I’ve just literally got off the phone with Kieran  the Executive Complaints Specialist at Royal Sun Alliance who has dealt with our  complaint/claim in regards Blue’s outstanding Vet Bills and imminent operation and he has just confirmed that after speaking to the Vet/Surgeon at NorthWest Surgeons and confirming a number of queries they had that they will be honoring our claim and policy with Tesco’s Pet Insurance.

This means that :

1. They will now pay the outstanding £500+ bill with our referring vets.

2. They will now cover £2000 towards the cost of Blues operation.

Which is fantastic, we now only have to find the remaining £1500, which I think will be split between 2 Credit Cards for the time being.

For those that are curious I don’t know the exact questions that were asked, but from the answers they related to Blues past and present injury I’m guessing they were something like those i have shown below, the answers are as exactly the = Surgeon at NorthWest Surgeons provided them:

“Is Blues condition linked to her first condition treated in 2010 and the first diagnose of Cruciate Ligament Pathology  ?”

1. That we were fair to link this condition to the problem in 2010 given the notes on the medical history. And;

“Could the you confirm that this injury was related/caused by Blues first original injury/condition 3 years ago”

2. He could not 100% state that the problem now was caused by the early signs noted in 2010. This is also supported by the fact that Blue has had no recorded leg problems since 2010.

This was the clincher that has enabled us to be able to have our claim honored by RSA and Tesco’s.

While on the phone with Kieran and after he had told us the good news, I raised a number of issues with him about the Tesco Policy and clauses, which had been hi-lighted to me by a twitter friend who had a read of the policy/schedule and clauses and in effect translated it into plain English for me.

The issues I raised were on the following and how it might be an idea in future when people renew policy’s after their pets have had operations/conditions treated, that they be made aware of them when renewing :

1. Why are no specific endorsements included in the renewal schedules with regards customers now not being covered for original injury/condition or mentioned.
2. If there isn’t anything in our renewals or schedules specifically excluding this injury/condition then I can do not understand how you can rely on a standard exclusion for an existing condition when it is occurring three years later in a different leg !  As I believe that this should have been specifically excluded and brought to your attention if you didn’t want to cover further operations arising from this cause.
3. We have renewed the policy at least twice since the Blue’s “original operation” as you call it,  so Tesco’s have had two opportunities to bring any changes they wanted to make to our attention with regards exclusions for any further operations of this kind for this “Condition”.

Kieran took this on board and explained that this would be included in the case file and all such case’s were reviewed and any relevant information may be used in future policies or words to that effect, so there’s hope yet.

So thank you Tesco, thank you Royal Sun Alliance and a very special thank you to all my twitter followers who kindly donated their time and advice in helping me with the ins and outs of Insurance Policies and claims, and for re-tweeting my posts about my claim with Tesco’s.

I will ensure to keep you all updated with Blues operation and recovery as you’ve all been a part in helping this happen.

To anyone else who might have a claim refused by any Pet Insurance Company, I would highly recommend pursuing it and arguing your case with them as best you can, don’t just sit back and accept what they are telling you, because if we had, we may have well ended up with either a £4000 bill we could ill afford to pay or worse a dog that would no longer enjoy a quality of life.

Finally all those about to take out Insurance Policies, don’t just sign them, read them fully and if your unsure ask a friend to go through it with you, any questions or things your unsure of, go back to the Insurance company and ask for a plain English/lay-mans translation.