AXA pulling out of pet insurance

Merry_Wanderer

I am cancelling my AXA policy this month. The renewal isn't too much, went from £22 a month, to £30 a month, (had no claims). I've decided we're going to take out Tesco accident/injury/3rd party, and also save into an ISA. We've already paid out £250 in the past year in a dental bill, which wasn't covered. I've thought alot about this, and decided this is they way we are going. There are 'what if's' on all sides of the argument.

krlyr

Kinski wrote: »

I checked my records and I have claimed in the last year and it was just over £100. I've just received Arran's renewal for this year and it's £455 it was £235 last year. They keep saying that it's because vets fees are going up, if that's the case why aren't they upping the amount that they pay out, I've been with Axa for the last six years and the cover has always been for 7 grand :mad:. I'm luck that this year I have the money ( ppi money ) we hope to sell the house this year and we have good equity in it so this might be the last year I insure him.

Because it's not just on what you've personally claimed, but it'll be based on claims in your area/around the country. If they upped it by the amount paid out, they'd lose all their customers who'd paid out thousands and never recoup the money - they have to spread the cost over all their customers.

My renewal should be here soon as their policies renew in just over a month, fingers crossed it's not ridiculous..

CreditCrunchie

I'm not sure what to do now. I have 4 cats insured with AXA, 2 of whom are 15, the others are both 8. I was considering cancelling for the two younger ones and just keeping a savings account for them, but one of the older ones was diagnosed with early stage kidney problems in December and will need tablets and possible treatment for the rest of her life!

zzzLazyDaisy

CreditCrunchie wrote: »

one of the older ones was diagnosed with early stage kidney problems in December and will need tablets and possible treatment for the rest of her life!

And the premiums will probably jump accordingly at the next renewal. I understand it is possible to get the medication on-line cheaper - but even from the vet you may still find it is cheaper to simply pay for the medication. If your cat needs additional treatment, though, I guess that could be a different matter.

rising_from_the_ashes

Merry_Wanderer wrote: »

I am cancelling my AXA policy this month. The renewal isn't too much, went from £22 a month, to £30 a month, (had no claims). I've decided we're going to take out Tesco accident/injury/3rd party, and also save into an ISA. We've already paid out £250 in the past year in a dental bill, which wasn't covered. I've thought alot about this, and decided this is they way we are going. There are 'what if's' on all sides of the argument.

MW .... I will be going down the same route at some point. I've set up a savings account for them & have started putting money aside. Once it gets to a reasonable level, I will be doing the same

CreditCrunchie wrote: »

I'm not sure what to do now. I have 4 cats insured with AXA, 2 of whom are 15, the others are both 8. I was considering cancelling for the two younger ones and just keeping a savings account for them, but one of the older ones was diagnosed with early stage kidney problems in December and will need tablets and possible treatment for the rest of her life!

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

the medication on-line cheaper - but even from the vet you may still find it is cheaper to simply pay for the medication. If your cat needs additional treatment, though, I guess that could be a different matter.

I would 2nd this - Ben's meds were £68 from the vet & only £18 online.

So even if I had insurance for him (which I didn't as they wanted £70 / month - and that was around 10 years ago now & when he was young ... the above price was several years later), it was vastly cheaper to buy them

Again - this will partly be why insurance costs have gone up so much - if you have insurance, you'll pay the £68 to the vet & claim it back ... the insurers will recoup that somehow!

It's certainly worth checking around online & seeing how much the meds cost and at least it'll give you an idea (vet can charge for a prescription but can write up to 6 months supply on one script once pet is stable)

CreditCrunchie

I haven't claimed for anything yet and they don't know about her condition :-/

Bromley86

We've 2 dogs with AXA. One renewed after the decision to withdraw last year and was perfectly reasonable, the other is renewing this month and has jumped from £227 to £442. Although she turns 7 this year, I suspect that's based more on them trying to encourage people off their books than on her advancing age (EDIT: looking at quotes for similar policies, it seems that this renewal is actually the current market rate).

As I seem to have the touch of death when it comes to pet insurance companies (Halifax, HSBC, AXA), if there's a company anyone want to get even with, I can insure with them .

OnAndUp

I'm dreading my renewal expecting it in the next month or so?

Will post here when I get it, wish Pet Insurance wasn't such a flippin minefield!

OnAndUp

Bromley86 wrote: »

As I seem to have the touch of death when it comes to pet insurance companies (Halifax, HSBC, AXA), if there's a company anyone want to get even with, I can insure with them .

Lol!! How about NFU?!?!

After spending ages researching Pet Insurance, I was with them first excellent policy year 1 - year 2 doubled in Price for a 2 yr old dog no claims etc!

So I changed to AXA who I then (quite smugly lol!) thought where a fail-safe being an actual Insurance company who underwrite their own policy etc......scurries off eating her own words..... :rotfl:

Bromley86

I liked NFU when I dealt with them on the phone, so I think I'll take my business elsewhere .

Interestingly, I just did a test quote for John Lewis. Their middle cover ("Plus") is pretty similar to AXA (£7.5k p.a.) and the premium came in at £469 (c.f. the AXA renewal of £442). Upping the excess from £80 to £140 lowers it by surprisingly little to £424.

Argos Platinum is their similar product @ £7k p.a. and they want £741!!! Changing the excess from £65 to £165 lowers it to £601, but that's still very high.

PetPlan was £473 for £7k cover. £100 excess.

So it looks like AXA isn't so unreasonable after all, especially with it's low £75 excess. I think I need a product with £500-£1,000 excess and about £10,000 cover, but given that that won't exist I may just continue with AXA.

EDIT: Note that there are 3 different underwriters in those 4 quotes (AXA, RSA x2 & Allianz).

EDIT2: MoreThan seems to be the solution for me. Single quote was £349 for their Premier 12k p.a. cover. There's a 20% discount for adding a second pet, so our total bill for our 7 & 4yr girls would be £494 (£279 + £215) vs. AXA's £669 (£442+£227).

The excess is the same as AXA. There's also an option to add a 10% voluntary excess, which changes the single quote to £315 and the multi-pet quote to £447 (£252 +£195)

EDIT3: Just noticed something annoying with MoreThan. It looks like the current Premier cover is an automatic upgrade from Classic. Good, but there's no way to see what the true cost of Premier is, so there's a very real chance that the premium will increase substantially on renewal. Spoke to someone at MT, but they didn't really understand the issue (or they pretended they didn't ). They seemed to be saying that you'd get the upgrade every year from now on renewal; that's very unlikely to be the case.

Anyhoo, just some more obfuscation in the pet insurance market to deal with. I suspect the £220 saving for the 2 dogs that we'd get will cover all/most of this potential future increase, but it's irritating.