Guide to Pet Insurance

Pet insurance is a kind of insurance designed to cover the (often expensive) costs of vet treatment for your pets. While it doesn’t cover things like regular check-ups, it will pay out if your pet has an unexpected illness or injury and has to see their vet; for example if they’re in an accident and break a leg. Some policies – including ours! – will also pay out a finder’s reward for if your pet goes missing, as well as offering cover for if your dog attacks someone else or their property.

It’s simpler than it seems! A maximum benefit pet insurance policy will cover your pet’s care and treatment up to a set money limit (this limit depends on the policy, but our maximum benefit policies cap at £4,000 per condition). That means that if your pet has a long-term condition like arthritis, the costs caused by treating that condition would be covered by your policy until they reach £4,000, at which point you’d have to start paying out-of-pocket. Your pet’s condition would then be considered a pre-existing medical condition and wouldn’t be covered by your policy – or any other policy, for that matter – anymore.
On the other hand, a lifetime pet insurance policy will pay for your pet’s condition up to the limit (for our policies, that’s £7,500) every year; when a new year begins, that limit will refresh and we’ll continue covering treatment. If your policy limit for your pet’s condition is reached before the year ends, you’ll have to pay for your pet’s treatment out-of-pocket until the policy year ends, at which point we’ll start paying again. We’ll still cover  That means your pet’s conditions will always be covered, so long as you keep renewing your policy every year.

If you’ve got a pet, investing in pet insurance is a great idea, because with all the trouble they can get into, cats and dogs can get expensive very quickly. Unlike something like car insurance, pet insurance isn’t a legal requirement, but it’s a smart decision – without a pet insurance policy to cover vet fees, you’d be paying for everything – appointments, procedures, medication – out-of-pocket, which gets expensive quickly.

A ‘pre-existing condition’ is the name given to any ailment for which your pet had symptoms, consultations, or treatment before you purchased your pet insurance policy. Generally, they are not covered by your insurance. When it comes to claiming on your policy, your pet’s pre-existing condition will usually be noted and excluded from your cover, which means you won’t be able to claim back any vet fees you paid for out-of-pocket.
If you have a maximum benefit policy, any condition your pet develops during the course of the policy will eventually be considered a pre-existing condition once the claim limit has been reached for that condition, which means you won’t be able to claim for vet fees incurred by that condition.

The pets excluded from pet insurance coverage usually depend largely on the individual policy; most policies, for example, will cover cats and dogs, but some very specific policies will extend their cover to encompass pets like horses or rabbits. Best Insurance’s pet insurance has been designed for cats and dogs, so we won’t cover anything else.
Some specific breeds (such as Wolf Dogs, XL Bullies, and Cane Corsos) are also excluded from coverage. For a full list of our excluded breeds, please check your policy wording.