I have just gotten off the phone with my Pet Insurance (PetPlan) where I pay £9 per cat a month. I was going to renew the policies.

Now one of my cats got run over when she was younger about 5 years ago now and had to have a metal pin placed in her back leg. The insurance is now claiming that any issues with this leg when she gets older (might be pain as she gets older) they will not pay out for it as it is a "pre-existing illness".

Now I find this highly annoying firstly it is not an illness, it was a break that may or may not cause pain to her. Now she is getting penalised for a moron who sped up our drive and backed over our cat, when trying to turn their car around.

So I was wondering does anyone know of a decent pet insurance, that would still help my Fern when her leg is ailing her in years to come? Any helpful advice would be welcome.

I use Halifax and i have nothing but praise.

But, (and i dont know this for sure) i would of thought any 'condition' such as a metal pin in her leg would need to be declared and would be excluded from a new plan.

It would be worth going on one of the comparison sites. I think you would need to declare any re existing conditions and see what pops up. Maybe, although it might cost you a little more per month, someone will cover the leg.

We do declare it, the insurance has knowledge anyway because they were the insurers when the leg was first broken. What they failed to do was tell us the leg is not covered, and when asked they said it is a pre-existing illness and when we said it wasn't an illness it is a broken leg that was set with a metal pin, he said yeah same thing. Even in human medical cover pre-existing illness are only penalised for a period of time, arthritis in the knee for example had to be paying in for 2 years before it was covered. But to never cover the break in her leg is a bit weird in my opinion.

Thanks for your advice though helpful which is good

I think most (if not all) pet insurance will exclude any pre-existing conditions, whether illness or injury. My friend's excluded any problems with one of her dog's ears because he had an operation on it as a puppy (his other ear's covered though). Also, if you have an annual policy rather than whole of life, you'd probably find that once they've paid for an illness or injury they won't pay out again for once the policy's renewed.

It is usually "pre-existing conditions" that are excluded, maybe the person on the phone just used the wrong/lazy term?

As others have said, any annual policy would have excluded this, as would any new insurer.

The only way to avoid having it excluded would be if you had maintained unbroken cover on a life time policy with the same insurer from before, and since, the original break.

If that is the case I would go back and argue with them that you paid for lifetime cover, precisely in order to avoid such exclusions. If you didn't pay for lifetime cover then I'm afraid it's a question of you get what you pay for.

It's interesting that you object to them excluding it, as you apparently feel that is unjustified, but you want it covered because you expect it to cause a problem in future, which is no doubt also their thinking and why they consider it relevant enough to exclude cover?

As to the accident not having been your fault, this isn't car insurance!

Pet insurance doesn't work on fault, most pet illnesses and accidents aren't down to "fault" but bad luck. In any case, if attributing blame, the insurance company weren't responsible for the accident either.

I think it is wrong to exclude an issue for the lifetime of the policy. In human medical policies pre-existing illness are not paid for for a period of the policy, say two or three years but after that they cover for treatment.

Why is it that pet insurance exclude for the lifetime and not for a certain period, this is what I was arguing if this confuses you so, then I am sorry.

If pre-existing conditions are not included in other policies I will not mind as the pricing of Pet plan is 100% more than (and 300% more for our dog) all the other policies I have looked at so, with that saving I will be able to put money aside for the leg issue.

Also where was I saying it was the insurers fault? I was not laying blame at any ones feet!

As I have said though, the policy and the person on the phone says pre-existing illness and break is not an illness and this is why I was asking for advice on other insurers, and recommendations on insurers.

Thanks for those who have recommended an insurer and offered advice.

That depends on what the condition is. I have certainly known lifetime exclusions on human medical policies.

Insurance is always a gamble - they bet you will pay more in instalments than they will pay out, you bet the opposite, that being the case they do not take on bad risks, or at least not unless at very high premiums to compensate for the risk. Insurance companies are out to make money.


I gave up insurance premiums several years ago and keep a fund for mine as the combined insurance premiums and excesses for all of them got so high.


Sorry, it sounded to me as if you were blaming the driver:



And this was my advice:




As explained by myself and others, unfortunately no insurer is likely to cover for this at this point. As you suggest self funding is possibly your best option.

As others have said, new insurers will exclude pre-existing conditions.

You will almost certainly find that premiums increase hugely as your cat gets older regardless of previous claims, I stopped insuring my cats as the costs were too great. I would only insure where I could not afford to cover the loss, and we now have enough savings to cover most pet-related eventualities. I used Pet Protect, I found them very good BUT they just got too expensive.


Mine doesn't - it excludes my two pre-existing conditions from now until never.

Edit - did you seriously say Pet Plan was £9 per month?? To me that is very good value. I was paying £21 per month for a 5 year old cat with NO previous claims - and I originally chose Pet Protect because they were cheaper than Pet Plan for the same cover.
You can see why I cancelled!

I know what you mean. If my friend's dog had a accident and hurt his previously treated ear the insurance wouldn't cover the costs, even if it was completely unrelated to his old injury. It would be nice if there was an option to pay a little more and have some pre-existing conditions that aren't currently being treated covered (like previous broken bones or infected ears).


Probably just the person on the phone using the wrong term, it definitely conditions not illnesses.

I am "more than" a bit irritated with MoreThan pet insurance at the moment!

You would think that a company that is obviously spending thousands on paying Morgan Freeman to do all of their voice overs, could get their website working correctly. Not only that, but when I tried to register myself on their website to check over my certificates again and get them printed out, it didn't recognise any of my details (this is 2 days after they have taken forty quid out of my accout). When I rang customer services, a dozy sounding girl said that their website isn't very good at letting customers get on to it so she would send me my certs in the post which is fine, but in this day and age, if you are going to be using websites for customers to check on their details at least have them working properly!

We use Swiftcover for our cars and have had no trouble at all in 2 years of accessing our paperwork on line.

Pfft!!

Several days on from my last post and I am still no further forward with getting our details from MoreThan. Really annoyed and unless they pull their socks up over the next few weeks I am not going to recommend them to anyone.

We really need the details for our dog minder whilst we are on holidays next week and this is just ridiculous. They have taken money out of my account on direct debit and yet they can not find my details anywhere in their system!

I really wish we had gone with someone else.