Pet health insurance honesty is the best policy
When taking out pet health insurance, how much do you disclose?
Many pet health insurance providers make statements like: “Failure to disclose material facts could result in your policy being invalidated.” By “material facts” they mean anything that might affect whether they accepted your application or not, or excluded certain conditions.
For example, supposing a particular pet health insurance policy excluded any pet over the age of 8 years. If you had adopted an elderly pet, you could be tempted to knock a couple of years off his age in order to get your pet insured. But don’t do it – it’s really not worth it!
Alternatively, you may genuinely believe that a condition is too trivial to disclose. For instance, your pet may have been treated for fleas and you may have completely forgotten about it. But when the pet later develops a skin complaint which could be related to the flea infestation, you could find you weren’t covered.
One thing that can make it very tempting to “forget” to disclose something is the bad record some pet health insurance providers have of finding excuses not to pay out.
One pet owner had a claim turned down for a cat who developed a food allergy. The reason given was that when the cat first arrived at the owner’s home, she had worms which led to a mild case of diarrhoea!
Another cat developed chronic renal failure for which bills for immediate treatment came to hundreds of pounds, in addition to monthly check-ups continuing indefinitely and costing £40 a time. A well-known pet health insurance provider refused to pay out. The reason? The cat had had a urinary tract infection FIVE years earlier.
Such incidents cause great dismay and disappointment - you have been paying into your pet health insurance policy for just such an event. It could well make you regret having told the truth.
But the answer is not to avoid being truthful, tempting as it may be. It could lead to serious problems later on. Be as truthful as possible, but before signing up with any pet health insurance provider, find out as much you can about their pay-out record.
And, as always, check the small print.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.