Pet Insurance Reviews 

Took an age to pay a claim - blamed a high number of claims then with "Senior Managers to review", our vet won't deal with directly so we have to pay and claim back. Very poor customer service.

Wow, so let me start from the beginning.
I have a Rottie and was planning on getting him insured but was in the process of moving house so decided to wait a few months. He is quite tall for a rottie and ran like bambie as a pup and hurt his leg turning sharply on a field. went to the vet and got some medicine and his limp went away. I took out this insurance and his limp came back, turned out this time to be elbow dyplasia on his front 2 legs. £4.5k of vet bills that I didnt actually claim for as i knew he had history and as it was in doubt whether it was this the first time round, i felt it wouldnt be approved and unfair on the insureres. Which i believe shows some integrity on my behalf.
On to the fun bit....my rottie, not even 3 by now, has developed ACL disease. His right leg went pop on a walk and about £4k later its fixed So all my savings gone and a loan to boot. I claimed for this 4+ months ago and I have been given the run around and lied to so many times. So after requesting information from my vets where i used to live, my vets where i currently live, a Vets that i moved away from for giving an incorrect diagnosis (vets 4 pets decided his elbow dysplasia was an osteosarcoma and should remove his leg and put him down 6 months later, kid you not) and finally the Vet hospital where he has had his surgeries. They decided after numerous calls and e-mails that....they werent going to accept liability unless my Vet would confirm his elbow dysplasia had not caused his ACL disease. I mean come on who even reviews these claims as they have zero medical knowlege. So my Vet did this. They then left it a long time before telling me they had called me numerous times (I had no missed calls from them), emailed me (no emails) and posted a letter to me (funnily enough this arrived a few days after the call) to say they couldnt get in touch with my vets. Again rubbish as every time i call they answer. Now they have everything they need, they decided on the 29th June that they needed an itemised invoice from the vet refferal place. The vets sent this back THE SAME DAY. So i called today to say whats going on and was told they are still waiting for the itemised invoice. I said no you arent, it was sent same day and I have a copy of the email. So they asked me to hold the line and oh shocker, they do have it all of a sudden. So its going back to a claims handler to try and find something else they can use to delay or even find a way out. Furious isnt the word.
Anyway, if you are a customer already and making a claim, insist your vets copy you in to any and every correspondance otherwise you will end up running between the 2 trying to find out who is lying....although I will tell you now its pet-insurance.co.uk

Shocking insurance company. Do pay out until you start phoning them everyday. We had to pay out 2k for our dog at vets, they Paid out £850.00 . So seriously look at other pet insurance companies.

If you’re considering this provider for pet insurance - DON’T!!! I really wish I had checked reviews on trust pilot before taking out the insurance for my cat. I’ve been with E&L since he was a kitten, he’s now 6 and it’s the first time I’ve had to make a claim. Like all other customers, I’m still awaiting payment of my approved claim....his treatment was in March!! Every time I’ve called they say it’s “in their payment system”. It’s absolutely ridiculous. The claim is worth £350, not a small sum of money for most people. What if he had required treatment worth thousands?? Most people couldn’t afford to wait that long to get their money back! As someone else has suggested, it would seem the company has financial troubles as I’m not buying the “high volume of claims” rubbish. Trouble is they now have us over a barrel as our cat has been diagnosed with a chronic, long-term condition meaning getting insurance elsewhere will be impossible! Apparently our payment is due to paid out on 19th July but I’m not holding my breath. Save yourself the stress and go with one of the big ones like Petplan. Their premiums may be more expensive but as I understand they pay out within a matter of a few weeks. This company is disgraceful and the financial Ombudsman need to step in and do something about these cowboys!!!!

Unfortunately, VERY, VERY slow to pay out after a claim is agreed.
We rang them in May 2018 to tell them our pet had died and their staff were very sympathetic. I was told on the day I rang that our illness claim (from May 2018) had already been authorised for payment.
I rang back in mid June to ask what was happening re: the payment and was told our claim would be paid in about August 2018 ('hopefully earlier'). - It's now July and no sign of payment yet
It's OK for us, we can manage without the money, but suppose we'd borrowed to pay for treatment? Some people will have to.

I wouldn't buy insurance from them again.

Avoid this company. They have taken £ 205 out of my account without advising me. I only found out when I was checking my visa account. When I queried this they said it was a mistake and would be credited back to my account. They would not send me an email to acknowledge this
I have rung them 3 times and they still haven't credited the money back. I have now raised a case with my visa providers. I've been with these people for a Couple of years and have only just decided to look at reviews. What a waste of money.

Trying to cancel renewal. Have called twice, both times on hold for 15mins without speaking to anyone. Have now emailed 3 times and have had confirmation that 1 of 2 policies have been cancelled. Very poor service

E&L pet insurance.
I cannot advise strongly enough not to use this company to insure your pet.

One of my dogs had a retained testicle, this cant be predicted or foreseen.
I waited till he was 20 months old as some testicles can make a late appearance, it didn't.
He had the operation to remove it, as if left there, there's an extremely high risk of it becoming cancerous or causing testicular torsion.

I put the claim in at E&L and was told 'Castration isn't covered'
I confirmed he had not been castrated, that only the retained one removed, due to the serious health risks by leaving it.
Again they refused as it was still in the category of castration.
I pointed out that the health risks by not having it removed would prove to be far more costly in a claim, that they would have to honour, than the operation my dog had.
The answer from them was 'It isn't a 100% that he would suffer either of the risks so therefore not covered'
My final statement to E&L was....
He isn't covered for retained testicle, so if I'd ignored it then further in the future he did fall ill from a result of leaving it, Would their 'get out of jail card' be 'The condition/disease isn't covered as it wouldn't have occurred if the testicle had been removed.

Funnily enough, I didn't get a reply to that. Silence speaks volumes doesn't it.

Same story. I have 3 pets insured with this company. This is my first claim. Its all been approved but no pay-out. I asked what their time frame was but they would not commit to anything. They said they have an unusually high amount of claims in at the moment and are paying out in strict order to be fair to everyone. I take from that, that the business does not have the fund reserves to pay out. Could we have a problem here? Now looking at alternative providers......

If i could give less stars I would!

Absolutely shocking company. All this regulation rubbish they speak of on phone yet I claimed for my dog 3 months ago which was honoured but all this time later I have still not been paid. They say it’s a back log, I don’t care, it is a disgrace and they completely ignored my email last week complaining. To be fair the customer advisors seem good, just spoke to Tom who was very good and it’s not his fault. I really wish I could leave them but you are completely stuck with pet cover once you claim! I would stay away from them if I were you!

Shame I didn't read these first. It appears they take your money then stall on paying out. The excuses I have had via email are exactly the same as listed by others:
"We are currently experiencing a high influx of claims at this moment and this has unfortunately delayed our claims turnaround time. May we take this time to sincerely apologise to you in regards to this matter and assure you that we are reviewing our claims process to enable us to assess claims without unnecessary delay. To ensure we are treating our customers fairly, all our payments are released in strict date order. At this time we are unable to provide a timescale of when your payment will be released, however, we will email you notification once the payment has been issued."
They're liars and not to be trusted…

Exactly the same story. Waiting months for payment. Each time you call you are told payment is imminent. Make a claim and they prevaricate for months but every new illness is excluded within days. How this company is allowed to behave like this in what is supposed to be a regulated sector is beyond me. Cannot get to the bottom of the reason but appears to be a deliberate policy of delaying payment for as long as possible, which implies cash flow problems. Will give it a couple more weeks and then try the Financial Ombudsman.

My story is the same as everyone else really, takes them forever to pay a claim, I phoned a month ago and was told that they had accepted liability and the claim was with the underwriter and was awaiting payment. I have just called again (19/06/2018), only to be told exactly the same thing by someone else, when I told him that was what I had been told last month he suggested I had misheard what his colleague had told me!! On top of this my premium has increased by 25% this year, which has yet to be explained to me. I think as soon as I get my money I'm off, probably will be sometime in 2019.
D. Rickman

This company offer reasonably good policies, but are only worth considering if you have lots and lots of patience and deep pockets. It takes them months to settle a claim, and you need to have enough cash to pay your vet while they process the claim. I've never had a claim declined, they've all been paid less the excess as stated in the policy schedule, their customer service agents have always been polite and helpful, but settlement is so very, very slow.

Received an email this morning from Pet-insurance.co.uk asking why I had cancelled my policy. This is what I sent back.

Reason for cancellation -

Bud was injured on 4/2/2018 and was taken to the emergency vets for treatment and then to his own vets for a follow-up visit.

Numerous phone calls were made regarding insurance payout. Vets Now sent their invoice three times to you which you mislaid or filed incorrectly or could not get your head around why two vets were used. This lead to my receiving a demand for payment from Vets Now for immediate payment which luckily I was able to do.

My Father, who pays the policy for me, and who acted on my behalf, had to obtain yet another copy invoice from Pets Now and send it to you directly and was informed that the payment was approved but pending and would be paid shortly. This was on the 10th May 2018. My Father had to threaten you with legal action if not paid within 7 days and the payment was paid on the 17th May 2018.

The total for Vets Now was £657.04 less deduction of over maximum consultation fee £15.00. Admittance fee £17.81 and an Admin fee £15.43. The excess was £125.00.

After the appalling long time from injury to payout together with the "sneaky" charges (except the excess) which no doubt you will say is clearly defined in the policy wording I have no alternative but to look elsewhere for pet insurance.

On your policy wording you claim "We’ve taken the worry out of insurance". The exact opposite is true. I have never been as worried over an insurance claim and under no circumstances would I recommend your company or services!

K @ P Walton

Avoid this company at all costs. They take your money, hike up the premiums, hike the excess (now stands at £180 with an extra 20% added. In short, for my latest claim I will receive £200.....god knows when that will happen. I'm paying nearly £50 per month, no delay in them taking the premium every month though. They do not want to settle claims. They wait for you to contact them. It's been 7 weeks now & I've received nothing. I have paid thousands out in premiums and only had 2 small claims and you have to fight to get it sorted. I've paid thousands out for my dog at the vets and they won't cover her eyes, ears or skin, which is where all her problems are. My advice, put £50 in an account and use it for vets bills. Pet Insurance are con artists. Read the reviews. Like most insurance companies, you don't know how bad they are until you are unfortunate enough to make a claim. Once this claim gets settled, I am cancelling the policy. There should be a zero star rating on this site & that is all this company would get from me. Dreadful.

We were on holiday with our beloved dog Masy when she was taken ill, we sent an email to Pet-Insuance.co.uk to see if we were covered, over a week later we got the responce to say we were not covered outside the UK, it does stae this in the policy so this was expected, very sadly Masy passed away, in our policy we were to recieve death benefit £1000 when we took the policy out this was then reduced to £500 and since Macy was over 6 years of age we were only entitled to 50% of her purchase price, so £225, however they then requested an original purchase recipt nearly 12 years after the purchase, this company is an absolute disgrace we have sent emails back and forth and 6 montsdown the line have still not recieved anything, funny it does not take them 6 months to take your money. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

Taking far too long to settle claims with my vet. 4 months for the last claim and this current one has taken over 5 months. My vet now says that they cannot do direct claims with this company any more

Submitted a claim and they emailed on March 5th to say that they had received and still nothing from them. I have called them and had various excuses ranging from 'short staffed' then 'it's waiting to be signed off' to 'it's been signed off and you'll hear from us shortly' and STILL NOTHING at the end of May.

Absolutely awful company. Still waiting 11 weeks after they have had all vets bills.
If you're lucky enough for them to pick up the phone you'll get fobbed off with "management need to review" or "claim agreed it's now in queue for payment ".
Steer clear before it's too late.