12-month pet insurance or time limited policies

I was on holidays in the south west of France for the past few days. It’s amazing how you can take things for granted when you live in London but where I stayed there was no internet connection whatsoever: small holiday village, old school style, at about 10 minutes drive from the town centre which limits to a single street. So, since there was no way of posting new messages on the blog I thought I’d start writing a series of articles so that I can give you loads of content when I come back.

I guess it’s the perfect time to have a chat about the different types of pet insurance policies that you can find in the UK. Roughly speaking there is:

• Time-limited pet insurance or 12-month capped cover
• Per condition pet insurance or condition-capped cover
• Lifelong pet insurance or lifetime cover

Time-limited policies limit conditions to a period of 12 months

Time limited pet insurance policies actually limit the time you can claim for a condition to a certain period, in most cases 12 months, and up to your level of cover. It is a cover per condition on a 12-month basis.

So for instance, if your cat injured its leg in March 2008, you would be able to claim for that condition either until 1st March 2009 or until you run out of cover, whichever is reached the sooner. Afterwards, the condition would be excluded from the policy and no further claims could be made for this specific condition. Your cat would remain covered for other illnesses or accidents though.

Let’s use an example to illustrate

Kitty the cat is covered with a 12-month policy and benefits from up to £2,500 in veterinary fees. Kitty injured her leg in March 2008 and her owner took her to the vet for treatment.

Case 1: Kitty undergoes surgery and the vet bill mounts up to £2,750.

The owner is covered up to £2,500 and has to pay an extra £250. No further claim can be made for the leg of Kitty.

Case 2: It’s not that bad after all for Kitty, a small procedure and regular medicines will put her back on her feet in 3 months.

Cost of procedure: £750.
Medicines for 3 months: £350
Total vet bill: £1,100.

After 3 months, Kitty is still unwell. Luckily, she’s still covered for:

9 months (12 months limit – 3 months); and
£1,400 (£2,500 limit – £1,100)
Kitty undergoes another surgery and is given stronger medication:

Cost of procedure: £1,000
Medicines for 3 months: £400.

Past this point, Kitty is not covered for her leg any more. Indeed, although it hasn’t been 12 months yet since her owner started to claim, the financial limit of £2,500 has been reached.

I hope this helps to demonstrate what a 12-month capped policy is. Tomorrow, we’ll look at per condition pet insurance.

Some insurers offering 12-month policies: direct line,  argos.