"Time Limited" conditions for Pets

Jeff_Astle

I am searching for Pet Insurance for our family dog on a comparison web site.

Apologies if this is a really dumb question, but can someone spell out for me simply what is meant by the following clause

Time Limited – Covers conditions for a year or the set amounts whichever happens first, then it isn’t covered.

Slinky

Save yourself the aggro, go with Petplan. They are the Rolls-Royce of pet insurance. They may cost a bit more, but believe me if you need to claim you will be glad you went with them. Our cat ran up a £9500 bill in a week of treatment for lung cancer, and PP paid out no problem. And unlike the clause you refer to, they will continue to cover her up to her policy insured limit (£12K per year) for the condition and any others which weren't pre-existing when the insurance was first taken out, for rest of her life, not just to the end of the policy year.

Brie

Jeff_Astle said:

I am searching for Pet Insurance for our family dog on a comparison web site.

Apologies if this is a really dumb question, but can someone spell out for me simply what is meant by the following clause

Time Limited – Covers conditions for a year or the set amounts whichever happens first, then it isn’t covered.

I take this to mean that a condition will be covered for a the balance of the policy year or perhaps a maximum of 12 months OR up to a set amount.  So if there's say a kidney issue in January they would cover it until December.  And if there was a limit of £10k that's how much they would pay out and no more.  So if the kidney problem was costing £5k a month you would be cut off after 2 months.

elsien

Time limiting is cheaper, but if you get a pet that develops a chronic condition it means as soon as you hit either the 12 months mark or the limit to what they will pay out then you won’t be covered and you won’t be able to get insurance elsewhere because it will then count as a pre-existing condition.
companies like Petplan, whilst being more expensive, basically reset at each renewal. So if the condition develops while you are insured by then it remains covered for as long as you are insured.

 This gives a reasonable summary of the pros and cons. It’s not a recommendation for any particular insurance company.
https://www.radiotimesmoney.com/insurance/pet-insurance/whats-the-difference-between-time-limited-and-lifetime-pet-insurance/

born_again

As we found out, what it means is they will pay out up to the limit of the policy & then that condition is excluded from any further claims.

DullGreyGuy

Jeff_Astle said:

I am searching for Pet Insurance for our family dog on a comparison web site.

Apologies if this is a really dumb question, but can someone spell out for me simply what is meant by the following clause

Time Limited – Covers conditions for a year or the set amounts whichever happens first, then it isn’t covered.

It's one of the cheaper options, you get, for example, 12 months cover or £10,000 limit. So if your pet develops diabetes and needs £500 treatment a month a month before the policy ends. So they payout £500 for the first month and if you renew with them they'll make a further 11 months payments until you've then hit the 12 month limit and so now diabetes (and related issues) are excluded from the policy.

The cheapest policies wouldnt allow it to cross policy years, so these aren't the bottom of the barrel but the top tier would simply be £10,000 per year so each and every year they'd be paying out. 

The issue with any form of health insurance, human or otherwise, is once you've had an illness it's very hard to switch insurers because it's now a pre-existing condition and so would be excluded. Some with pets with lifetime policies can find the prices escalate too high. 

PetPlan is a Lifetime policy that doesn't consider claims history in its pricing, it does consider age though. The challenge with Rolls Royce quality is that it comes at a price.

Slinky

DullGreyGuy said:

PetPlan is a Lifetime policy that doesn't consider claims history in its pricing, it does consider age though. The challenge with Rolls Royce quality is that it comes at a price.

That's true about age. Our £9.5K claim we had to pay the first £110 (IIRC) and 20% of the claim as she is over 10, but even so, the knowledge that PP would pay the claim meant we could concentrate on getting the right treatment quickly (fell ill on Sunday, diagnosis on Tuesday at a big referral vets, operation on Thursday), without having to debate about whether we could afford it. Given how well she is now, you'd never know she'd been ill (touch wood), I would hate to have thought she could have been put down if she was somebody else's cat and they weren't able to have the operaton due to money issues.