Lifetime pet insurance covers your pet’s ongoing conditions for life

In pet insurance, there are 3 types of cover available to you: time limited, per condition and lifetime. They differ in the way claims are paid and how conditions become excluded from your policy. And if you’re looking to get long term cover for your pet’s ongoing medical problems, then only lifetime cover will do the job.

Time limited policy – e.g. £2,500 in vet fees per condition for 12 months only

Here, you can only claim for a specific medical condition for a maximum of 12 months from the start of your pet’s condition. After 12 months or when you have reached your maximum benefit of £2,500, you cannot claim further for the condition as it is excluded from the cover.

Per condition policy – e.g. £4,000 in vet fees per condition with no time limit

In this case, you don’t actually have a time limit to spend your vet fees allowance of £4,000. You can carry on claiming for a condition year after year until you reach the £4,000 limit. So let’s say you need to spend £1,000 a year in veterinary treatment, you can do that for 4 years until the condition gets excluded.

This is ok if ongoing vet care costs remain small but what if you have to spend £2,000 a year? Your cover will run out pretty quickly.

Lifetime policy – e.g. £6,000 in vet fees per year, every year

With lifetime cover (also known as lifelong), once you start claiming and for as long as you stay with the same insurer, conditions are never excluded. This means that you can claim for ongoing vet treatment year after year for the rest of your pet’s life, whether your pet is a new born puppy or kitten, or an older pet.

Each year when you renew, you get £6,000 to spend in vet fees during that year. At renewal, your allowance goes back to the full £6,000 for the next 12 months. The only, unlikely time you could run out of cover is if you spend more than £6,000 a year. Let’s say you spend £6,000 in your first 10 months of year 1, then you don’t have any cover left for the last 2 months of the year. However, once you renew into year 2, you can start claiming again.

Lifetime pet insurance provides true cover for life for ongoing conditions unlike time limited or per condition policies. So if this is what you’re looking for, you can compare the best lifelong providers online.

Compare Lifetime Pet Insurance

Provider	Max vet fees	Online discount	Multiple pet discount	Pay vet direct	Excess from	More Info
	£7,500	-	10%	Yes	£60
	£7,000	5%	-	Yes	£60
	£7,000	15%	5%	Yes	£90
	£6,500	10%	10%	Yes	£75
	£7,500	10% + £15 towards microchip	10%	Yes	£75
	£6,000	10%	-	No	£60