AXA pet insurance grrrr

ali-t

I have had my dogs insured with AXA for a while and never had any problems with payouts for one and have never claimed for the other but am dealing with them just now for a claim and am having a total nightmare.

Someone told me they have joined up their call centres with a couple of other insurers and this has led to a decline in the service offered but I have found them to be appalling. I am on the phone every couple of days chasing things up but it isn't making any difference.

My dogs insurance was up for renewal during a period of treatment (3 months of treatment for an injury) and they assured me there would be no problem as it was the same injury I was claiming for. They then said that they would be taking off 2 excesses (£200) instead of 1 as it was over 2 insurance policy years - a bit of a pain but its in the T&C's so I just have to deal with it.

the thing that is really winding me up is the total inefficiency. My own vet has had to fax through my dogs medical history 3 times and they are still claiming they haven't received it, the specialist they referred my dog to had to do it twice and they have finally acknowledged that they received it. then they kept telling me they didn't have clinical history but couldn't tell me which vet for, finally stating that it was from a different vet that I haven't used for 4 years but they want full clinical history from that vet even though my dog didn't have any eye problems when there and an accidental injury at age 10 is not a recurrent medical illness.

I have been chasing them up and contacting all the vets myself as they say they do it once and then won't follow up again. I know their insurance is cheaper than most but it is turning into the easyjet of dog insurance.

I got the renewal notice through for my rott today and it is around £350 and my staff is around £250. The claim i put into AXA was for around £800 and they are taking off £200 for the 2 excesses so this is pretty much a years premiums they are going to pay out if they ever get round to paying me.

I am thinking of not renewing the big boys insurance and just using a credit card at the vet if he needs a lot of treatment as I am so hacked off at the rubbish service from AXA.

Wow, that was therapeutic

So vent over, now does anyone have any tips on how to get them to pay out the £600 they are due me?

rising_from_the_ashes

Wow! Glad that helped!:D

I've just moved all my pets to A*xa so your post does worry me a little bit :eek:

I know someone else who they took a long time to pay out to & it was a similar issue of wanting a full medical history for an older dog ..... I guess they've got a right to make sure there's no prior history - but there's no excuse for saying they've not been sent the stuff when they clearly have

If / when they pay out - the £600 is way more than the annual premium, whether it's the £350 or the £250 one ..... sorry but I'm confused about which dog's had the treatment?

Re not renewing the insurance - this is really only a decision you can make and if you're comfortable with what you can afford to cover / what it's fair to put the dog through at their stage in life - £800 is a fair sum of money to find.

ali-t

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

If / when they pay out - the £600 is way more than the annual premium, whether it's the £350 or the £250 one ..... sorry but I'm confused about which dog's had the treatment?
.

I meant that £600 is the combined annual premium for both dogs so if I was putting money away each month and having a cc for emergencies I would be breaking even.

Most of the minor things and routine maintenance trips to the vet don't hit the £100 threshold or are just over it so it isn't worth claiming as the premiums would be likely to shoot up.

I agree with you that £800 is a lot to find but I had to do it between September and November and didn't have any money put aside as the insurance said they have a 2 week turnaround so I assumed there wouldn't be a problem.

I think I am just going to take out 3rd party insurance (I think it is with the dogs trust for around £10pa) and deal with any vets bills that come in.

I am really annoyed with AXA just now, particularly as they have always been pretty reliable and efficient.

rising_from_the_ashes

ali-t wrote: »

I meant that £600 is the combined annual premium for both dogs so if I was putting money away each month and having a cc for emergencies I would be breaking even.

Personally I'd always look at all pets separately .... you could be really unfortunate that they both need expensive things in the same year

ali-t wrote: »

Most of the minor things and routine maintenance trips to the vet don't hit the £100 threshold or are just over it so it isn't worth claiming as the premiums would be likely to shoot up.

Yup .... I found this with Ben - most things were sore ears, upset tum etc. Once he got to "that" age when I wouldn't have put him through difficult treatment (eg surgery), then I "self insured" - he was on arthritis medication but it was still hugely cheaper to pay for that and the odd trip rather than the premiums / excess.....

Have a look at this - it's basic but may be worth considering as a "just in case" thing if you're willing to cover other things yourself

http://www.tescobank.com/personal/finance/insurance/petins/accident-and-injury.html

mtbbuxton

I'm with Axa and they have paid out a small fortune for my whippet in the last 10 months. It's gone over two insurance years, but I've still claimed around £10,000 :eek:
Please think long and hard before deciding to cancel your policy - my dog was a perfectly healthy 7 yr old before she started with an autoimmune condition. Her illness is easy enough to treat, but very expensive.

M x

orlao

As a Rottie owner whose dog racked up vet bills of nearly £10k over his lifetime - these are just the 'big' ones btw, I'm not including routine vet care or the regular consults while he was recovering from specialist treatment nor the meds and regular hydrotherapy, I'm too scared to add those up - I would advise that you keep on paying the insurance!

Just as an example, I've never managed to escape the RVC or AHT without a bill of at least 1k and that was just for tests, treatment was on top of that, these places are scarily expensive.