Pet insurance that WILL cover a pre-exisiting condition?????

3106catherine

I have a fabulous little kitten here who had a problem with his rear end, it became very very sore and needed a smalll op to help resolve it. He is now fully recovered, on no meds and theres no reason to believe it will ever reoccur.

On contacting Petplan they have said they wont cover that area as its a pre-exisiting condition.

Now I disagree personally as to me a condition is something that is in existence, that WILL need further treatment at cost at some point. The issue here is we just can't guarantee he won't need any treatment later in life, despite the fact we're 99.9% certain he will not.

Does anyone have any experience of insuring an animal with a pre-exisiting condition that they got covered or any recommendations on companies?

Bromley86

Nope. If PetPlan won't do it (given that they're the best and most expensive), you're on your own.

The only way it would work would be if the insurance company performed individual risk assessments. That would require vet examinations/opinions (and those vets would have to be approved ones), individual risk calculations and, assuming they were doing it on an infrequent basis, a huge mark-up to cover the risk from low numbers.

Without knowing for certain, I'd suggest that someone like PetPlan would be less likely to play silly-!!!!!!s with future claims for conditions that you or I would deem unrelated but which some companies would not.

hotcookie101

Quite possibly if you insure with petplan they may "review" the excusion if you have 2 years without a claim. Otherwise you can ask them if it is possible for your vet to fax a copy of the kittens history so they can review it. I challenged an exclusion they placed on my cats policy (had fractured 4 metatarsals which healed perfectly, and they placed an exclusion for arthritis of that leg, which was just plain ridiculous!) and once I faxed them copy of his history (plus the specialist report on the beautifully healed fractures which I was still panicking about-vets act stupid about their own pets too ) they removed that exclusion. So it is worth a try.
I agree with Bromley86 though-if Petplan won't cover it I doubt any others will. What exactly did the kitten need an op on?

elsien

My mutt ( age 1-2ish at the time) had exclusions for mange, foot conditions and arthritis in the hips due to pre-existing conditions. The foot problems and mange were taken off after 2 years without a recurrence, after a report from the vet showing she'd been ok. The arthritis in the back legs stayed on due to xrays showing hip dysplasia, but as she eventually got arthritis in her front leg first (which was still covered) they finally ended up taking that off as well as there was no point leaving it on!
That was with petplan, and I could understand their reservations. My only quibble was that they excluded all foot conditions when she'd had foot allergies and cysts, and I was concerned that if she had an accident and broke / cut her foot that would be excluded as well.
I think that with a reputable company if there are no similar conditions the exclusion should eventually come off, but you'll need to check individually what their time scale is likely to be.
If you can find someone to cover an existing condition they are likely to really load the premiums, so it might be better to accept the insurance with the exclusion and put a bit extra aside each month to cover you just in case it does come back.