Pet insurance

Pet insurance will usually cover the cost of treatments we provide, but some policies have limited cover and will not. You must check with your insurer to ensure that you have adequate cover.

There are two types of insurance claim:

1. 1 Direct

We spend a lot of time completing insurance claims for our clients. A direct claim is where the company pays us directly, less any amount which is not covered, eg insurance excess, or any amount over the ceiling of the policy. Some policy ceilings are per condition, some are per year and some are for the lifetime of your pet. You should ensure you know which applies to you. We charge £30 for this service. 

Direct claims are agreed at the discretion of the Practice. Whenever practical, direct claims require pre-authorisation from your insurance company. Payment of the excess and any extra fees not recoverable by the insurance company will be expected before treatment.

Please note that:

• We regret we cannot process direct claims for E&L or petinsurance.co.uk. Payment will need to be made at the time of treatment and a standard claim followed.
• Animal Friends policies require the policy holder to attend the Blackford practice to sign their claim book. Unfortunately an agent cannot do this for them, and the book has to stay on our premises so cannot be posted out.

2)      Standard

You pay us the full amount owed at the time of discharge and then claim the money back from your insurance company, less any excess or policy ceiling. In these cases, we will process your claim within 7 working days of receiving the completed claim form. We do not charge for this service. 

Things for you to check before treatment commences (for direct and standard insurance claims)

• Confirmation that your pet is still covered
• Confirmation that the condition is (still) covered. Some policies will offer a maximum level of cover per condition; some will only pay 12 months from the first signs of the condition; some only pay a certain amount per 12 months.
• Maximum cover and how much of that has been “used up” already.
• Confirmation of the excess required to be paid when a claim is made. This may be a fixed amount or a percentage. It may be applied once per condition or once per year.

Please remember that ultimately, the contract with the insurance company is with you, and if they refuse to pay for any reason, you will still be responsible for paying us. Therefore, we strongly advise that you contact your insurance company before treatment commences to verify the terms of your policy.

What we need

For direct claims:

1. Your permission to discuss your policy with your insurance company. This involves a quick phone call from you to them to give us permission.  We are sure you will appreciate that we need to verify the terms of your policy before we agree to give credit.
2. We will need one or two (possibly more for long term treatments) completed claim forms, with your part completed and signed. You can get claim forms either from the insurance company direct or online. (We will usually make serial claims and will need several forms - to assist with our cash flow).
3. You will need to leave us a deposit equal to your excess. This may be a fixed sum or a percentage (in which case we will make an estimate).  Should you have overpaid, we will reimburse you the excess after we receive the insurance company payment.  

For standard claims:

We need completed and signed claim forms from you and we undertake to process them within 7 working days of receipt.