AXA pulling out of pet insurance

sheramber

Arian_Woman wrote: »

Also got comparable quote from Petplan which came out at £20.89 for Covered for life with £4000 per year cover & no optional extras.

Petplan are the only company who state that premiums do not increase if you make a claim. Others do bump your premium if you make a claim.

They are also univesally trusted by vets.

If payment direct to the vet is important then check with your vet who they accept direct payment from.

My current vet accept it from all companies but if an account is not paid within 30 days they charge you interest.

My last vet would only accept direct payment from Petplan.

Johnny_Dangerously

sheramber wrote: »

Petplan are the only company who state that premiums do not increase if you make a claim. Others do bump your premium if you make a claim.

They are also univesally trusted by vets.

But they can raise their premiums at renewal at their discretion, as well as alter other important factors like Total Claim amount. Did both with mine after year one despite having just 1 minor claim. Blamed increasing vet costs etc, but fundamentally changed the product I signed up for with no method for recourse on my side.

Agree they are the most trustworthy insurer out there, but my advice to anyone going down the insurance route is read the T&Cs very careful and do alot of 'what if' planning. It is very possible to get left high and dry at a later stage in an animals life.

At some point I hope that there will be an insurer who is will to actually take some risk and underwrite a true 'covered for life' policy with baked in premiums. I doubt it will happen though. I'd be first in line if they did.

Arian_Woman

This from Co-op:


x We won't increase your premium or excess at renewal just because you make a claim

X We won't charge interest when you pay by Direct Debit

X We won't charge administration fees when you amend your policy mid-term or make a claim


However, all companies will make the usual annual increases - nothing ever gets cheaper & tbh what with the large claims that just people on this site have made I'm surprised that pet insurance is viable for any company.

Johnny_Dangerously

But here's my point on the 'we won't raise your premium just because you make a claim' statement.

It looks very comforting, but what they won't commit to is that they won't raise your premiums beyond X percent each year. So you may still get a big premium increase, but there are likely to be other reasons behind it (market conditions, increasing costs etc).

It's a very lucrative business. I've put a link in one of my other posts to an article I wrote detailing my exact costs including a comparison of how I would have been paid out. The majority of vet visits fall in just below the excess (usually around £90) and there are mostly always caps on total spend in a year with the the option to increase premium an renewal time. An insurer may not sting an individual just because of their claims, but it's very likely they will increase premiums significantly on a poorly performing book.

Ok rant over:D As you can tell I used to work in the industry. I'm not anti-insurance as it goes, just wish insurers would fully commit to risk rather than dipping their toes in.

Arian_Woman

I still haven't decided which to go for as I want to speak to both companies to get clarification on what they regard as crossbreed.
My little pup is a Cavapoo but not both parents are pedigree, her mother is also a Cavapoo.
I also want to check that my vet will be happy before making my decision as Co-op also say they will make payments direct to vet.


Another bit of info I have discovered is that Co-op give first 3 months free cover for existing customers.

Apart from that the main differences are that Co-op would be about £2 cheaper after discounts & cover would be for £5k or £4k with PetPlan.

sheramber

But Petplan apply the same increase whether or not you have claimed.

An aquaintance had two spaniel brothers who had the same premiums payable although one had no claims and one had had several claims.

dacouch

Johnny_Dangerously wrote: »

But here's my point on the 'we won't raise your premium just because you make a claim' statement.

It looks very comforting, but what they won't commit to is that they won't raise your premiums beyond X percent each year. So you may still get a big premium increase, but there are likely to be other reasons behind it (market conditions, increasing costs etc).

It's a very lucrative business. I've put a link in one of my other posts to an article I wrote detailing my exact costs including a comparison of how I would have been paid out. The majority of vet visits fall in just below the excess (usually around £90) and there are mostly always caps on total spend in a year with the the option to increase premium an renewal time. An insurer may not sting an individual just because of their claims, but it's very likely they will increase premiums significantly on a poorly performing book.

Ok rant over:D As you can tell I used to work in the industry. I'm not anti-insurance as it goes, just wish insurers would fully commit to risk rather than dipping their toes in.

If Pet Insurance is a very lucrative business, why are Axa withdrawing from the market?

If it was a very lucrative market they would surely be looking to take on more customers rather than withdrawing

rising_from_the_ashes

dacouch wrote: »

If Pet Insurance is a very lucrative business, why are Axa withdrawing from the market?

If it was a very lucrative market they would surely be looking to take on more customers rather than withdrawing

Historically, Axa's premiums were low for the level of cover you got - so, if they were hit with lots of people with huge claims, they'd need even more people not claiming to make it worthwhile

The other option for them would've been to increase their premiums buy huge amounts or lower their levels of cover - neither would've been attractive to existing customers so most probably would've left, making it even harder to get the books to balance

I've found cover at a comparable cost for the cats - but the cover is a lot less (£6k per condition over lifetime rather than £7k annually) and the dogs was a fair bit more for less cover (Coop) - which I've now cancelled due to the number of exclusions she has and have taken Accident / Injury Insurance for her & am putting away money for her each month

dacouch

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Historically, Axa's premiums were low for the level of cover you got - so, if they were hit with lots of people with huge claims, they'd need even more people not claiming to make it worthwhile

The other option for them would've been to increase their premiums buy huge amounts or lower their levels of cover - neither would've been attractive to existing customers so most probably would've left, making it even harder to get the books to balance

I've found cover at a comparable cost for the cats - but the cover is a lot less (£6k per condition over lifetime rather than £7k annually) and the dogs was a fair bit more for less cover (Coop) - which I've now cancelled due to the number of exclusions she has and have taken Accident / Injury Insurance for her & am putting away money for her each month

But if Pet Insurers are making so much money, they just need to increase their prices to just below their competitors such as Pet Plan etc and they will maintain a significant amount of their existing customers. Especially when you factor in the Axa policy being a lifetime policy so any customers transferring to other Insurers would have existing conditions excluded.

Lowing the cover limits would not have as large an impact on their bottom line as increasing premiums

rising_from_the_ashes

dacouch wrote: »

But if Pet Insurers are making so much money, they just need to increase their prices to just below their competitors such as Pet Plan etc and they will maintain a significant amount of their existing customers.

I don't think that they are making a lot of money though

Generally if people are insured, they will pay an excess and claim everything on their insurance - they'll buy all their meds from the vet, even though these can be bought substantially cheaper elsewhere

eg Metacam - when I last got a bottle (over 3 years ago) it was £68 from my vet but I could get it for £18 online (and it's not gone up that much!)

That's £50 difference, every 2 months, for one item - multiply that by the thousands of people who just get stuff from their vet and it's a huge sum of money

It's not the vets fault, they can't access meds for the same prices as the online places - suppliers should have to sell it to vets for the same prices, so vets could charge customers less, insurers would have less to pay out, premiums would rise less etc etc

That's obviously not the only issue - there are loads of others - incl the costs we pay for treatment here compared to say the continent - where having insurance is actually quite rare in some countries and the prices they pay are tiny compared to us - that's fueled by affordability - does that mean treatment is worse or their vets are awful - of course not!

People may say that's what insurance is for - and yes it is to a certain extent BUT the insurers recoup that cost in the premiums that we all pay so it's a vicious circle that keeps spiraling and spiraling


It will implode at some point - insurance is becoming a luxury a lot are struggling to afford ... I've seen many people paying over £100 per month, realistically how many can afford that?

It will go back to the point where people don't insure their pets - and that will be very sad imho