nd fixed excess if the treatment started in the same policy year.
Any balance left over from your 1st vet fee claim would cover Kylie's other claims, until renewal, when the cover would reset to your chosen vet fee limit again.

Health problems linking back to previous symptoms

Health problems linking back to previous symptoms or a previously diagnosed condition are also treated as related

Example
Kylie the Labrador ruptures her left knee ligament and 7 months later ruptures her right one. She then goes on to get arthritis in her knees three years after her knee ligament repairs.

Time Limited policies

These cover conditions for 12 months from the 1st treatment up to your chosen vet fee limit.

In this example:

The arthritis wouldn't be covered as more than 12 months have passed since the start of treatment for her 1st (left) ligament rupture.

Lifetime policies

These cover the cost of all treatments covered (up to your vet fee limit) each policy year and reset when you renew.

In this example:

Assuming you had no other claims for Kylie that year, her arthritis treatment would be covered up to your full chosen vet fee limit.

Percentage excess

As pets get older the risk of illness increases and therefore your excess may increase too.

The excess is the amount you'll need to pay towards your pets’ treatment.
We'll notify you a year in advance if your pet is reaching an age where your excess needs to change to include a 20% contribution towards your claims.

Good to know

We have a choice of excesses available to help you manage the cost of your policy. The higher the excess you choose the cheaper the price but the more you will need to contribute when you claim.

Dental care

Our Lifetime policies offer more dental cover than our Time Limited polices...

Time Limited policies

We'll cover the cost of dental care if:

The treatment's needed because of an injury.
It's to remove the first milk teeth when they're over 6 months old (as long as they were under 16 weeks old when cover started).

Lifetime policies

All the benefits of the Time Limited policy, plus:

Treatment needed because of illness (or injury).

Good to know

You'll need to make sure your pet has annual check-ups and any treatment your vet recommends is carried out within 6 months.
We don’t cover scaling or polishing teeth, or any routine or preventative dental treatments.
There's no cover for pre-existing dental conditions

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the policy cover cremation?

My pet is on a special diet, is this covered by my pet insurance?

My vet charged a fee to submit my claim for me, can I claim for this?