Asda Pet Insurance

[Neil W]

Avoid this bunch of shysters like the plague , the wife renewed the insurance on one of our GSD's in July with their Cover for Life , dog has been fine in himself but lost weight over the past couple of months , not a huge amount but 5kgs and after numerous test turns out he has Malabsorption .
So we are in about £1500 for blood tests and medication and put in a claim .
They have been deliberately obstructive (including claiming we knew of the issue before taking out the policy ) and despite the vets informing them that in the past 3 years he has shown no signs of the issue Asda have turned around today to say they will not be settling the claim and basically that we can FRO.
Vet is writing them another report and I am contacting the Financial Services Ombudsman regarding their behaviour BUT all I can say is do not use them , their policies are not worth the paper they are written on .

 

[littleade]

Maybe Asda are just the middleman and it's the underwriter that's refused to pay out? Either way it's not a good look for Asda, especially when your vet has already confirmed this wasn't a pre existing issue. Good luck, I hope you get it sorted though if you subsequently go elsewhere you'll now need to declare it to the new insurer?

 

[Berin]

We avoid pet insurance altogether now. For what was then 3 Maine Coon cats it’s was £150 a month, so we paid that amount into a high interest account as a “trust fund”.
It’s got a few thousand in it now, and we just pay the vet bills as required.

I appreciate it’s a risk if tnere’s a huge expense, but we’ve found the fees are lower when we pay direct than they would be via insurance. - biggest bill so far £1000 or so.

 

[wessie]

https://www.insurancefactory.co.uk/ is the broker concerned behind the white label.

"Office: Markerstudy House" tells you all you need to know.

Whether underwriter or broker, Markerstudy is a brand I steer clear of. They are the shower that are currently fucking up the reputation of Carole Nash and BMW Motorrad insurance (since the latter left Devitt).

Since they took over the Atlanta brokerage from Ardonagh, they own 38 retail brands across all types of insurance.

https://www.markerstudygroup.com/who-we-are/our-brands/

 

[Neil W]

The dog does have a previous medical condition regarding his eyes which is totally unrelated and was declared and we pay for the medication and have done for the past two years .

As for the Underwriter all our correspondence is directly from Asda so who knows, but the E Mail correspondence we have had since day one has been hinting that they have no intention of paying out for the claim

We realise that come insurance renewal time he would not be covered for the Malabsorption and we would pay the cost of the medication but it is the fact that they are completely ignoring what the vet and ourselves are telling them

 

[ATT]

Asda is owned by muslims, the single most important reason why you should not buy pet insurance from them.

 

[casbar]

We avoid pet insurance altogether now. For what was then 3 Maine Coon cats it’s was £150 a month, so we paid that amount into a high interest account as a “trust fund”.
It’s got a few thousand in it now, and we just pay the vet bills as required.

I appreciate it’s a risk if tnere’s a huge expense, but we’ve found the fees are lower when we pay direct than they would be via insurance. - biggest bill so far £1000 or so.

Yes it's a risk. Our dog had bloat last year, I had 4k of cover with Pet plan, the vets bill was over £8k, £600 a night for hospitalisation, then drugs on top. It was the nighttime care that put the cost up as the local vet is no longer independent and belongs to one of the big players. As I had just taken out the policy, I had a whole year of paying for a policy where I couldn't claim anymore. But I must say, pet plan are expensive, but we have never had any issue with any claims over the years.

The same dog caught meningitis when he was 6 months old, that was another bill like the national debt. He is 11 now. We also have a year old who has been in great health all the time.

 

[boatman]

Asda is owned by muslims, the single most important reason why you should not buy pet insurance from them.

Or ANYTHING at all for that matter alone !

 

[Neil W]

Yes it's a risk. Our dog had bloat last year, I had 4k of cover with Pet plan, the vets bill was over £8k, £600 a night for hospitalisation, then drugs on top. It was the nighttime care that put the cost up as the local vet is no longer independent and belongs to one of the big players. As I had just taken out the policy, I had a whole year of paying for a policy where I couldn't claim anymore. But I must say, pet plan are expensive, but we have never had any issue with any claims over the years.

The same dog caught meningitis when he was 6 months old, that was another bill like the national debt. He is 11 now. We also have a year old who has been in great health all the time.

Ye gods one of our GSD bitches had stomach torsion about 20 years ago , the bill including an overnight stay was £240

 

[JoeBiff]

Avoid this bunch of shysters like the plague

Cold comfort, but are their equal.

 

[Pepsi]

Neil, write a short review on Asda’s Facebook Page and any other social media platforms they operate summarising your experience of their pet insurance. Companies hate it when consumers do that. Likewise leave a shitty Google review, you may well then have the matter reassessed.

 

[Neil W]

Neil, write a short review on Asda’s Facebook Page and any other social media platforms they operate summarising your experience of their pet insurance. Companies hate it when consumers do that. Likewise leave a shitty Google review, you may well then have the matter reassessed.

That is what is going to happen if the complaint we are putting in that is fully backed by our vet is not resolved

 

[cbritton]

We used M&S Pet insurance for our hound they were brilliant, often paying claims the same day.

 

[Neil W]

Well this is brilliant the Vet has been on and has spoken to the Insurer , the dog was in kennels in July before we took out the insurance and he does suffer from kennel stress so lost a couple of kgs , this was documented when he had his jabs a week or two later and then he put the weight back on and was maintaining it with no issues so we thought nothing about it until October when he started to lose weight and it was staying off .
The vet said then and maintains now that he shows none of the normal symptoms of malabsorption and she thought he had some kind of gut infection or irritation.
Insurer is not paying out because we cannot evidence that the dog regained the lost weight ie we had not taken a perfectly healthy dog into the vets for no f*cking reason and had his weight taken and recorded on his veterinary records.
FFS you could not make this sh*t up , we are being penalised for not taking a healthy dog to the vets when he did not need to go there .
ASDA Pet Insurance avoid the f*ckers like the plague

 

[EPG_19]

Pay it, send them a letter before claim.

Take them to small claims court. The judge will side with you as you have a letter from the vet.

 

[Neil W]

Pay it, send them a letter before claim.

Take them to small claims court. The judge will side with you as you have a letter from the vet.

Already paid up front

 

[Berin]

Yes it's a risk. Our dog had bloat last year, I had 4k of cover with Pet plan, the vets bill was over £8k, £600 a night for hospitalisation, then drugs on top. It was the nighttime care that put the cost up as the local vet is no longer independent and belongs to one of the big players. As I had just taken out the policy, I had a whole year of paying for a policy where I couldn't claim anymore. But I must say, pet plan are expensive, but we have never had any issue with any claims over the years.

The same dog caught meningitis when he was 6 months old, that was another bill like the national debt. He is 11 now. We also have a year old who has been in great health all the time.

That’s a lot of money. Our vet is independent and the overnight costs are much lower - I do think they load the costs when insurance is paying.

I believe there’s actually an inquiry going on into vet prices- the number of independent vets is falling fast as they are bought up by conglomerates and then monopoly pricing starts to apply.

 

[ATT]

That’s a lot of money. Our vet is independent and the overnight costs are much lower - I do think they load the costs when insurance is paying.

I believe there’s actually an inquiry going on into vet prices- the number of independent vets is falling fast as they are bought up by conglomerates and then monopoly pricing starts to apply.

Private equity firms are buying them up and the losers are the animals that shall die because of the greed of the shareholders.

Humans killing animals in order to make money, no different to the Chinese eating dogs in my opinion.

 

[casbar]

That’s a lot of money. Our vet is independent and the overnight costs are much lower - I do think they load the costs when insurance is paying.

I believe there’s actually an inquiry going on into vet prices- the number of independent vets is falling fast as they are bought up by conglomerates and then monopoly pricing starts to apply.

The costs are the costs, we were paying and claiming back what we could from our insurance, they didn't ask us if we were insured (been with the same vets for nearly 25 years with all our dogs), but they were taken over a couple of years ago.

At night, they even phoned us some nights (once at 1am) to ask if we wanted our dog to have ketamine as he was in pain, we obviously said yes and they too our credit card details over the phone before they would administer.

The issue with our vets is, they stopped providing a night service and outsourced to another company.

There are no independent vets left in our city.

 

[Neil W]

The larger vets group are shocking ,we had to take the wife's pregnant spaniel bitch in to the out of hours veterinary hospital owned by a large national company (our vet does not do out of hours ) . We turned up to be told we could not even bring the dog in to the premises until we paid an up front £240 consultation fee.
The Caesarian to deliver the 3 pups cost over £3500 , our own (independent) vet when we told her was not happy at what we were charged and since then they have put in plans to build and set up their own out of hours veterinary hospital (no doubt helped by numerous other complaints from their customers about what they have been charged by the current out of hours service )