Pet Insurance - Out of hours

WinniesMum

Hi Everyone, 

Last Friday evening at 4.30pm, I had to rush my pet dog, Winnie to the vets. Upset and unsettled to hear she needed urgent medical attention and would need an overnight stay with a potential ultrasound. 
Luckily, I had lifetime cover for Winnie up to the value of £10k with no previous claims. The estimate came to £1.9k. 

Having owned dogs previously and claiming on their pet insurance, It was not my first instance in claiming. 
My particular pet insurance offers direct claims, meaning the vet can set up claim where the insurance pays the vet direct. 
However by the time I waited to see reception, I was told that no claims can be put forward after 5pm (it was 4.58pm) Monday-Fri. I was told to pay £1.9k in full or take my dog back. 
Worried, upset and angry, I paid the amount (via a credit card) to be then told if she needed surgery (which would be around £2-3k) I would need to pay in full again otherwise, I'd have collect Winnie and just 'hope for the best'. 

I can deal with the fact the vets bedside manner was beyond unprofessional however what I am struggling to get my head around is the fact that Pet Insurance companies close at 5pm throughout the week and close during the weekends. 

Why? Does anyone work for a pet insurance company as I would love to understand the logic behind this. I pay £40 a month to ensure if my pet gets sick, I am covered and yet I have to pray and hope that my pet does not get sick after 5pm or during the weekend. 

Yes, I was fortunate enough to have a credit card but when did it become the norm to have insurance for insurance? 

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm seriously looking into data of how many people have insurance and their pets have perished due to the fact they were not able to claim that evening or during the weekend. 

If you have a car accident at 2am on a Monday, you can be rest assured you will not need to pay anything until your car insurance claim goes through, why is this not the same for pet insurance. 

Any insights, facts or reasons behind this so I can understand and make others aware would be greatly appreciated. 

p.s - Winnie is recovering well and no further vet trips needed .  

MyRealNameToo

WinniesMum said:

Hi Everyone, 

Last Friday evening at 4.30pm, I had to rush my pet dog, Winnie to the vets. Upset and unsettled to hear she needed urgent medical attention and would need an overnight stay with a potential ultrasound. 
Luckily, I had lifetime cover for Winnie up to the value of £10k with no previous claims. The estimate came to £1.9k. 

Having owned dogs previously and claiming on their pet insurance, It was not my first instance in claiming. 
My particular pet insurance offers direct claims, meaning the vet can set up claim where the insurance pays the vet direct. 
However by the time I waited to see reception, I was told that no claims can be put forward after 5pm (it was 4.58pm) Monday-Fri. I was told to pay £1.9k in full or take my dog back. 
Worried, upset and angry, I paid the amount (via a credit card) to be then told if she needed surgery (which would be around £2-3k) I would need to pay in full again otherwise, I'd have collect Winnie and just 'hope for the best'. 

I can deal with the fact the vets bedside manner was beyond unprofessional however what I am struggling to get my head around is the fact that Pet Insurance companies close at 5pm throughout the week and close during the weekends. 

Why? Does anyone work for a pet insurance company as I would love to understand the logic behind this. I pay £40 a month to ensure if my pet gets sick, I am covered and yet I have to pray and hope that my pet does not get sick after 5pm or during the weekend. 

Yes, I was fortunate enough to have a credit card but when did it become the norm to have insurance for insurance? 

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm seriously looking into data of how many people have insurance and their pets have perished due to the fact they were not able to claim that evening or during the weekend. 

If you have a car accident at 2am on a Monday, you can be rest assured you will not need to pay anything until your car insurance claim goes through, why is this not the same for pet insurance. 

Any insights, facts or reasons behind this so I can understand and make others aware would be greatly appreciated. 

p.s - Winnie is recovering well and no further vet trips needed .  

At 2am in the morning you won't be able to contact your Car or Home insurer either. 

There are some 24/7 operations like Home Emergency and Breakdown but they are the exceptions rather than the norm. They also have procedures for when their IT systems crash, for a breakdown service it was a giant map of Europe with hundreds of numbered pins then a book chained to the map that converts pin number to a recovery agent, their email/telephone number... a colleague knocked it off the wall at a site visit once and they weren't happy having to find the locations for each of the pins that fell out. 

The difference is ultimately your car can just sit there until the claims teams reopen and in most cases won't sustain material additional damage but you do get the occasional case of a smashed window with a customer that doesnt have undercover storage and the problem of rain getting in. Occasionally it may go to storage which you won't pay for but then you are talking a very modest bill compared to thousands for vets bills so the companies take the risk rather than have you pay upfront. 

The reality is the majority of people simply want the cheapest insurance possible and running 24/7 call centres are expensive and not appreciated by the majority of customers. 

Its ultimately the customer/Vets decision what to do in the interim, the vet could have done it on tick but then may not have gotten their money back had the claim be declined. Similarly some get out emergency roofers if storms damage the roof whilst the insurers are closed to simply cover the hole to prevent further damage. 

I did once work in a near 24/7 claims reporting line for "premier customers", there'd be a senior and 3 non-seniors on shift every late evenings... we got virtually no calls. To use up our time we also acted as an out of hours messaging service for some other firms (non-insurance) and calls for them easily out numbered our own customers but even then it was a small number. 

Who wants to pay an extra 5% a year to have an out of hours call centre? Almost no one at the point of purchase and only a small number during the course of their policy it seems. 

sheramber

Are you sure it was the insurance company who closed at 5 pm and not the vet surgery, whose admin staff only worked office hours.   

I have never had to pay up front for vet treatment. Nor do most insurance companies pay or confirm payment  up front. 

Any claim is made after treatment. 

Vets know the companies they can trust to pay up and those companies who delay payment or regularly refuse payment. 

WinniesMum

Thank you both. 

I am ringing around other vet practices to understand their process on claiming in an emergency. 

Some will take a 50% deposit and some are requiring an upfront cost. There was one that is happy for a deposit of 20% until they can speak with the insurance company the next day or after the weekend. 

I appreciate the costs associated to having a 24/7 system. I just feel the system with vet practices and insurance companies are broken. 

You are right, Sheramber - I do believe it lands with the vet practice and not the insurance. 

MyRealNameToo

WinniesMum said:

I am ringing around other vet practices to understand their process on claiming in an emergency. 

Some will take a 50% deposit and some are requiring an upfront cost. There was one that is happy for a deposit of 20% until they can speak with the insurance company the next day or after the weekend. 

I appreciate the costs associated to having a 24/7 system. I just feel the system with vet practices and insurance companies are broken. 

You are right, Sheramber - I do believe it lands with the vet practice and not the insurance. 

It can vary by both vet practice and insurer so a company may say you need to pay in full up front if your insurance is with "El Cheapo Pet Insurer" but take a deposit if you're insured with PetPlan.

There is some element of the vets experiences with various insurers that drive it. Some of the bigger insurers may make more active attempts of relationships with vets but if you have a small book of customers it'd be a lot of cost engaging with the circa 5,500 vetanery clinics when many could go years between seeing one of your customers. 

Did forget K&R insurance thats another one that does 24/7 claims but then most people covered by a K&R policy dont know that they are. 

KittenChops

WinniesMum said:

Hi Everyone, 

Last Friday evening at 4.30pm, I had to rush my pet dog, Winnie to the vets. Upset and unsettled to hear she needed urgent medical attention and would need an overnight stay with a potential ultrasound. 
Luckily, I had lifetime cover for Winnie up to the value of £10k with no previous claims. The estimate came to £1.9k. 

Having owned dogs previously and claiming on their pet insurance, It was not my first instance in claiming. 
My particular pet insurance offers direct claims, meaning the vet can set up claim where the insurance pays the vet direct. 
However by the time I waited to see reception, I was told that no claims can be put forward after 5pm (it was 4.58pm) Monday-Fri. I was told to pay £1.9k in full or take my dog back. 
Worried, upset and angry, I paid the amount (via a credit card) to be then told if she needed surgery (which would be around £2-3k) I would need to pay in full again otherwise, I'd have collect Winnie and just 'hope for the best'. 

I can deal with the fact the vets bedside manner was beyond unprofessional however what I am struggling to get my head around is the fact that Pet Insurance companies close at 5pm throughout the week and close during the weekends. 

Why? Does anyone work for a pet insurance company as I would love to understand the logic behind this. I pay £40 a month to ensure if my pet gets sick, I am covered and yet I have to pray and hope that my pet does not get sick after 5pm or during the weekend. 

Yes, I was fortunate enough to have a credit card but when did it become the norm to have insurance for insurance? 

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm seriously looking into data of how many people have insurance and their pets have perished due to the fact they were not able to claim that evening or during the weekend. 

If you have a car accident at 2am on a Monday, you can be rest assured you will not need to pay anything until your car insurance claim goes through, why is this not the same for pet insurance. 

Any insights, facts or reasons behind this so I can understand and make others aware would be greatly appreciated. 

p.s - Winnie is recovering well and no further vet trips needed .  

Nearly 2 years ago, we had to rush our cat to the out of hours vet, at about 9pm on a Saturday night
Obviously our local vets weren't open - the practice we took him to was where we were signposted to from the recorded message on answerphone of local vets
At this place, it's a 'regular' vet practice during 'normal working hours' - then it switches to the out of hours service, which is run by a different company
When we arrived, we had to prove our cat was insured (policy number/documents email on phone, proof of payment on online banking app) and prove our address (council tax email on phone) - then they took a £500 payment as a deposit.  Only then did they examine him - he was in a lot of pain with a urinary blockage which would have killed him within a few hours, if left untreated.  The total bill for the out of hours vet was around £1900 (I think they claimed the remainder from the insurance, which there was an admin charge for).
We collected him at around 7:30am on the Monday & had to take him straight to our local vets.  We were told this was because the practice reverted to the 'regular' vet practice and our cat wasn't registered with them - even though he wasn't completely out of the woods (still had a catheter in, was panting, had a very high temperature, one of his front paws was swollen to at least twice its size).

I don't think your argument is with the pet insurance company - I think it's with the practice. How did they not have a process for out of hours treatment (for insured pets)? Was this your normal vets practice? Was it because they were in the midst of a switchover from 'regular' to 'out of hours'?

Incidentally, we were also a bit shocked by the manner of some of the vets at the out of hours practice - e.g. within half an hour of us getting there, they were trying to upsell a procedure to us which is a preventative measure for male cat urinary blockages which could have waited for a few days at least! - and at the state of our cat when we picked him up on the Monday morning (having spoken to someone on the Sunday evening, we were told they were keeping him in for the Sunday night more as a precaution than anything - we certainly didn't expect him to have a temperature or a swollen paw).  We've since found out where the next nearest out of hours vet is - if anything like this happens again, we will most likely take him to that one instead.

sheramber

I don’t know if it still happens but a few years ago there were reports of  an out of hours surgery requiring a cash sum before they opened the door. People had to find an  ATM to draw  the cash.